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You Put It On, You Can’t Write It Off

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Joe Patti

Short, interesting piece on the INC magazine site on Tax Day about tax mistakes content creators and influencers make that has a bit of overlap for all creative and arts workers.

The first about realizing you are probably considered self-employed and need to be saving to pay taxes is pretty common and a tip I have heard given at conferences for decades. Early career artists have been overlooking that requirement for quite awhile.

Something I hadn’t known was that the IRS hold expenses related to personal appearance to a higher standard when it comes to writing them off as business expenses.

If creators ever wear clothes they bought for content on their own time, for example, they can’t write the expense off. Moore says creating separation is key here—which is why he advises a makeup artist client to store her personal and professional makeup in two different containers. That way, there’s no risk of personal and business uses overlapping.

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I know many actors and other performers who may have inadvertently been in violation of this. Especially since actors will often be asked to provide many of their costume pieces. You’ll want to write off the expense to at least get a little bit of financial relief…but you also don’t want to let perfectly good clothing go to waste by not wearing them after the show is over.

Similarly, if you were allowed to take clothing home after a show, corporate gig, movie filming, etc., you may need to report that as income in addition to whatever you may or may not have been paid.

Here’s something most content creators probably don’t know: Sometimes, you need to report brand trips and gifts to the IRS. Moore and Gallegos say it depends on whether you received a “true gift” as defined by the IRS. If you did something for the brand—like post a TikTok video—in exchange for the product or trip, it’s not a true gift. It’s taxable income instead.

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Art(ist) Education, Working In The Arts

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Notable Changes In Museum Social Media Use

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Joe Patti

The Art Newspaper conducts an annual survey of the social media usage of 100 most visited museums in the world. They have typically taken a look at how museums have been using Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Twitter/X over the last six years.

This year they found that a number of museums have lost followers on Twitter/X which they chalk up to people deleting their accounts on the platform rather than ceasing to follow the museums. One museum deleted their Twitter/X accounts while many other stopped posting on the platform.

At the same time it doesn’t appear many museums increased their presence on other platforms. While people with Instagram accounts automatically received a Threads account when Meta created the platform in 2023. However, museums which post content on Instagram either didn’t start posting on Threads or stopped posting there. Few of the top 100 museums started posting on Bluesky which was viewed as the prime alternative to Twitter/X by many who left that site.

The Art Newspaper staff didn’t make any observations about increases or decreases in usage of Facebook.

The social media platform with the biggest increase in the past year has been Tiktok. The article suggests the increase might have been more if the platform wasn’t continually under a ban threat in the United States.

After an initially slow adoption of TikTok as a platform for museums (only 21 of the top 100 most visited museums had TikTok accounts according to our 2023 data) it is becoming increasingly popular, with 56 of the 100 museums now owning accounts. Russian museums in particular are finding an audience on the Chinese-owned app, no doubt in part because the US platforms Facebook, Instagram and X are banned in the country.

[…]

…Meanwhile, the Met’s incredible year on TikTok—gaining around 900,000 followers—will have been in vain if the US government goes ahead with its planned ban of the app, over concerns about national security, on 5 April.

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Arts Facilities, Audience Relations, Marketing/PR

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Why Are Kids Licking Nintendo Cartridges?

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Joe Patti

Alright so today’s post is totally for amusement and entertainment purposes. Except for a pretty narrow use case, I don’t really see a connection with arts and cultural organizations.

I saw an article on Fast Company that reported Nintendo’s coating of Switch cartridges to prevent people from licking them is a great design choice.

Now as someone who grew up having to blow into video game cartridges to get them to work correctly my first thought was that maybe people were licking them to improve the conductivity of the contact points in order to make them work better or improve performance.

The real answer is that they are spraying a bitter tasting substance on to dissuade kids from putting the small cartridges which they may choke on into their mouths. They use a non-toxic but really bitter substance called denatonium benzoate. One milligram of the stuff in a liter of water can apparently make it inedible.

As I mentioned, the only use case I could see in the arts realm is if you run a theater or museum focused on young children and don’t want them mouthing fixtures, displays, toys and props. Honestly, there probably is a good case to be made to use the substance to maintain basic sanitary conditions in those situations.

Though while the author wishes they could buy it in Walmart, I have a suspicion that Nintendo uses a process that keeps the substance from transferring to your hands from the cartridges. Spraying it on at home or in a museum may have undesired side effects.

General Musings

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Ubiquity And Connection Can Be Better Promotion Than Scarcity

by:

Joe Patti

Seth Godin had a recent post on the “knock, knock” promotional business model. The way he describes it put me in mind of the Field of Dreams “if you build it, they will come,” approach to advertising. Godin says this model works in cases where a movie or book is announced featuring a famous actor (or by a famous author).

The level of high anticipation creates a tension you can use to sell the product. You don’t have to share much of the content because people have already sold themselves on the idea.

However, he says there are offerings like those from cultural organizations that succeed better with a different approach.

Mass media was the way creators could spread the tension and announce their work. You’re waiting for “who’s there!”

It’s worth distinguishing these knock knock offerings from cultural organizations, communities, and tools. In these cases, you can tell the whole story, give away the entire idea, and the IP is worth more, not less.

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He goes on to cite movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or songs that become anthems which only gain in influence as more people become familiar with them. He discusses the value of focusing on abundance and connection rather than scarcity. He admits it is a difficult process and perhaps not as well supported by research and evidence as people may like.

Many of the creators I’ve worked with over the years feel this tension and then fall into a gap. They have a fine knock knock on offer, but promotion is grating, endless and feels demeaning. Hustle isn’t the solution, not any longer. The best way for this sort of work to become popular is for people who have engaged with it to tell their friends (see the Blair Witch Project for an example). But “getting the word out” has never been more frustrating or difficult than it is now. The web is not TV.

We need this sort of thoughtful, long-form scholarship, but the business model for it is shaky indeed. The breakthroughs happen via peer-to-peer promotion, not hustle.

At the same time, it’s never been more productive to build tools and communities. And it helps to do it with intent.

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Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, Marketing/PR

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Butts In The Seats by Joe Patti is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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