Who's Jim Sterling? He's this guy:
So what about him? Nothing really, other than 1.) I'm a really big fan of his - I don't agree with him all the time but say 75% (which I consider to be a good ratio, I've learned personally the dangers of being in agreement with someone too much, politically-speaking at least) and 2.) I've been really thinking about how his show is entirely supported by Patreon. And the thing is, I'd like some of that action, too.
Now, if I'm going to bring up the subject of Patreon and funding, there's a number of things I feel obligated to share with you:
1.) The biggest question is, does this blog need Patreon to continue? And the firm answer is: absolutely not. Unlike say The Jimquisition this blog has no budget whatsoever aside from the sheer time Mike and I take to write what we write here. That's the big reason why I'm on this blog format to begin with (and I suspect it's true of Christian and Sean as well) - as awful and full of functional suck as it is, Blogspot is at least free - so yeah, you get what you pay for but in my case if what you can pay for is $0.00, you're glad with what you can get. It at least allows me to dink away at this keyboard on a weekly, semi-weekly or whenever-I-feel-like basis reaching an audience into the 5 or maybe even 6 individuals range.
2.) And so that brings us to the more intellectually honest question: do I just want money? And the answer is: oh hell yes. But, again, for the sake of intellectual honesty I just want to make it clear: this blog does not need your financial support. We are not officially asking for donations. If we are going to set up a Patreon, you are strictly and specifically giving me money of your own volition, for no stated purpose whatsoever, which I may feel free to blow at a casino if I wish. I really don't want to bring up the ethics of giving money to Patreon projects but what I do want to bring up is transparency, so here it is: I just want your damn money. Your damn money is not going to go to any worthy cause whatsoever. Not even to increase the quality of this blog, which is pretty much peaked. I'm just going to end up blowing it all on a damn casino anyway, probably. So you've been informed if we do sign on for Patreon - and again, if it happens, I'll take every step I can to remind you of that transparency at every step before you click on that Patreon donation thingie.
3.) And naturally, Mike'll get 50% of the Patreon cut too, so if you want to give money to Mike (and in all fairness he's going to college so he can probably use it) you'll need to double whatever amount you want to give him because 50% is going to me :D
4.) So I'll need to figure out how that will work exactly
5.) And that's the thing - I have no idea how Patreon actually works. As far as I'm aware all the Patreon projects I know of (The Jimquisition, Regular Car Reviews which I've linked to before, The Gaming Historian) are all YouTube video projects. I don't even know if there are blogs that use Patreon. I don't even know how that works exactly since, again, the whole point of Blogspot is to give a platform to bloggers that use literally zero budget.
6.) And on that matter, we're going to need a readership that's much more than just 6 if we're going to be very serious about Patreon.
7.) And so that brings up what's frankly a very scary frontier for me - doing videos and vlogs. Again, these will be literally zero-budget videos that I can do very easily and very lazily so that 100% of my 50% cut goes to me :) But seriously, I have very little time and resources (other than financial) to put videos together, and aside from being able to afford equipment I wouldn't know how to use anyway that really wouldn't change even if I had a million dollars.
Also, my voice sounds really, really horrible on video. Like, Alex Borstein as Lois Griffin bad.
I'm also really camera-shy and not in a hurry to stick my face in front of a video. I can also do a voice-over only, but, again, Alex Borstein as Lois Griffin impression, plus I want to have some interesting visuals so that it gives off some pretense of being an attempt at professionalism (haha). Plus, this really is uncharted territory for me and this blog. Would I just read back reviews on this blog? What kind of "exclusive" content would I bother with? And for that matter, how could I put in clips from Disney Channel and Nick shows without getting DCMA'd? Not that it matters because I don't even have the equipment to record and extract clips in the first place.
So, there you go. I really floating this out as a trial balloon for now, and uh, see what you guys think. All five of you.
Well, maybe all six of you.
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