This is the second of three interlinked opinion pieces on art, technology, and the world we could build. If you haven’t read part one yet, start there — it sets up the economic argument this piece pushes back on.

Hot take, hot cakes.

Let’s get our definitions straight — or as straight as anything can be in the gloriously messy world of human creativity.

Arts and culture encompass: visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography, digital art); performing arts (theatre, dance, music); literature and poetry; film and television; architecture and design; cultural heritage and museums; craft traditions; digital and new media arts. It’s the stories we tell, the spaces we build, the sounds we make, and the visions we share. It’s how we process being alive.

The Veteran in a New Field Winslow Homer American, 1865

And contrary to what some might suggest, it’s not a luxury — it’s the framework through which we understand our world.

But here’s where it gets interesting: these categories aren’t fixed or universal. They’re constantly evolving based on cultural context, technological change, and social movements. What counts as “literature” in one generation might be dismissed as “pulp” in another. What’s considered “craft” rather than “fine art” often has more to do with gender and class than with the work itself (funny how forms dominated by women historically tend to end up in the “craft” category, isn’t it?). As David Hesmondhalgh argues in The Cultural Industries, the boundaries we draw around art forms are always entangled with questions of power, labour, and whose creative work gets valued (SAGE Publications, 2018).

Our definitions of art are never neutral. They’re shaped by power, privilege, and perspective. When we decide what “counts” as art worthy of funding and preservation, we’re making decisions about whose expressions matter and whose stories get to be part of our cultural memory. Same premise as: the winners get to write the history books.

The Tech Paradox: Simultaneously More and Less Accessible

Technology has done something fascinating to art: it’s made it both more and less accessible at the exact same time.

On one hand, we have unprecedented access to creative tools. Anyone with a smartphone can be a filmmaker. Digital art software has eliminated the need for expensive physical supplies. Platforms like Spotify and YouTube have theoretically democratised distribution. Museums have digitised collections. Virtual concerts reach global audiences. Literary masterpieces that once required hunting through rare bookshops can be downloaded in seconds.

And yet…

Our relationship with art has become increasingly passive. The algorithmic brain likes convenience more than it likes discovery, adventure, experimentation! We’ll spend hours scrolling through Netflix without actually watching anything. Once we select something, we end up fast-forwarding half the episode just to get to the good parts. We’ll let Spotify’s algorithms dictate our music tastes rather than actively seeking new sounds or artists. Now it’s just sending links and passively reacting with an emoji to what your friends WhatsApp’d you. We are in the shit, fr.

The technology that was supposed to connect us more deeply with art often creates a shallow, consumption-based relationship instead. We’ve traded the difficulty of access for the difficulty of attention.

What Counts as “Art” Today, Anyway?

As we navigate questions of art’s value in our technological age, we’re confronted with an even more fundamental question: what exactly counts as “art” today?

The boundaries have never been more blurred. Is a viral TikTok dance sequence performance art? Does a cleverly designed Instagram carousel qualify as visual art? Is a Twitter (I’m not calling it X — ugh) thread that moves people to tears literature? What about AI-generated imagery based on text prompts: is that art, and if so, who’s the artist?

Throughout history, the category of “art” has continuously expanded and contracted. Jazz was once considered vulgar noise rather than music. Photography wasn’t accepted in fine art circles until the 20th century. Video games fought for decades to be recognised as an artistic medium.

Foto de Donald Giannatti en Unsplash

What’s different now is the democratisation of creation and the speed at which new forms emerge. When teenagers with smartphones can create 60-second cinematic masterpieces that emotionally impact millions, our traditional gatekeeping mechanisms start to look rather archaic.

Let’s be honest: those gatekeeping mechanisms have always been about power more than aesthetics. The art world’s traditional boundaries weren’t just about defining “quality”; they were about defining who gets to participate in culture-making. When policymakers first dismissed TikTok as “just kids messing around,” they weren’t making an aesthetic judgement — they were making a political one about whose creative expression deserves institutional support.

The resistance to expanding our definition of art is particularly pronounced when it comes to digital creation. There’s something almost comical about watching cultural institutions scramble to understand NFTs or establish presences in the metaverse while still maintaining artificial distinctions between “high” and “low” art forms. It’s as if they’re saying: “We’ll acknowledge that technology is changing everything — but please, let us keep our status quo!”

Meanwhile, the most interesting cultural production often happens precisely where these boundaries collapse. Consider the ways Black creators on TikTok have developed innovative choreography that both draws from and influences mainstream dance — only for that work to be routinely lifted without credit. In 2021, Black TikTok creators staged a strike to protest the systemic erasure of their choreography by white creators who gained fame and money from dances they didn’t make (NPR, 2021). As Ali Johnson’s research in the Washington Law Review notes, the original creators of viral TikTok dances — who are disproportionately young women of colour — frequently do not receive credit, or the opportunities that come with it (Washington Law Review, 96(3), 2021). Or how fan fiction communities have created vibrant literary traditions that challenge conventional publishing’s gatekeeping. Or how meme creation has evolved into a sophisticated visual language that communicates complex political ideas with remarkable efficiency — and it hits, every time.

These forms don’t just deserve recognition because they’re popular or because young people like them. They deserve recognition because they’re doing exactly what art has always done: creating meaning, building community, processing experience, and imagining alternatives — often with remarkable sophistication and nuance.

The irony is particularly stark when institutions launch initiatives to “attract younger audiences” while refusing to validate the art forms those audiences already engage with. It’s like saying: “We need to get young people interested in culture!” while simultaneously telling them that their culture doesn’t count.

Perhaps the question isn’t “what counts as art?” but rather “who gets to decide what counts?” When economic impact studies of the arts sector focus on traditionally recognised forms — museums, theatres, concerts — they miss the explosive growth happening in hybrid and digital spaces that don’t fit neatly into existing categories. UNCTAD’s Creative Economy Outlook tracks this consistently: creative services exports reached a record $1.4 trillion in 2022, much of it driven by digital and hybrid forms that most institutional frameworks still struggle to classify (UNCTAD, 2022).

Yet the human impulse behind all these forms remains remarkably consistent. Whether it’s a Renaissance master painting a cathedral ceiling or a teenager editing a video on their phone, the desire to make meaning through creative expression is fundamentally unchanged.

Ah, to be human. :)

Does the gatekeeping of “legitimate” art still matter, or has the internet already made it irrelevant? Let’s get into it below.

Sources & Further Reading

Arts & Economics

Arts & Economic Prosperity 6 (AEP6). Americans for the Arts, 2023. aep6.americansforthearts.org

Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account, U.S. and States, 2023. Bureau of Economic Analysis & National Endowment for the Arts, 2025. bea.gov

DCMS Economic Estimates: Creative Industries GVA 2024. The Creative Industries, 2026. thecreativeindustries.co.uk

Creative UK. Cultural and Creative Industries Stats Q1 2025–26. wearecreative.uk

"Priority Export Family: Cultural and Creative Industries." Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, France. diplomatie.gouv.fr

Creative Economy Outlook 2022. UNCTAD, 2022. unctad.org

Bille, T., & Schulze, G. G. (2006). “Culture in urban and regional development.” In Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture, Vol. 1. Elsevier.

Digital Culture & Gatekeeping

Johnson, A. “Copyrighting TikTok Dances: Choreography in the Internet Age.” Washington Law Review, 96(3), 2021. digitalcommons.law.uw.edu

NPR. “Black TikTok Creators Are On Strike To Protest A Lack Of Credit For Their Work.” 2021. npr.org

Books

Fischer, E. (1963). The Necessity of Art: A Marxist Approach. Penguin Books.

Florida, R. (2002). The Rise of the Creative Class. Basic Books.

Hesmondhalgh, D. (2018). The Cultural Industries (4th ed.). SAGE Publications.

Standing, G. (2017). Basic Income: And How We Can Make It Happen. Penguin Books.