Andrew Dickson: Killer of Hope for a Better Tomorrow….

… yet so freakin’ funny.
“Sell Out,” Andrew Dickson’s comedic and personal justification for being a sell out in a world in which artists cannot get paid, albeit self-aware and self deprecating, all in all was lacking in depth of understanding. It left no room for hope of an even slightly different future than that in which all things in the universe are given merit based on Capitalist values. This is not to suggest that it was not highly entertaining. It was.
The presentation was located in the belly of the Weiden + Kennedy beast, hip, modern and spacious, the dark pulsing heart of evil itself. As a workplace, Weiden + Kennedy brings with it all the yoga classes, on site basketball courts, an everflowing keg of beet and all other perks necessary for the critical thinking individual to consider when deciding whether or not to sell their soul.
Andrew lays out the 27 distinct steps that he took in order to sell out, and within these there a brilliant understanding of how stereotypical the Portland artist mentality is. Poor and bitter without a hope of attaining the “trilogy” ( i.e. house, kids, health care,) what was a guy to do who could not beat the system? So he joined. And that is the message kids, if you cannot beat them, join them. Because no one buys art anymore, so there is no way to make a living without using your talent and creativity to sell things… so just do that. And get paid well for it, because there is no hope for any sort of positive change anyway and it’s pretty cool because you get to meet famous athletes through your Nike connections and that is enough. Also, you will have more money, which makes you less bitter and then you will be invited to more dinner parties. Okay, cool.
As inspiring as all this sounds, you know a world in which working for an ad agency can be justified by a lack of other viable options and a wit for crowd-pleasing purposes, there is still a bottom line. This line exists below the Andrew Dickson line of financial-security+free yoga & beer=smiley-face line. This line is where such words as integrity or humanity or intelligence or artistic value or pure or healthy could be used in order to explain why it is a deal-breaker, but I think that no one said it better than Bill Hicks
reposted by Noelle