Truth Hurts

Debunking the trash talk around Art of Elysium's fundraiser called "People's Artist Award".

Lets start with the fact that I entered this contest for fun after reading all of the rules and regulations but was not aware that anyone, and I mean anyone, could get in. At first, I was a bit deflated because I knew a bunch of artists with a huge following had entered. It felt like a popularity contest, and that I would never make it. And this is where everything fell apart.

Many artists felt the same way, but instead of just quietly exiting, many slandered the competition as a scam and continued to spread blatant lies or misinformation, which I will divulge below. Also, there are a ton of people that just don't like Johnny Depp, and since they sided with Amber Heard during their domestic dispute, they too are following suit in the slanderous activities. So, all the public hatred seems to have led META to restrict some accounts like mine from sharing the link to vote, saying that I was acting malicious, because the link lead to possible phishing scams. I still don't know why only some people have restricted accounts and others are able to share links.

This is where AI becomes a problem. Once, I had a post deleted because I showed a painting of a peony and the description of the post had the word peony in it. AI apparently it understood this word to be sexual, if you know what I mean. How dare I show such elicit images such as peonies!!! AI cyber security makes mistakes and it should concern all of us.

So without further adieu, here are some of the challenging conversations I've encountered with this competition.

1 - It's a Scam because it's Pay to Play - Pay to play means the participant or voter HAS to pay to be in the competition or to vote. I ever paid to get in and you NEVER need to pay for votes. Paying for a vote is voluntary. The Rules are very clear.

2 - It's predatory because it's pay to play - just no. See above regards to pay to play.

3 - You lose copyright to your images- No, you own the rights to your images, BUT there are stipulations where the Operator (Colossal Management) can use your images how they want for marketing this competition and possibly future competitions. This wording looks concerning but, Colossal made a public video stating what their intentions are - which can be use in court if needed. There is no compensation for using your images, which is the way all entries work in every competition, show, or event I've applied to - and there are many! Here's why:

Organizers need to post your image for marketing where ever they can and this means they may need to crop, add text, or do whatever to make the poster attractive and visible. Now, in order for me to get this kind of publication, I'd usually need to pay hefty sums for it! Ads, printing, paying for magazine articles, etc. This is a win/win in my mind, but it's not for everyone. That's okay - just don't enter the competition. Or upload images you don't really care about.

4 - You can't withdrawl - Um, did they read the rules?

5 - You don't actually get $25,000  - Two people attempted to say this and each gave different examples with screenshots of the rules that they either clearly misunderstood or are intentionally trying to mislead people.

The first time I saw this, it was an instagram video of someone who said they were an "investigative journalist". This was the same person who said competitors can't withdraw (see above). Anyway, she posted the area regarding donations and read aloud: "minus competitions fees", but understood this as, " you don't get the full $25,000". This area of the Rules is regarding how the donations work, not the prize. She should have read the rules regarding the prize. Below is an image of the Donation are describing what happens to a donation.

The second time I heard that artists don't get the $25,000, the person blatantly said, " there is no actual prize", and then posted this:

Again, people need to go back to reading and not skimming so they can understand text. She took the worth of the photoshoot and magazine publication- $15,000, and the worth of the art show - $10,000, added that up to $25,000 and understood that as the $25,000 is wrapped up in values of stuff and not actual money. What she should have done, is read the entire thing:

If she would have read all of it (or maybe she did and is trying to be mean and defamatory), she would have see that the full prize is WORTH $50,000. $25,000 cash, AND $25,000 values for the photoshoot, magazine article, and art show.

6 - It's a pyramid scheme - on a Facebook Art page, one guy suggested this theory and even posted the google definition of a pyramid scheme....and thus, proved himself wrong. He clearly didn't understand how this competition works.

7 - People should buy art from artists rather than give to multi-million dollar corporations - This is just sad. The first negative thing I heard on social media was "OMG this competition is run by a FOR-PROFIT COMPANY!" and then proceeded to talk about Colossal, the company organizing the fundraiser for the non-profit. Colossal has not once been secretive about being for-profit and how much fees they take before it gets to the non-profit. I showed this in the image capturing the donation explanations. Some people would air-quote "non-profit" as if it's fake. Just look into it, it's not fake. https://www.theartofelysium.org/

Within the rules, they also give an explanation of why Art of Elysium is using Colossal to organize this fundraiser. It's because Art of Elysium doesn't have the bandwidth to support this giant thing. when you have 18000 submissions, you've gotta have some serious platform bandwidth. I'm sure Colossal is paying for ads, employment, perhaps even Johnny Depp's appearance? (speculation - I don't know). But you can think of it like an artist using Etsy to sell their product. Etsy takes a percentage before it gets to you. Maybe you have your own website that you sell from. Your website provider takes a percentage for using that service. Every organization takes a cut.

As for "just buy the artists work"... I know that my art does not fit most people's budget and I don't sell anything worth $10. So why would I NOT want someone to donate votes, which goes to charity AND benefits me? This is also a FUNDRAISING competition, for fun, not a gallery that sells work.

8 - Why not donate to the artist instead - If something bad were to happen to me or my family where I needed to have a Go-Fund-Me or something, that's the time to donate. But I'm a for-profit, working artist, not a charity.

9 - Colossal Management is a scam and was taken to court about it - In 2021, a competitor in another fundraising competition tried to sue saying it was an illegal competition (because of all the things people didn't like about it as shown in this post). The case was totally thrown out. It's legal. It's legit. It just doesn't fit some people's ideal competition layout....because it's a fundraiser.

10 - It's a phishing scam here to take all your info. - a baseless accusation. Someone heard from someone who read on reddit that someone received an uptick on junk mail in his emails. Oh dear, not junk mail. Let me know if you receive extra junk because so far, this is just hearsay.

Colossal needs a way to determine whether or not a competitor is legit, whether or not a competitor is paying for themselves (which is not allowed), and needs to somehow restrict a voters ability to vote for free more than once a day. Colossal is a large for-profit fundraising company who has done these types of competitions to raise money for charities for years. They don't need to steal your identity or take the pennies out of your pocket through phishing or data mining.

Most things you log into now require an email and password, OR login through facebook or google accounts. And quite frankly, we should be more worried about the sudden advertisements pushed to us every time we have a private conversation about something near our phones. Big brother is watching.

In conclusion, every time I prove someone wrong, the accusations start coming in like, "you're a bot", "are you paid by Colossal to say that?", "you're account must have been hacked by Colossal", "you're a sellout", "you must be desperate to go in this competition". This type of behavior is heartbreaking and is causing many good artists to drop out. The stress over the negativity is unbelievable.

Since I'm banned from posting links on any META platform, please save this link in your phone or computer and set a daily reminder to vote FOR FREE. I have seen some legit first placers out there with a large following so let's show them who's boss! Also, I kind want to win to show this nay-sayers wrong. Or at the very least, maybe some of them right?! I'm all for learning.

https://peoplesartist.org/2026/crystal-rassi-SIIh

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