When I was a teenager, the worst sin anyone could commit was selling out. My friends and I were obsessed music fans, and everything we did revolved around music. At first, we had to love Metallica’s Black Album because it is objectively great. But as it started selling two … three … ten million copies, it became clear to me and my music-loving-yet-tragically-snobby friends that Metallica had departed from their bread and butter—underground thrash metal—and made a commercial record. They no longer spoke for us. They had sold out, having given up their principles to cash in.
Now that I’ve become a professional myself, I can see how unfair I was being. The American Dream itself is trade off: we work our fingers to the bone for financial prosperity. Compared to when I was young, artists seek sponsorship much more in today’s music industry. In his article, "Is it even still possible to sell out?", Chris Richards, culture editor for the Washington Post, observes, “Drake has made it his job to sell more Drake—through rapping, through singing, through Nike, through Sprite” (Richards 1). What Richards is pointing out is that doing business these days means an all-out embrace of capitalism. As many have pointed out, selling out may not even be possible anymore because music has become just as commercial as Coca-Cola, and musicians have become brand executives.
While Richards’ point elucidates the complexity of my own argument, he can’t be right that there is no longer a line to cross. However, selling out shouldn’t retain the stigma that it did when I was thirteen either. Although it becomes a real problem when we break the bonds of trust with those who rely on us, selling out can be fine under circumstances where we balance personal gain with compassion for others.
I am a teacher, and teachers may seem like the last holdouts when it comes to selling out. However, take a look around when a tenure track position opens up: teachers scratch and claw our way into those interviews, as competitive as if we were actors desperate for that life-changing role. What this means is that if sponsors could gain anything from teachers, they would exploit them. And from what I have seen, many teachers would be happy to shift their priorities to make a little extra money. After all, the average teacher’s salary is barely above the poverty line. To gain perspective on what selling out would look like for a teacher, let’s take a look at what teachers value, and maybe we can discover where to draw the line between integrity and selling out.
Instead of money, the currency in academia is originality. Now, I don’t mean that this is how teachers get paid. I mean that teachers value knowledge, and because we generate knowledge by building on each others’ ideas, we must give credit to those we engage in written conversation. In other words, if we use another author’s ideas in our writing, we cite them (in correct MLA format, of course).
Most books published by academics imagine such a narrow audience that they only expect to sell a few hundred copies, mostly to university library collections. However, there are a few academic authors whose names alone ensure that anything they write will be a national bestseller, and teachers malign these authors--probably out of envy, and there is good reason for hating them. Basically, the talent of these pop-authors lies not in original ideas but informing a wide audience about typically tedious subjects—like commas—ideas originally written by other people. Are these pop authors sellouts? In Dan Charnas’ book on the history of the hip-hop industry, he contrasts artists who remain mindful of their values with artists who sell out. Academics and pop authors mirror the “tension between the polar impulses of rap and Black America as a whole—upscale versus downscale, aspirational versus proletarian, commercial versus street, profit versus principle” (Charnas 61). By pointing out the contrast in values of musicians, Charnas reveals to us another problem with selling out: it divides us. Pop authors are just better than academics at making knowledge sound good, but the trade off is simplifying ideas not your own.
I am tempted at the thought of becoming a best-selling author. Even though it would take a lot for me to give up teaching, it would be a dream come true to make my living as an author. But being a popularizer of other people’s ideas would test my ethical principles as a teacher. At first, it sounds like a straight sellout, and I wouldn’t do it. But already I have some ideas for this kind of book: maybe I would write a book about commas, and call it Comma Sutra, and make it appeal to people who never can tell what position a comma should be in. If a publisher like Norton called and offered me an advance of cash to write Comma Sutra, I have to admit that I would be thrilled.
The problem is, my book on commas wouldn’t be an original work. I would just be popularizing what others have spent their careers working on. Then I come in with a silly sex pun and am suddenly exploiting their work to make money. Is it selling out? Probably. Would I do it? Probably.
Short of theft, where would I draw the line on selling out? If I stole the idea for Comma Sutra from someone else and published it, that would be more than a breach of trust. It would be a violation of copyright law, and I could get sued. It’s plagiarism, passing off someone else’s work as my own. Is popularizing different from plagiarism? Almost certainly, but the legality of it isn’t the problem. It’s the principle, which brings me back to being a teacher.
As a teacher, I value learning. If I stay in the classroom and continue to teach the best I know how, my work is the benefit of others. In contrast, if I publish my stupid comma book, my work is the benefit of me. While it’s possible that some might learn something about commas from the book, I don’t think it will change anyone’s life. I’ve seen what my work in the classroom can do.
One of the true dangers of selling out in this way is how we patronize smart people. As one of the most talented musicians in hip-hop, Lil Wayne could write his own check. But he went too far with the album he released exclusively through Tidal, requiring his fans to sign up for a music platform he was invested in to hear his latest music. Effectively, “you tell smart listeners—a constituency of highly informed skeptics—not to care” (Richards 3). Wayne worked hard to gain his listeners, but Chris Richards points out his shift in priorities, from making great music to making business deals that don’t reward the listeners that respect him. Rather, Wayne and his business partners are the ones who benefit. To return the argument to my own career, it would be as though I had not only written a bad book, but then I required all my students to buy it for class. It’s a slimy move, and one that shows my complete lack of respect for them.
I can take a lesson from Metallica here. When they took a chance on appealing to a wider audience, they made one of the best rock albums in history. So if I take a book deal, I owe it to my students to write a better book.
