I've seen enough students bullshit their way through getting their work graded by the prof that I know most of them aren't being totally honest when they produce work for others. Some of the most amazing artists I'd ever met didn't actually sell the things they liked making, despite being very skilled, and the ones who only made stuff that they liked tended to not get very far financially unless it just happened to catch someone's interest in the same way a new meme takes off. I'm not super into mainstream art because of that. I think the symbolism is more likely to be dishonest or performative and designed to keep the person from having to have a second job (which is fair in itself but capitalism sucks the soul out of everything).

And it's silly because I love online places like deviantart (with content filters on, mind) or mastoart. You get to see a huge breadth of people who aren't upper-echelons-of-society-skilled, or are fairly skilled but not plugged in to the high art world. I think this gives their work a 'proletarian' character, and it's kind of neat that we live in a time where your average prole can just make and distribute art without necessarily having to be commissioned. Sure, a lot of it is derivative in theme and content, but I like seeing people drawing what they want to draw, and it makes me wish I had a little more money to give to some small time artists or students.