[adventured]

Street magicians shill for products once they become very successful, which is what these 'social influencers' represent. They went from being the equivalent of street magicians, to another level of having a show at a venue or touring etc.

[yestoallthat]

If they're successful, it means they managed to survive on their craft even before a lot of people wanted to see them. So why wouldn't they be able to continue to do that after they became better and more successful? You simply assume everybody sells out, you don't even say "many street magicians shill for products", or most, no, they just categorically do. I guess you can't tell me the exact threshold when they do? Is that different for everybody, but everybody still does (or would if they were just successful enough) at some point?

And why still call them street magicians then? Why not marketers? You don't call people who make advertisement spots filmmakers like you would call Hitchcock a filmmaker, and you wouldn't call those who write "copy" authors like you would any of the ones serious authors aspire to. But most importantly, you don't call someone who sings loudly to distract someone so another person can pick their pocket a singer, you call them an accomplice.