Chapter 517 - 247: End of the Shareholders’ Meeting and Publicity Campaign

"Detective Cat? That must be the illustrator who gained quite a bit of fame online recently, with a decent level of buzz."

Sir Brown said casually.

He had some impression of that name in his mind.

In the charges he was weaving against Miss Anna, two important items were about her participating in the art appreciation column outside the magazine without the approval of the magazine’s senior management and her inappropriate conduct in Thomas’s video.

And also about Elina’s unprecedented act of promoting a groundless internet illustrator to a two-and-a-half-star painter without any evidence seen as "convincingly persuasive" by the management.

Sir Brown believed these two matters negatively impacted the credibility of "Oil Painting" magazine in the eyes of collectors.

The editorial from "Moonlight News" and the joint protest letter Van Doorn wrote to the oil painting management were the evidence of Anna’s crimes.

And all of these were related to this Detective Cat.

"Is she very famous? Sorry, why have I never heard of this person. Which gallery has this artist under its wing?"

A shareholder who was a member of the French Academy wiped his glasses with a cloth, shaking his head, saying, "Detective Cat, what a strange name."

This shareholder had similar habits to Verlaine.

His daily entertainments included horseback riding, meditation, rowing on the Rhine River, and listening to opera, almost never touching the internet.

Thus, he had no concept of viral YouTube videos.

The proposal to remove Anna from the board seat was barely glanced at before entering the voting stage.

Most shareholders hadn’t noticed or cared about the name of the illustrator mentioned several times in the meeting materials.

"You may have misunderstood. From what I know, she doesn’t belong to any gallery. This is an internet illustrator—the kind who takes orders online to draw for others. The high buzz I referred to is also the level of discussion on Twitter."

Sir Brown explained: "Not sure if you understand... the so-called internet celebrity artist."

"Turns out she’s an internet celebrity?"

The academy member snorted.

"Are you kidding, you’re having us, experts and scholars, waste precious energy discussing the works of an internet celebrity artist? Is everyone’s time so worthless!"

The elder gentleman was a bit displeased.

The overall impression of foreign internet celebrities on the internet wasn’t very positive either.

The traditional social elite tended to regard them as electronic jokers.

Internet illustrator or whatever, although praised by people online.

But in the eyes of the dignified and serious critics of the French Academy, even mentioning these chaotic nicknames like "Detective Cat or Dog" feels degrading!

After all.

The big shots of the Academic School and street-born small artists didn’t share the same historical roots.

Bringing in an artist with not very serious art background like KAWS.

The academy member might even snidely comment.

Let alone a Detective Cat.

This topic, in his view, was a pure waste of time.

It was like having experts who specialize in identifying purebred Arab horses use a magnifying glass to study whether a multicolored small donkey’s hoof was healthy.

The time they spent discussing this topic was worth more than all the works this guy produced in his lifetime combined.

"I can’t help it either. It’s an issue proposed by shareholder Elina. We can only follow the rules," Sir Brown said helplessly, waving his hand.

"Oh, come on, when did our "Oil Painting" buyers’ column start recommending an internet celebrity artist to collectors? Recommendation index two and a half stars, who reviewed and passed this proposal? This guy is completely committing a crime."

The French Academy member sneered.

"Besides Lady Yelena, who else could be so capricious? Some shareholders might still not be aware, dear Miss Anna not only gave a rating of two and a half stars. She also thought the artistic skills of this Detective Cat in the billions-view YouTube video were on par with Andersen Award winner Mr. Jean Arnou."

Chairman Brown feigned an inexplicable look on his face regarding Anna, shaking his head non-stop.

Pfff!

This time, the academy member couldn’t hold back and burst into laughter.

"What nonsense is all of this. Lady Yelena, you don’t happen to have a large collection of this guy’s works in your hands, or have signed this internet celebrity artist under your own name, would you?"

The academy member told a cold joke.

"Little girl, let me give you a piece of advice, even if you want to stir up art, you can’t casually drag some random person online, right?"

The shareholder stroked the small patch of goatee on his chin, and with self-satisfaction, laughed.

Many shareholders nearby burst into laughter.

The conference room was filled with a cheerful atmosphere.

Of course, everyone knew the academy member was talking nonsense.

If the Ilyena family’s heiress wanted to make money from the art business. She had one million more sensible options than such flawed behavior.

But...

They simply couldn’t understand why Anna insisted on doing this.

Probably just like Sir Brown said, the capriciousness of a young woman on a whim.

Since the atmosphere had already been built up to this point.

Just now, none of them had actively attacked Anna’s mistakes, now the girl voluntarily brought her fair face close for them to smack.

Whether sincerely or with fake smiles.

They couldn’t help but join in mocking Anna, showing solidarity, and stepping on this Detective Cat whom nobody cared about, pledging loyalty to the soon-to-be superior shareholder Krug Brothers Bank.