There’s a temptation to reckon the attempts of artists like Lauren Faust to create entertaining and meaningful shows within the straitjacket of corporate commerce as entirely futile, hopeless. A mug’s game. But then I remember the Grand Galloping Gala in full swing. In time the techno music was blasting and a throng of kids massed together in the center of the dancefloor, dressed in cosplay pony ears and swishing tails and all sorts of homemade cartoon finery, pogoing, and suddenly it became clear that they were all chanting together.

Evan, I said. Are you hearing what they’re chanting. He’s all, What is it? It was this:

“Friendship! Friendship! Friendship!”

Let’s say you run a big public company; your rivals come up with a product you must compete with, you make a business plan and share some of the details about it in a conference call with analysts, and they publish reports anticipating earnings and make recommendations based on those. And then if all your plans succeed, there will be a solid uptick in the share price, thereby fulfilling the fiduciary responsibilities of the corporate management and board of directors. That is Commerce. But if two hundred kids in Anaheim are pogoing in a hotel conference room and shouting “Friendship!” over and over? Nobody at all knew that that was going to happen, or could possibly have anticipated it. That is Art.
-Maria Bustillos, Friendship is Complicated, Longreads.com