Affiliate Marketing Secrets

Choose one of the following scenarios. All examples use masculine gender since our languages don’t have a neuter gender, but I mean this regardless of the artist’s gender.
1. Artist becomes famous very early on his career, and somehow manages to score a big hit very quickly.
However, the artist never manages to outperform himself, and so that early hit becomes his one and only magnum opus.
20-30 years later, and he’s only remembered by the works he produced during his early years. Since he has since unable to produce anything memorable, he’s doomed to replay all those old acts or songs and live from his past success.
He dies in utter poverty, alone and barely remembered at all.
SUMMARY: Early One-Hit-Wonder, resting on his laurels most of his life.
2. Artist has it rough at the start. Started from the very bottom, and didn’t show much progress during the start of his career.
But he never gives up. He always tries to improve himself, always coming with better works of art.
And eventually, the fruits of his hard work start showing up. He’s not young anymore, but he’s starting to become quite successful.
He produces his magnum opus very late in life, when other artists have already retired. Since his talent is widely demanded, he has no choice but to keep touring and displaying his art, with barely any hope for retirement.
He dies an untimely death at a very old age (it’s not a contradiction in this case), and is deeply mourned by fans worldwide, entering halls of fame and widely considered one of the best of his art ever.
SUMMARY: poor start, hard earned success, becomes a Living Legend.
3. He’s an average artist. While he’s successful enough to live a good life, he’s not a hall of famer or a worldwide renowned star.
However, one day, for some reason or another, he becomes memetic. The internets get filled by parodies, comics and videos mocking his work.
Thus, amazing a huge, unwanted popularity, a periphery demographic.
He could capitalize in that popularity, but that would mean he would.
– lose his previous fandom
– never be taken seriously anymore
– live the rest of his life as a parody of himself
or he could just ignore the memes and remain respected among his niche fandom and obscure elsewhere, and eventually disappear and be forgotten.
SUMMARY: average artist turned Memetic Star
So, what do you choose? Why?
Bonus points for whoever comes with the best example.