Whatever it is you consider an artist to be, it’s a damn confusing time to try to be one. With the seeming ease with which new creative content is disseminated these days, more and more young deviants are aspiring to that vague title of artist even as regular upheavals in technology and the Internet muddy the waters to make the future of creative ventures an unstable nightmare bog where the well-intentioned if a bit naive are swallowed up without warning and are never heard from again. In every artistic industry, from literature to music to visual arts, tools like blogs, social networking sites and ever-upgrading smart phones and tablet computers have effectively destroyed the Old Ways of doing things. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the speed with which these continual changes to the status quo occur ensure that no proven New Order has yet arisen to take its place, so while those among us who have always depended on tried-and-true methods (ie, work really hard to polish your craft and hope against all reason that it is good enough to be noticed) are running around without a clue as to how things work These Days, the more entrepreneurial and genre savvy have swooped in to fill the void traditional publishing and production houses have filled … with predictably mixed results.

Take Rebecca Black. What you’ve got is a 13-year-old girl whose video for her song, “Friday,” has, of this writing, thirty-nine and a half million hits. Before the advent of Youtube as a media juggernaut one could assume that a song this popular would have some sort of artistic merit in it beyond mere controversy, but in an online society grown accustomed to sharing anything it finds worth the slightest chuckle, the quickest and most reliable route to global attention is to unintentionally feed the Spite Machine of the Web and create something unironically and almost indescribably bad. And while picking on teenage girls is practically a cherished Internet pasttime, it has to be said that it isn’t entirely Black’s fault. She’s simply one of a long line of aspiring artists sucked in by the pretty lights of impersonal content farms designed to find new talent that is easily marketed and, once the shine is off the apple, easily-disposed. It is not Rebecca Black behind the misbeggoten birthing of “Friday,” but Ark Music Factory, an appropriately-named vanity label based in Los Angeles with an entire catalog of equally forgettable “pop stars” in the making, ready and waiting to be milked for the full cost of their fifteen minutes.

Of course, this is no new thing, nor is it confined to the music industry. The author James Frey, best known for his (fictional) memoir A Million Little Pieces has moved beyond his Oprah-induced moment of ignominy to create Full Fathom Five, a publishing venture that hires young writers to coproduce mass works of easily-digested fiction. One of the first fruits of Full Fathom Five’s labors is I Am Number Four, yet another mouth at the teat of the young-adult-paranormal-genre cash cow brought about by Stephenie Meyer’s success with the Twilight series. The set-up is similar to Ark Music Factory’s modus operandi: Frey hires struggling young writers to do what they do best, controls what they create and reaps the rewards while the kids get to go home with bragging rights, partial credit for a bestselling novel under their belts and, if they’re lucky, a small cut of the profits. In both Ark Music Factory and Full Fathom Five’s cases, the words ‘producers’ and ‘publishers’ don’t come to mind so much as does ‘pimp.’ And while one would like to feel sympathy for the young runaways and dreamers caught in that trap, it’s hard to root for anyone who would take whatever effort they would normally use in the service of their craft and expend it in making a quick name for themselves while the genuinely talented are looked over. Put simply, it isn’t fair. But the world has never operated on fairness, and, in truth, it’s difficult to blame Frey, Ark, or anyone else looking to capitalize on youthful notions of Making It Big.

But, hey, maybe this will work out for the best. Not just for the vultures but for the entire artistic industry. Don’t get me wrong-it’s ludicrous to consider the mass production of music or fiction as art, but in these times where the old ways of simply hoping you’re good enough to get noticed is just not cutting it anymore, it helps that there is a lesson for all involved: Things are different now. Know how the world works, do what you have to do to get ahead or even a hand, and damn anyone who says otherwise.

And who knows where this will lead? It isn’t crazy to assume that some good can come out of the depraved shamelessness of these factory owners. Imagine a young filmmaker willing to do anything to see his work produced. Or some new comic book writer willing to let a shady publishing house co-opt his brainchild. Imagine many, many of these glittering literati who, soiled in the muck and mire of more conventional avenues, have run out of options. Now imagine if just a fraction of them are any good. Great, even. Will that small ratio be any more different than the ratio of today’s quality cinema, music, and art over the rest of the abortions that somehow keep being spawned? It’s a leap, sure, and it’s scary, definitely, but it would pay off if a generation of creatives realize that their craft is worth them taking a risk, because few things have the potential and power of the energy of lovers and dreamers, of the young and the enslaved.