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Industry plant is a term used to describe musicians who become popular through nepotism, inheritance, wealth, or their connections in the music industry rather than on their own merits. Artists described as industry plants often present themselves as independent and self-made, but are alleged to have their public images manufactured for them by record labels.
The term originated in the early 2010s on hip hop-focused message boards to describe various rappers before being used against indie rock and pop musicians, such as Clairo and Billie Eilish, in the late 2010s. It has been called a conspiracy theory by critics and criticized for placing scrutiny on individual musicians rather than the music industry as a whole, and for its variable meaning.