Sell Out

"Sell out, to me oh yeah Sell out, to me tonight The record company's gonna give me lots of money And everything's gonna be alright"

- Reel Big Fish

When you succeed, do you obtain your success without sacrificing your integrity, or does it come about via your skills at sucking up, only doing it for the money, or a number of things that involve selling your soul, either literally or metaphorically?

This is what the kids these days refer to as a Sellout, which is probably one of the most subjective traits in existence. In essence, you could choose to go a certain route and feel you're doing the right thing, and there will always be one person who felt you gave up a little part of yourself to obtain your goal.

Given the contentious nature of the term, there is no completely agreed upon definition of "Selling Out", although the one that seems to hold the most usage is "compromising your integrity for monetary gain".

It should be noted that sometimes "Selling Out" is held to be a matter of degree (particularly when the term is given a more solid intellectual backing). An artist writing a Silly Love Song to make the rent is going to be held in much less contempt under this view than somebody whose thinking amounts to "Let's put in the minimum of effort to cash in on whatever's popular right now".

See Money, Dear Boy for a fuller list of this trope.