Today I recommended that artists and hippies bet against Tesla stock and make $5000+. A related post on Reddit.com/r/WallStreetbetsELITE got 24,000 views (my personal record on social media). I was told on Blue Sky not to give financial advice, that I am not a reputable, trained professional.
I responded that as an artist, I am a licensed disturber of the peace and that this is literally my job.
This is my disclaimer and my response:
Disclaimer:
In Chicago in December, I saw 17 friends in 17 days. One of them was non-binary artist and activist BJ Allen who does brave, suicide-based performance art, often triggered by financial insecurity and persecution as a trans person. Their curse of the Art Institute of Chicago administration got over 100,000 views and was powerful commentary on social media.
Months before, I told them the story of being criticized as an artist and writer because “I have no respect for my audience.”
And I said my response was: that is true.
BJ laughed.
And I realize that is my puppeteer artist statement.
As an artist, with you as my audience, I am not responsible for your safety. I’m offering financial advice that can barkrupt you.
It’s not that I don’t respect you, it’s just that I’m just running as fast as I can, and I’m doing my best.
(end of disclaimer)
//
And this is a quote I have adapted that I saw 20 years ago in “October”, the art journal.
“…On the contrary, artists should take the lead in declaring themselves in favor of and in league with the thieves and vandals of all sorts who are now making life difficult for billionaires, and who hope to make obscene wealth a thing of the past. We should devote ourselves to addressing and directing all the rebellious natures in society because of the privileged position which artists already enjoy, namely that of licensed disturbers of the peace… Most basically I urge that artists working together should declare clearly that we are no longer the servants of the wealthy.”
That said, due to the nature of social media, I am not able to put this on every post, especially Blue Sky and Twitter.
This is why I stand by my artwork this week.
Art is more than painting landscapes. Art is supposed to be for revolution. Historically, when fascists “cut off the head of the revolution” they would murder the artists and philosophers. No one bothers today, because all the power that artists have has been taken away.
When I am recommending that artists, to whom I refer to as “hippies”, recklessly invest in the stock market after looking “puts” up on ChatGPT (see here https://dusoma.wordpress.com/2025/03/18/211/) my audience was not actually starving artists, but Redditt’s “Wall Street Bets” Subreddit, which got 20,000 views in 15 hours.
I also posted this on LinkedIn, tagging my client service rep at Vanguard and the Portfolio managers.
My audience was Musk. My audience was Wall Street Investors. It is this very recklessness that was in my design to scare them, because Wall Street hates chaos.
My audience is also the “reputable” sources we are supposed to trust – shills of capitalism who are servants of the administration. Sources like Motley Fool that gave advice that bankrupted millions of Americans in 20028, and give advice to this day.
Remember, not one person went to jail for bankrupting millions of people. Per ChatGPT:
“Despite the massive fallout from the 2008 housing market collapse, no major Wall Street executive went to jail – not one person fromLehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns. These firms knowingly packaged and sold toxic mortgage-backed securities (MBS) while betting against them.
For example: Goldman Sachs internally called these products “shitty deals” while selling them to clients.”
It is my hope that my reckless posts that encourage amateurs to gamble on a get-rich-quick scheme will scare them more than anything else:
1. The use of ChatGPT – which essentially puts all investment advisors out of a job. ChatGPT assured me that I could not lose more than the $800 I gambled with. But what if that weren’t true? What recourse do I have when ChatGPT is wrong? (answer- none).
2. Calling out the “experts” who recommended that the low share price indicated a good time to buy. Research shows us the deep corruption of the financial media, Moody’s ratings, and brokerages.
(March 19, 2025, Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Andres Sheppard, plus Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas reiterated Tesla’s 50% stock decline as a buying opportunity, Additionally, Piper Sandler analysts raised their price target to $500, highlighting Tesla as their “top buy-and-hold” stock.)
3. The idea that I was going one step beyond Gamestop. (In early 2021, a group of retail investors on Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets, fueled by a desire to challenge Wall Street’s status quo and short-selling practices, collectively bought GameStop stock, causing its price to skyrocket in a short squeeze, a phenomenon that became known as “The GameStop Activism”.)
This was showing that “hippies, poets and artists” – people often mistaken for weak and unempowered, were suddenly able to participate in a game designed for those who are, frankly, decent at math. Because it opened participation to millions of people who normally don’t understand this stuff.
So being haphazard was part of my design.
This is also artwork that questions the new role of ChatGPT as an authority. The very tool that stole millions of artworks and books off the internet, claiming to be a not-for-profit company for the benefit of humanity — only to become for-profit and work in the service of greed – I’m trying to use ChatGPT to destroy it’s for-profit ownership.
So should you try to short the stock as an amateur? Maybe not. Of course it is gambling. And the system is so complicated, it’s hard to be assured that it won’t pull a much greater amount from your savings.
But is this the moment when artists should find their role in the revolution?
Absolutely.
(See also my upcoming performance art in Denver, CO on April 4 in which I perform a dystopian audio piece – playing the role of an automated voice mail menu at the Social Security office as the phone hold time is 15 days. It’s called “Your Call is Important to Us and Other Bullshit”)
Selections from my portfolio are here: https://kathryn71.wordpress.com/2024/12/23/kathryn-born-writing-art-portfolio/