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Which Patreons do you support and why?
According to Graphtreon, there are some crazy popular Patreon campaigns. The top creator has over 37,000 patrons and the runner-up creator has over 23,000 patrons. They're making over $100k per month from crowdfunding alone. Insane!
So I'm curious: Do you guys support any Patreons yourself? Which ones and why?
The only one I've ever supported is Primitive Technology because it's truly special: educational, on a topic that few people really explore, on a topic that I'm personally drawn to, no fluff, no speaking at all, well-produced, and authentic. It's the first time I came across a creator and knew I'd be sad if the channel closed down. Plus, it's very comfortable watching.
Honestly, I've never supported anything on Patreon before Tildes. I signed up for Patreon just because I like the idea of this site, and want to support it in a sustainable way that can help avoid the monetization issues that seem to plague sites like Reddit. It feels like a cause worthy of a monthly recurring payment from me.
Language Transfer and Tildes. LT is great, it's the perfect first step into a language, and if you're keen to study, it should allow you to progress (I've done Complete Greek and Introduction to French myself, the former is on hold, the latter I'm going to expand upon in the coming months; it should allow me to skip right to an A2 course or even B1 if I prepare for it). I'm looking forward to his method book which I want to use should I go into teaching languages (which I'm interested in).
Tildes has great promise, and I've been enjoying my time here since the last month when I joined. Having read the documentation pages and the mission of the project, the first thing I did after getting myself registered was pledging to Tildes. I want this to survive and maintain its premise.
I currently pledge $1 to each of these projects, which is low, but there are 2 reasons why: 1) in my country the dollar became very pricy as of late and 2) I believe it's the small amounts of donations that come regularly from many people that could make this sort of financial model reliable, given I can easily forget about 5-10 dollars every month, contributing to more projects too, and one person stopping their pledges can not affect the project's finances fundamentally.
I support someone who runs a Gitlab server I've used for years, and then four projects in the World of Warcraft community: Warcraft Logs, Deadly Boss Mods, WeakAuras 2, and Raidbots. Just small donations to services and projects that provide value to me in my workflow and play...flow? that I'd hate to see abandoned.
I support ContraPoints, Lindsay Ellis and Clemps, who all make great, well researched and detailed videos on politics+gender, movies and video games, respectively.
Redlettermedia. They make great movie reviews with a bunch of dry sarcasm, called half in the bag. They also do a series called best of the worst where they watch terrible b-movies and discuss them. What they're most known for is probably their 70 minute phantom menace review done in the character of Mr. Plinkett - an old serial killer
I also support RLM. One neat perk they offer is that when they release a new (paid) audio commentary, they'll give you a code so you can get your own copy for free if you message them on Patreon.
I support two:
Chapo Trap House because I find them to be very entertaining. I've been listening to them since the beginning and while I don't always agree with what they have to say, I am almost always entertained. I'm sure most people familiar with Patreon are familiar with Chapo as they have the biggest podcast on the platform.
The People's Policy Project because there were literally zero (0) leftist/socialist think tanks in D.C. before Matt Bruenig started this one. Think tanks have become the policy pipelines in D.C. in current times, actual legislators have to spend too much time campaigning and kissing babies to write legislation themselves, and can't hire the staff to do it. So, they turn to think tanks to write policy, bring lists of potential supreme court picks, etc. PPP is the first explicitly anti-capitalist think tank in D.C. because most think tanks get the majority of their funding from corporations and wealthy people that wish to influence the policy making process. It's good to have leftist politicians elected, but they need a policy pipeline to tap once they take power.
I support two Linux distros, Solus and elementary. I believe in both of their missions, even though they aren't necessarily 100% compatible. I feel like both organizations are making great strides in making excellent Linux-based operating systems.
I also support a podcast that a friend of mine produces called the Nervous Record. Partly because she's a friend, mostly because I believe artists (like developers) deserve to be paid for their work.
Usually the reason is I see someone who should be encouraged to do whatever they are doing. The rewards to me are more in them continuing to do that thing.
Thus: Mark Oshiro, who reacts to genre things in a really heartfelt, thoughtful way; Incase, who draws beautiful porn and comics with plot; David Willis, who does Dumbing of Age, the best webcomic I know of; Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff, which is a non-explosive RPG podcast by two Cthulhu professionals; Tom Smith, an old-school master of filk (sf&f folk music); and... one other person who draws porn which usually doesn't really work for me, but (to be totally crass) her Patreon isn't that popular and it makes me happy to contribute to someone who isn't super popular, even when I wish that wasn't the case. (And now I sound like some freakish self-aware hipster.)
There are like twenty other Patreons I would support if I had more money; for example, I really want to see N. K. Jemisin's cat pictures.
I'm not a huge patron, but I give what I can.
I don't support Patreon at all because I think their model is inherently discriminatory. The only people Patreon really works for are attractive people who make good videos. It's a popularity contest, and I want no part of it.
Patreon made a poor first impression on me when it first started, and I have little reason to go back and revise my opinion.
Patreon is a tool, the important thing is who you support. Other people might be getting more than who you want to support, but that is irrelevant as long as you're giving your support to creators you like.
Also, your argument is totally wrong. From the top creators, AvE has never shown his face, Phillip De Franco is an average guy, Kurzgesagt is animation videos on philosophical topics, CGP Grey has never been seen on a video in person, neither of the Green bros are hot models, and Amanda Palmer, the only one I stumbled upon that had a profile pic which had a true face on it from the Grapthreon's list is an average woman who is a musician (so not an Instagram model; which by the way is nothing wrong, and irrelevant if I'm not interested in them; I give my money to who I want and ignore the rest, should we leave ourselves to starve because idiots are becoming rich?).
Is supporting the creators that make content you enjoy not a good enough reason?
Not when I can donate directly to the creator and deprive Patreon of the opportunity to collect rent as a middleman.
It seems to work well for redlettermedia. They're all men in their 30s or 40s and they review movies
I mean, their mascot is an old, overweight, wheelchair-bound serial killer. It hasn't hurt them at all.
Then again, they have Rich Evans, so it all balances out.
Can you elaborate? AFAIK Patreon just lets anyone set up a page to collect donations. Aside from that, it's up to the creator's to advertise.
As someone said below, I also don't think that attractiveness has anything to do with it - but making "good videos" (or good content in general) definitely does - no one will donate to someone who's content has no value (whether it be educational, entertainment, or something else).
I will add that LiberaPay is a great (FOSS) alternative, although the generally much lower donation rates can be discouraging.
The problem is that most everyone uses Patreon, therefore creators will use Patreon, and you won't be able to support them if your goal is to avoid Patreon.
Good for you. I still prefer to donate directly when possible.
Mega64. They're not for everyone and their scripted content is very hit-or-miss, but they've been around for so long that they've established this amazing comedic report for their podcast/unscripted stuff.
I currently support:
You may notice a theme here ;)
Bug Martini I consistently enjoy, the sense of humor fits my own (mostly bad-on-purpose jokes). Powernap is just a crazy bizarre story with solid art. And Dresden Codak is in an absolutely phenomenal artist with an amazing imagination.
All 3 of these folks I would be genuinely sad if I found one day that they had to abandon their craft to get a "real job" because they couldn't support themselves.
EDIT : Added Babish, because looking at my Patreon I realized I wasn't supporting him and I should given how much I've enjoyed/learned from his videos.
The only one I'm supporting right now is Way Out West: A Blow-in Blog. Tim and Sandra have a small farm in Ireland where they do some very good things to help people and the environment. They also make entertaining and informative YouTube videos.
ACG because he makes videos with real reviews and content I want to see. The international podcast is pretty great and I've had many conversations with karak and the guys about different games on discord.
TMG (Tiny Meat Gang) is the only group I support on patreon right now because they are the funniest podcast that I've ever listened to. I might branch out and support some other but right now, TMG is the best.
I support a website / blog called The Online Photographer.
Just one Podcast called Tell 'em Steve-Dave, they are the cast of Comic book men.
They have a free "weekly" podcast (weekly is rather loose since Brian Quinn is one of the members and he is super busy with Impractical jokers stuff) once the show was cancelled the boys put it up. I've been a fan (or Ant) since I first listened and knowing that CBM was the main income for one of the guys and he would now have nothing coming in I thought why not, they provide content I love and get a bunch of extra stuff each week because I am able to support them.
Tildes, because I want to believe.
Noah Caldwell-Gervais, a long form youtuber with excellent insight into my favorite video games. His travelogues are truly outstanding though. He put into words things that I could only feel while traveling the USA.
Cloth Map (Drew Scanlon/Blinking White Guy), Drew is a treasure and I hope he comes back to Giant Bomb some day. Until that time I can only throw him a few bucks to do journalism about video game cultures in other countries.