Selling Out

From September 8th's class discussion:
What constitutes an artist selling out? It is more often talked about in the music industry, after a really good underground, fight the man band or artist goes public (ex Liz Phair. Seriously. WTF.) But as was brought up in class today, the visual artist can "sell out" by going into advertising. One controversial advertising technique that Carly briefly brought up was the new Graffiti advertising. She was promoting it, but I found a great article that highly disagrees. Taggers feel that this new scheme destroys the realness of their art. Activists used graffiti as advertisement for their cause in the 70's, but it was a completely different type of slogan, and still typically by youth culture. There is even the line between types of advertisement as to what people feel is and is not selling out. When we hear a classic Beatles or Led Zeppelin song used in a car commercial, we all scream obscenities. When a punk rocker starts selling real estate, we groan about the bullshit economy. It's becoming nearly impossible for one NOT to "sell out", so why is it so controversial and upsetting? And why does the term selling out still exist? We are all still searching for something real and it may never again be found.