>

Of course, you're allowed to feel sadness or disappointment. But it's uncalled for to direct it at the audience as if they had failed you. As long as they don't attack you personally (which does happen sadly) all reactions from hate to love to complete indifference are within expected parameters, and you should know that going in.
This is like telling someone not to be upset when their favorite lamp is broken, or not to feel disappointed when they lose a competition, or not to sweat when it's hot outside. Why shouldn't they have the most natural reaction in the world? If people like something the artist sketched in 10 minutes better than something they spent months of painstaking work on, especially if the latter is genuinely a richer, deeper, more interesting work of art, and especially if the consumers in question prefer the throwaway sketch only because it's derived from some other popular thing, like a Star Wars character or something, of course the artist might feel resentful. I wouldn't dream of denying them their right to that emotion. Coping with human superficiality is one of the necessary evils of selling art. >

It's understandable to be upset about it, but again, I think you're mistaken to place the blame on consumers by calling them "superficial". People have limited time, patience and attention span; I somewhat addressed this in my 2nd point. And the more ambitious work might interest fewer people, but affect them more deeply; they'll be thinking about it in a year while the sketch might be forgotten tomorrow.
Of course, this assuming the ambitious work is as deep as the artist thinks it is, and by what criteria you measure that in the first place.
Besides, the throwaway sketch being derivative may be how most people found out about it in the first place, for example they followed the Star Wars tag on deviantart. I do think the focus on a handful of big IPs is a problem nowadays (something like Joker could have been an original story for example) but again, I don't blame consumers for it. People are tired and overworked, they want to spend their free time on something they are sure to enjoy. >

I am a visual artists too, and I see posts like this all the time, and I've personally experienced the low-effort stuff getting big. 
And on one hand, yeah, a win is a win. I don't think anyone is arguing the mechanics of how this happens. I agree that stuff like fan art gets more notes. Sometimes snappy little drawings have a much stronger and more relatable message, and that stuff can get more notes. Obviously your audience doesn't owe you anything.
But there is something really frustrating about all of it. Low effort stuff isnt' guaranteed to be successful either. So you can't gain the system by producing a lot of low effort noise. And sometimes the high-effort stuff is what gets you noticed by the people who matter. The stuff that builds connections with artists you admire, the stuff that might land you a job, or the art that becomes a successful print. You can still do everything the "right" way and not see anything from it. 
Its frustrating. I think people are allowed to feel frustrated by it and they're allowed to complain about it. People are allowed to have emotions and express those emotions. >

People are absolutely allowed to be frustrated, however some artists get upset at the audience for it, as if the audience had wronged them by not liking the right art or not liking it the right way.
I agree that's it's frustrating, but to me that's part of the nature of art- it's useless. Its inherent value is 0 and we have to wait for others to find value in it. When our entire job is to appeal to people's subjectivity, we're on shaky foundations to begin with. 
So I don't blame anyone for not caring about my most ambitious projects, as they are ultimately as pointless as the rest. The only value in my art is the one people see in it, so I can't begrudge them for missing some hypothetical inherent value. If no one sees it, it's not there. >

I think it's understandable. The first thing I thought of is Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. 
Kurt hated "Smells like Teen Spirit." He said the song means literally nothing and he wrote it in like a day or something and just wrote it to be catchy because the label wanted a catchy song. Compared to some of the other works on Nevermind, like "Something in the Way," I can see why he'd be irritated that his least effort song with no meaning became his most popular song compared to his others. >

I didn't know, but it makes sense at it kinda fits with the chorus of In Bloom, where he gets upset about fans not paying attention to the meaning of his songs.
I do think he was right to be upset, but at the label rather than the audience- plus a lot of Nirvana songs have unclear meanings. From the outside it doesn't sound meaningless, just equally vague and/or allegorical as their other songs.
Plus he did deliberately make it catchy song, forced as it was. If it wasn't a hit it would have meant Cobain failed at writing a catchy song. And he would have wasted just as much time in writing it. >

As a business person you shouldn't. 
As an artist you can do whatever you want. >

I mean, you can in the sense that no one's gonna stop you. As a business person you still can but you shouldn't voice it aloud.
My point wasn't really about public relations, but more that it's a bad mindset to have. You can't control how people react to your work, and if you try you're setting yourself up for disappointment. >


Personally, I'd love it if my lowest effort work sold great
You can't control how people react to your work, and if you try you're setting yourself up for disappointment

Please reconcile these statements. I don't see how these don't directly contradict each other. >

I meant that people want their effort to be rewarded, and feel cheated if it's not the case. For me, my highest effort work is the most valuable to me but I accept it's not the case for everyone.
I hope my best drawings get popular, but if my shittiest drawings get popular that's ok too. Maybe none of them will get popular, and if I'm not ready to accept that I shouldn't publish my art at all. >

Seems like you are advocating keeping a distance from your audience unless the response is positive, but you can't know its positive unless you don't keep your distance from them. I don't see how you make sense of this. >

Art is among the most personal of social interactions. The artist inevitably, no matter what the style or medium, is sharing something about themselves in a very precious way and in very public fashion.
As a result, it is not surprising that artists have a wide range of really intense emotions about not just their work, but how it is perceived.
To put it simply, we are talking about how the most sensitive among us talks about the thing they are likely most sensitive about. It's not going to necessarily make sense to others; it's going to vary from one artist to the next. If an artist is disappointed audiences like one thing over another, that is likely what they really feel. >

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your view is that an artist should have no reaction to how their work is received other than acceptance? Do you apply this view to other types of work or only art creation? Why or why not?