In this video lecture, Hito Steyerl speaks about the social function of art and artistic role models in the present day. The technical simplification of firearms once democratized the power privilege of the ruling class. Today art has become a mass phenomenon; its elitism has ruptured. But what is being democratized here? Standing in line for humiliating talent shows? The futile hopes of a growing class of urban poor for a creative career? Steyerl takes Victor Hugo’s "Les Misérables" as the center of a story about rebellion and self-exploitation, the artistic mythos and the culture industry. In this narrative the guerrillero Comrade X and the talent-show legend Susan Boyle end up in the same boat as Steyerl and her listeners, dreaming the strange dream of the struggle for freedom in creative capitalism.