A man on YouTube — not a writer, not even someone who makes his living off words — recently declared that anyone who treats writing as a side hustle “has no respect for the craft.” He said it with the confidence of someone who has never had to make rent off their own creativity, and with the self-importance of someone who mistakes poverty for integrity. He spoke as though getting paid for your work somehow dilutes it, as if art only counts when it leaves you destitute. And he said all this from a monetized channel, with sponsorships and affiliate links quietly padding the income behind his moral sermon.
That’s what broke something in me that day — the sheer, casual hypocrisy of it. The smugness of people who romanticize unpaid labor while profiting off the unpaid labor of others. The idea that art must stay pure while their ad revenue flows uninterrupted. It’s the oldest trick in the book: policing someone else’s survival while pretending your own doesn’t cost a thing.
The Myth of Purity and the Convenient Delusion
There’s a certain aesthetic fantasy that clings to the arts — the “pure” creator who works for love, not money. It’s a fantasy that flatters everyone except the artist. It reassures the consumer that they’re engaging with something noble, something untouched by commerce, while quietly erasing the fact that art has always been labor.
The “starving artist” archetype isn’t romantic; it’s propaganda. It keeps creators docile, grateful for scraps, and easy to exploit. When someone insists that “real writers don’t care about money,” what they’re really saying is: “I benefit when you work for free.” Meanwhile, every great artist in history — from Shakespeare to Morrison — got paid. Writing has always existed in dialogue with survival. Payment doesn’t corrupt the art; it acknowledges that the person making it has a body that eats and a home that needs heat.
The loudest defenders of “purity” tend to be the most comfortably distanced from need. They can afford the pose of moral superiority because they’re already subsidized — by sponsorships, day jobs, partners, or generational wealth. They’ve never had to choose between time to create and the electricity bill. So they sell the illusion that creative labor is sacred only when it’s unpaid, and the crowd nods along, mistaking that self-protection for virtue.
Monetization Is Not Corruption
Let’s be clear: monetization is not selling out. It’s survival. Turning your craft into part of your income doesn’t cheapen it; it’s what allows you to keep doing it at all. When someone treats writing, painting, or music as a “side hustle,” it doesn’t mean they love it less. It means they’ve adapted to a world that refuses to value creative work properly.
This notion that art should somehow exist outside of economy — as though the artist should transcend capitalism by starving gracefully — is absurd. Everyone else is allowed to want fair compensation for their labor. Only artists get lectured about purity when they try to do the same. Getting paid doesn’t make the work less authentic; it makes it possible.
The idea that art must be unpaid to be “real” is a luxury belief. It sounds virtuous until you realize it’s rooted in the assumption that someone else is footing the bill. It’s easy to sneer at monetization when you’ve never had to rely on it.
The Entitlement of the Audience
Audiences are not innocent in this hypocrisy. There’s a particular kind of entitlement that festers online — a demand for infinite free content dressed up as “support.” The same people who rail against monetization will binge videos on monetized platforms, skip every ad without thinking, and still complain when a creator starts a Patreon or takes a sponsorship.
What they’re really angry about isn’t the money — it’s the reminder that they were never paying in the first place. They want art that feels personal but costs nothing. They want to consume labor invisibly, without ever confronting the transaction.
The delusion goes like this: If I give you my attention, that should be enough. But attention doesn’t pay rent. Likes don’t buy groceries. The audience’s outrage over monetization isn’t about art; it’s about control. The moment creators start valuing their time, the illusion of ownership cracks — and that, not the ads, is what they can’t stand.
The Class Politics of “Doing It for Love”
Every time someone insists that art should be made purely for passion, they’re really defining who gets to participate. The “do it for love” narrative assumes you can afford to. It’s easy to worship the purity of unpaid art when you’re not the one choosing between materials and meals.
The truth is brutally simple: if you can only make art when you’re financially safe, then the culture that forbids artists to charge for their work is one that will always silence the poor. It makes artistic purity a privilege of the already comfortable. For working-class creators, monetization isn’t greed — it’s access. It’s how they carve space in a world that refuses to make room for them otherwise.
Saying “money ruins art” is easy when you’ve never needed art to live. It’s another way of saying “stay in your place” to anyone trying to make a living from their talent.
The Real Disrespect to the Craft
The true insult to the craft isn’t monetization. It’s the devaluation of art itself. To demand free labor while claiming to love art is the height of disrespect. It says the work moves you, but not enough to be worth a dime.
If you care about art, you pay artists. That’s it. The people who treat monetization as sin are confusing exploitation with authenticity. They’re not defending the soul of art — they’re protecting their access to it. They want the world where art is free, because in that world, they never have to question what their consumption costs someone else.
And the hypocrisy burns brightest in people like that YouTube pundit — people who moralize against monetization while quietly cashing their own checks from it. They condemn others for what they’re already doing, just under a different name.
Let Creators Eat
Art is not holy because it’s unpaid. It’s holy because it’s human. And humans need to eat.
There’s no sin in turning your skill into income. There’s no betrayal in wanting your work to sustain you. The real betrayal lies with those who pretend that starvation is the price of integrity.
I don’t owe my art to anyone’s fantasy of purity. I owe it to myself — and if someone wants to benefit from it, they can damn well respect that my time and effort have value. Art doesn’t die when it’s monetized. It dies when people convince artists they’re not allowed to live.