Is it really worth it?

The medium is the massage, but is the massage worth the time? Is it worth the thirty minuets to get the mental rub down from an episode of Family Guy or read an Aristotle translation? How we are using media in context of  society is  complicated.  Because it is easy to think about “media” as a type of entity that has omnipresence in society. However the media is completely empowered by the viewer, and therefore has no means of substantial control over the viewer unless the viewer actively engages the content.

            There is a particularly interesting power shift from the mediator to the medium in the contemporary mediascape; and how the power is distributed creates an ethical question. A primary example being the relationship to the medium of the Beatles’s song “Helter Skelter” and Marylin Manson; because the medium has no influence until empowered by the mediator.  Manson used the medium as a means of validating his own nefariousness. In this situation the medium wielded less influence in the mediascape until Manson (the mediator) gave it a purpose. 
            So if the medium was empowered by nefariousness then is it ethical to profit off of it's gain? This is a question I have struggled in within my own work. 

           In these two images I have struggled with the decision to exhibit them. My motivation was to create a record of my life that no one could revise. I wanted to share these intimate moments I had with the world. The first image is of a man I met on Sixth street by the graveyard. The second image is of my close friend Lilly. But if I choose to publish these images as works of art would I be profiting on the nefariousness of my mediascape. Would it be ethical to profit from these works? Am I extorting these people for my own gain; to validate my own narcissism? Is my massage worth the time?