Anonymous artists

From The Daily Beast, on anonymous artists such as Banksy: "Welcome to the strange world of modern-day fame, when it helps to be a nobody if you want to be a somebody! In some ways, we are returning to the rules of the medieval world, when major works of art and technology were created by anonymous innovators. But today's mystery artists cultivate their aura of secrecy. They prefer obscurity (and) strike us as cooler, hipper, perhaps even more trustworthy. After all, they have less to gain from the game of fame. They live ordinary lives … so perhaps we see them as more real — an ironic state of affairs given their total absence from the scene."