A few years ago, as an experiment, someone uploaded a photograph made by Henri Cartier-Bresson, one of the most well known and celebrated photographers of the 20th century, onto a Flickr group for street photography. Those who had never seen it before gave it a very low rating and criticized many of the technical aspects of the photo, while those who recognized it as HCB praised it for being such a strong photograph.
The quality of one's work is based solely on the subjective perception of the people viewing it. It's a numbers game. Get enough people to take you seriously and you're a great artists, no matter what your art looks like.
It's like being the popular kid in high school.
On an off topic note, I think that's why we worship celebrities as a society. The reason we buy celebrity-endorsed products is because they're viewed as having all the answers, even though most celebrities aren't any smarter or talented than your uncle Pete. It's perception.