Is the independent art worker doomed to disappear? Is intellectual entrepreneurship frowned upon?
A personal story & 7 tips to fight this
I’m fascinated by cults and con artists.
But it haunts me: does this fascination echo an intrinsic need to control others? Is it nostalgia of the structured routine of childhood? Fear of the ego trip their love-bombing elicits? An inexplicable attraction to men in Speedos or tech savvy Jesuses?
Quite the opposite, repulsed as I am by the idea of being daily exposed to the oiled and sun-drenched epidermis of Jaime Gomez, alias Michel, alias The Teacher, alias Andreas. I think that what draws me in is the dynamics of the liar and the world around them. Take Anna Sorokin, a.k.a. Anna Delvey. After four years in jail for having conned people into paying for her lifestyle by pretending to be a wealthy European heiress in America, she has just participated in the family friendly US TV show Dancing with the Stars, for which she was given a special permission by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) - and an ankle monitor.
My latest incursion into this penchant would however prove to be far more personal than I expected. I’m referring to « Apple Cider Vinegar » a wishy washy series about the true story of an Australian young woman, Belle Gibson, who falsely claimed to have cured her brain cancer with « clean eating » about a decade ago. The twist of this story is that she capitalized on this lie via her own app, followed by 300 000 avid fans.
What fascinates me is the entrepreneurial gumption of the con artist. If only we all had half the hubris these misguided gurus and charlatans have. If only good people had the tenacity of the liar, the greedy, the stalker.
But the Gibson case is special inasmuch as it turns the mirror to the other side of the con: the people who suspended their critical thinking, some of them incredibly vulnerable, others outstandingly greedy. It takes two to tango, and it takes a crowd of inebriated, happy, lustful people to do a conga line.
By the time she was unmasked in 2013, Gibson was closing a deal with Apple who wanted her app as an in-feature for what was a brand new product about to be launched, the Apple Watch. Not to mention her upcoming recipe book to be published by Penguin, who had given her an advance even successful writers don’t receive anymore. Meanwhile, warned by a close friend of hers, journalists had started investigating Gibson but had difficulties proving, for various reasons, that she had never been diagnosed with cancer, so they resourcefully inquired about her charity work, which she used to shepherd more fans into her fold. And it turned out that - shocker! - she had never delivered the money.
Netflix, proving that Belle Gibson both willing and unwillingly is fated to a certain kind of mass-exposure, also released a unsatisfying documentary about the case. The most fascinating comment comes from a “former friend” who states her bewilderment regarding Gibson: after all, she was a good cook! Why did she not simply publish a recipe book?
And this is where the bow breaks.
Gibson proved to be talented, her abominable lack of ethics notwithstanding: she was tech savvy, hard working, a good chef, photogenic, “camerasmatic”, a hustler, and she had business flair: she instinctively knew we all long for the the divine alchemy, the alignment between goodness, health and money. Because talent is not enough, you want to bake a pie with a story and a moral compass. One thing “Apple Cider Vinegar” does well is to show the crisis of the publishing field indeed, where books are no longer creative endeavours; they also became neatly packaged success tales towards which we seem to naturally gravitate, and which some of us are mercurial enough to replicate (two cancer patients, mother and daughter, followed Gibson’s rejection of traditional medicine and succumbed to what had been, at some point, an agressive but potentially treatable illness).
What actor has not written an auto-biography at this point, while cashing in on a Cartier add? Why would they not? The indie films a lot of them, if not most, love acting in and even producing, will not allow them to pay for their UK, American and Asian agents, their trips and parties, the nannies, the glamorous houses. For, after all, this is what the industry has come to expect from them because the working class has finally been eradicated from any art university / school. And actors are our modern storytellers because we confuse the message with the messenger. Gibson fans wanted not only her recipes, but mostly to be the celestial blonde white lady with the self-healing brain.
You’d be forgiven to nervously wonder, at this point, if this is a defense of Belle Gibson, or a pleading for the plight of the world renowned actors and actresses. It is not. I’m depressed by the repeated patterns of doctors and self-taught specialists with a story of mysterious or less mysterious ailments cured by whatever they sell. As for the acting world, give me any TV professional over a great deal of over-rated Hollywood stars. Have you ever given any thought to Ann Dowd, Frances Conroy, even Patricia Arquette and the impeccable acting of Tramell Tillman in “Severance”? A great deal of us don’t register their effortless skill. Talent is invisible because it is seamless. It is seamless because it is unfathomable for those who aren’t technically attuned to it. Because it’s not surgery - although you can be a talented surgeon -; it’s not one of those hard sciences. In fact, most of us, scrubbing away in the shower, believe we could sing, or anyone with a recording device believes, even for a split second, that they could be a radio host. And perhaps that’s true, because talent can be equaled and even surpassed by a learned skill. What the shower singer must then add to it is entrepreneurship.
While I was watching “Apple Cider Vinegar” I found myself connecting with the beginning of Gibson’s story, psychotic disposition notwithstanding, that is, with her tech relentlessness. She wanted to learn, she observed, and she tested formats, content; she found people to take up where she could no longer go coding-wise. She hustled. She persevered. She was a maniac who would not let go of her computer even when she had missed two meals in one day to create her app.
**
But hold on. I am surrounded by people who have this sustained focus and concrete ability to dream objectively, that is, to world worlds obsessively (our project Worlding being one of its symptoms). I had been washed over by an uncomfortable feeling of identification with Gibson’s entrepreneurial efforts (especially in a woman with a children), and I was even envious of her accomplishments. But I distanced myself from its product - lifestyle - and thus its success, so damningly. « Apple Cider Vinegar » taught me something about my own work and my own content: independent art stuff.
I’m talking about my podcast Exhibitionistas who some of you may know.
Many times since it started, I have found myself in some dark corner of Reddit at 2am with a flash light pointing to a wall of comments pertaining to 1) what type of file formats my editing software uploads, 2) whether to embed a YouTube playlist in my website with code, or to simply link it, 3) how to add PayPal to my donorbox window. I have taken up assistance (for free - kudos to the Arts Council Digital Content Creation Tech Champions Jacqueline & Dean) in digital art content management, communication and production, while spending my evenings and sometimes nights, editing sound & image, reading, researching, posting, writing. I’ve been having a lot of exhausted fun. I love podcasting. I have a plethora of ideas for research series, guests, and special episodes outlined in a carefully devised program.
Like Gibson, I have stepped into this no man’s land that is digital entrepreneurship. However, while I have a similar passion to Gibson (without the psychopathic tendencies) my product is research, it is niche, it doesn’t make you lose weight neither does it provide escapism. It’s intellectual although I strive to make it accessible, not only literally (you don’t have to pay for it) but also in its syntax and format.
So: a year into the Exhibitionistas Podcast project, I’m producing content that people are consuming. To be clear: I worked on this Podcast for a year without promoting it beyond 1100 personal contacts and my social media because I wanted to make sure I could do it, and that people would listen before I engaged any outreach resources. I perfected my content, I found my strengths and what I needed to improve. My goal was to be assured that I could do it, to check if listeners enjoyed it and it was thus a viable podcast. It turns out that yes, yes, and yes. So the time has come to implement it and promote it widely.
But how is independent art work considered? How do we, especially in Europe, where I’m based, chose what to pay and what not to pay? I have a suspicion that we have a traditional relation to consumerism: we don’t see independent content as worthy of pay if we don’t know the people involved. Established journalists, socialites, actors and actresses, or brands are the secret object of our desire - and our money. Accessible content is seamless, it’s the Tramell Tillman of intellectual entrepreneurship. The art industry believes in nothing more than performative glamour - you don’t need money, you have it.
In the digital creative industry such as podcasting, financial follower support is the first - albeit far from the only one -source of revenue: you present the payment options and your listeners decide whether to donate and how much. It’s not the same as buying a commodity, which you only take home if you pay for it. In this type of « product », access is key, because without it, you can’t promote it. But more to the point, in contemporary art, or any creative kind of content, there is an ethos of accessibility such as national museums or parks provide. At least I have it - I can’t see myself charging for bonus episodes. However, I am an independent art worker and not the government.
A quick explainer: there are various sources of income for a cultural or any niche podcast. Grants, for instance. But I cannot apply for grants before I can prove that I have a viable, established art and journalism project, and a consistent following. Nor do I have time, quite frankly. No money will flow from the tax payer’s pocket to a nascent endeavour.
Across the pond, independent American podcasters earn a part of their income with payed subscriptions on Patreon, donations through their websites, etc. Then they release some funky merch. Later, this develops into events, interviews, articles, books etc.
And I put my money where my mouth is:
I subscribe to Sarah Marshall’s You’re Wrong About where she reconsiders maligned public figures from Yoko Ono to George Michael. (She has a weird obsession with Tonya Harding.) (£47.99/year)
I subscribed to Michael Hobbes and Aubrey Gordon’s (of « Your Fat Friend » fame) Maintenance Phase, which debunks wellness myths and inspired my own conversational format.(£43.99/year)
I support The White Pube on Patreon (£1/month).
I also subscribe to the BBC history podcast who invites good, modern scholars who reframe history with decolonizing, anti-racist, intersectional values. See, I’m not an independent content bigot. (£19.99/year)
This month, the podcast had way beyond 1000 listens so if everyone paid £1… I could pay for PR service instead of making a tiny profit. I have overall about 10 000 listens based on my contacts only, which are a mere 1200 newsletter recipients, and social media, whose algorithms are being fucked with. So, quite the achievement to be listened to in 53 countries. But so far, I have not reached 10 paying subscribers (I have about 600 + 600 subscribers & followers across platforms), nor have I received many donations.
I want to get to a point where I don’t pay to produce content, and i also want to create work for others. I want a producer, a research assistant. The dream!
I commend The White Pube, who state on their website:
“it’s important to us to stay independent critics without ties to big funders or institutions, public or private. thank you for being our old timey patrons - we’ll do our best to produce quality output; write stuff that is thoughtful and sincere”.
I LOVE them for it. I am also envious of their dream. But they’re Gen Z. And this generation gets it. But I’ll be 50 next year. I’m Gen X. I was taught that a career starts underground and flourishes at the Venice Biennale.
I’ve been thinking a lot about access and elitism because I’m half stray and half pedigree. I was taught that with a good education people like me, whose parents moved to the city from rural areas, and had “good” jobs after the Portuguese dictatorship, would get even better jobs. But as my recent ADHD diagnosis reveals I’m chemically wired to be a portfolio professional. But I believe that this is not the problem. As Alfredo Cramerotti suggested in my last episode, there is a big divide in the arts right now: the luddites and the tech savvy (a minority). There is a disconcerting ignorance of new digital ways of creating, educating, and having a critical voice. We’re stuck in the old, power driven, institutional European ways, neither capitalist nor socialist. We don’t want art people to be rich (see the sensationalist articles about auction prices), nor do we recognize the validity of art professionals. We agree that artists should be paid. But we don’t see the array of professionals who carry them, promote them, write about them, and show their work.
Let’s change this.
So I decided three things:
my ADHD musings will not be under a paywall. They’re useful to others, from the messages I’ve received. Neurodivergencies are heightened human traits we all have to some extent so I don’t want people to pay for what can also feel like “selling myself” (or I also suffer from that potent strand of European intellectual allergy - probably - I’m part of the problem)
my curating, art pro musings will go under a paywall when I have enough texts, with or without subscribers. That’s where I place my dignity.
I will look for grants and interesting product placement related to my content - when I have time - and sponsors that make sense for the podcast, and burn out many many times, and remind people, at the beginning of the episode, that talent and skill are not seamless if you pay close attention.
https://exhibitionistaspodcast.com
Basically, Exhibitionistas is conversation based: art has this unique ability to connect people through their differences. In a world where we’re being separated to be conquered, manipulated to be polar opposites of each other, we need this more than ever.
7 tips to be supportive
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