Artists or Savvy Entrepreneurs? Why not both! Visual artists and their self-identity on YouTube

In the post-industrial era, creative goods have increasingly become recognized for their commercial potential. With the development of digital media, barriers to entry have lowered for those seeking to build an art career through digital entrepreneurship and many new opportunities for artists to showcase their talent have emerged. The myth of the artistic identity that exist in discourse, however, rejects the commercial logic of art creation, which poses an interesting challenge to the identity of the art entrepreneur. Nevertheless, in recent years the labor market conditions have made entrepreneurial qualities an important asset for artists seeking professional development. This has further brought attention to the seeming incompatibility of entrepreneurial and artistic values, although there is evidence that the two sets of values can coexist. To investigate how art entrepreneurs cope with this predicament, this research used thematic and narrative analysis to examine content from 12 channels of visual artists on YouTube with the aim to explore how they construct their entrepreneurial self-identity through narrative. Overall, artists on YouTube are a community that so far has not received academic attention, therefore this study had an exploratory character. This research contributes to our understanding of how artistic identity is adapting to the commodification of creative goods. The findings demonstrated a developed entrepreneurial identity among the YouTube artists, as well as a distancing from the myth of the artists as an extraordinarily gifted persona leading a bohemian lifestyle. The artists demonstrated strategic development as entrepreneurs and placed high value on developing both artistically and entrepreneurially in their profession. Additionally, they encouraged others to also try entrepreneurship and offered their experience and guidance to their audience. This research also provides insight into self-branding, identity construction and strategizing on social media as the artists used social media for both self-expression and selfpromotion purposes, demonstrating how the person and the brand fuse to create a complex mediatized identity. Further, this study highlights the increasing importance of platforms and social media as a tool for business growth and development for entrepreneurs and it also shows how the identity of artists is adapting to these new affordances.