Success Quote by Zac Hanson

Zac Hanson’s line lands like a grin you can hear through the speakers: it flatters the grown-up machinery of “critical success” just long enough to pull the rug out. The first clause nods to the respectable version of a pop career, where legitimacy arrives via reviews, awards, and the approving murmurs of other artists. It’s the socially acceptable hunger: validation framed as community.

Then comes the pivot - “But who cares about them?” - a deliberately rude question that’s less anti-intellectual than anti-gatekeeper. Hanson isn’t rejecting craft or excellence; he’s rejecting the idea that art’s meaning is determined by an inner circle. There’s also a defensive honesty here, the kind that forms when you become famous young and get told, repeatedly, that your success doesn’t count. For a musician who emerged from the teen-pop blast radius of the late ’90s, “peers” can be a loaded word: it implies a club you’re never fully invited into, no matter how many arenas you fill or how many songs you write.

The intent is to re-center the scoreboard. Critics and peers can be “nice,” sure, but they aren’t the audience, and they aren’t the reason the work exists. Subtext: the real relationship is between artist and listeners, not artist and tastemakers. It’s a small act of rebellion against cultural hierarchies that pretend popularity is a stain and approval is purity. Hanson’s punchline doesn’t deny the craving for respect; it exposes how quickly respect becomes a trap.