Thank You Patreon For Destroying My Income -$5,219.75
Patreon's Actions have led to my income falling over $5,000 per month and they know it. Banning Sargon was a push on the line, action against the center. They stated that certain people don't want to be associated with "free speech" but they leave up much worse offenders. This means that they are siding with regressive social justice activists who just don't like Sargon. In doing so they have damaged ALL of our incomes. After many people moved to Subscribe Star I was actually doing better. But with far left activists getting them shut down my subscriber income is now in question.
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Thank you, Patreon, for your decision in banning Sargon of Akkad.
Because now I am down, as of the making of this video, $5,199.75 per month in pledges, about 960 patrons.
And I certainly don't fault these people, and this is just the numbers on Patreon.
Many of these people have moved over to my alternative.
Many actually went, I think most, went to Subscribestar and are now in limbo.
So, you know, I normally don't like making videos that are much more candid and about my work and my channel, but this is something that personally affects me.
And I think what we're seeing is a dramatic push from elements of the far left to take more ground in the culture war.
Obviously, I don't think it's a concerted effort or a conspiracy, it's just there have been many incidents that have happened over this past month that have made me stop and say, whoa.
Most notably in the past couple weeks.
No one cared that certain individuals on Patreon were banned for the most part.
There's a few people, I don't want to name anybody because I don't want to, you know, kind of go off on a tangent, but there are a few people who were banned from Patreon and no one really said anything.
Sargon got banned and everyone started to lose their minds.
For one, Sargon is a centrist.
He may be crass and crude.
What he said in that livestream may have been inappropriate in a lot of ways, but he is far from a racist.
In fact, he is an activist against racism.
You may disagree with his methods, you may think he's ineffective by all means, but clearly he's an individualist and he has stated time and time again he doesn't agree with racism.
In fact, he was arguing against people he says are racists.
But they've taken action against the center, and this negatively impacts many of us from center left to center right.
It's why you're seeing a reaction from intellectual dark web types.
It's why Matt Christensen came out with that transcript of his conversation with the woman from the trust and safety team.
I think what we've seen based on her statement, as well as some things that have happened with people like David Pakman, it looks like there is a huge push against the center, and it looks like there is just more territory being taken by the far left.
Now, it's not necessarily a bad thing if you're someone who is particularly active in the culture war, because the more they push for this territory, the more they shock people.
Look at what we're seeing with Patreon.
People are furious.
And it's been a couple weeks and people are still talking about it.
I mean, we just had the video from Matt come out the other day.
Because going after Sargon was an attack on moderates on the center.
And again, I don't agree with what he said.
I think he said something that was crude, crass, and ineffective.
But I understand who Sargon is and what he's trying to do.
The first thing I'm going to do, as I normally do, I'm not going to be promoting my Patreon, because I have something else set up.
You've got options for monthly donations.
I accept cryptocurrency.
I have a physical address.
And a lot of people have actually been going to my shop, and I really do appreciate it when you buy these clothes.
They're just simple designs, things that I've made, so I do appreciate it.
I just want to point out again real quick, this is where I'm currently at.
So we've got minus $5,109.75 minus 960 patrons.
One thing I want to reiterate from the past video that I did with YouTuber Law is how
there seems to be potentially collusion.
And I wouldn't say there's necessarily evidence to suggest definitively that there was collusion between Patreon and these other companies, but I was thinking about something interesting in response to the transcript from Matt Christensen.
Patreon said this was entirely their decision, and that's very, very important.
In the transcript, Matt asked, are you telling me that this was Patreon's decision then, or someone pressured you into this?
And Jacqueline of the Trust and Safety team responded, no, this was entirely Patreon's decision.
The reason this is important is because one of the main arguments against collusion with PayPal and Patreon is that if PayPal said, hey, you We don't want to work with this person, okay?
We don't want Sargon to be using our services, therefore, if you're working with him, we won't work with you.
That's one of the arguments, because then what happens is, when Sargon goes to Subscribestar, PayPal says, hey look, we told them the same thing.
We don't want to work with this guy.
So it's not necessarily collusion, it's PayPal saying, we won't service this individual, and Stripe as well.
But if Patreon is the, if this was all their decision, and there was no intervention from PayPal, why then did PayPal suspend Subscribestar?
It would seem like it was completely unrelated and doesn't seem to make much sense.
Now, it's possible, it's just coincidental, activists targeted PayPal, so PayPal said, hey, we're done with you.
But that just serves the interests of Patreon.
So to me, if Patreon made this decision on their own, and it negatively impacted their business, and then PayPal bans the company that's absorbing people from the exodus in the Patreon fiasco, then it does sound like there is something being done to protect Patreon.
Again, it's not definitive evidence, but it does take away one of the main arguments in defense of what Patreon has done.
But there's another really important part in the transcript That shows there's a serious grab happening in the culture war.
It's a dramatic escalation.
This is a really important line from Jacqueline.
She says, The problem is, is Patreon takes payments.
And while we are obviously supportive of the First Amendment, there are other things that we have to consider.
Our mission is to fund the creative class.
In order to accomplish that mission, we have to build a community of creators that are comfortable sharing the platform.
And if we allow certain types of speech To paraphrase, there are certain people that say, I don't want to be associated with that kind of speech.
However, they're targeting Sargon of Akkad, and he's not even one of the biggest Patreon accounts.
Or I should say, he wasn't one of the biggest Patreon accounts.
There are certain people that say, I don't want to be associated with that kind of speech.
However, they're targeting Sargon of Akkad and he's not even one of the biggest Patreon
accounts.
Or I should say, he wasn't one of the biggest Patreon accounts.
He was, I think, number 115.
If you go to the top 15, you will find three.
And if you go to the top 24, there's four that use this language regularly and make
racist stereotypes and mock people on a regular basis.
I won't name them.
But I will mention that at least one of these podcasts, in response to this, used sort of a racial and homophobic slur, and then did a derogatory impersonation of Asian people.
If they're concerned that certain people don't want to be associated with this, what they're really saying is that it's a culture war issue and they are siding with the far left.
Because these other comedic podcasts that are in the top 15, top 25, there's no action being taken against them.
Most people, especially people like Sargon, people like me or Dave Rubin, we don't care that the comedians are there using these words.
We don't care that the far left is there advocating for their activism.
Now I think to a certain extent a lot of us care that you've got anti-fascist organizations that deliberately call for violence, but that's breaking the law.
That's something else.
If they're breaking the law, and to an extent they may or may not be, and I'm not talking about comedy in this instance, I'm talking about there are certain podcasts that have been highlighted that actually advocate for physical violence and say they're purchasing weapons for the purpose of physical resistance and things of that nature, you could argue they've crossed a line.
Now, there is an argument that it's better for law enforcement that these people are overt in their activities, but for those of us who believe in free speech, there is still a line, for the most part.
There are free speech absolutists that think there isn't, but no.
Most of the reasonable people who are on Patreon, like I mentioned, intellectual dark web types, me, people like Sargon, we're like, yeah, you know what, it's fine that far-left activists use the platform, but the far-left activists aren't happy that we use the platform.
The far-left activists seemingly don't care that the top podcasts use overtly racist and offensive language and mock minorities.
That means when Patreon says Some people aren't comfortable being associated with this language.
They're specifically catering to the needs of the authoritarian left, in that when they complain about us, they'll ban us.
But we don't complain about them, so they get away scot-free.
And they also don't complain about these top podcasts who say terrible things, because it is purely political.
That means Patreon is not a safe platform for reasonable political discussion.
It is not a safe platform for honest, reasonable debate.
Because if the activists are willing to complain about you, Patreon is bending over for them.
To reiterate, they said If they're people not comfortable with this speech, then they have to make sure they get everybody.
But it's only the regressive left that really cares.
So Patreon is explicitly saying they will cater to those people.
Now, again, as I mentioned earlier, it's not necessarily a bad thing, because this could actually push people away from this ideology because it scares them.
But as long as the regular top podcasts that are kind of apolitical are allowed to get away with this language, they actually don't care.
Like I mentioned, that one podcast mocked minorities and used racy and offensive language that even the podcast, one of the other guys on the show was like, maybe we shouldn't say that.
And the other dude's just like, no, it's fine.
They don't care.
They openly flaunt that they're able to use this language and no one is coming after them.
Now, also another important point in the transcript from Matt Christensen is that this woman acknowledged they know these things are on the platform and in nearly two weeks or it's been almost two weeks or over almost two weeks no over two weeks I don't know she acknowledges she knows they exist and they have not taken action.
Why is that?
Why did Patreon say, we have seen the reports, we know these things exist?
In the call with Matt, Jacqueline said, what I'm saying is that it's not an overnight fix.
When I saw the tweet about the n-word appearing on Patreon, it was a situation where we said great, now we need to dig into these complaints.
Matt responded, how many days does it take to review that?
Because this is a week plus old now.
Still out.
I looked last night.
And I looked just now, before I started recording this video, and I found some pretty bad posts.
Now, one thing I do want to point out.
People often say there's like 10 plus pages at the n-word.
There aren't.
Their search just looks for similar words, so I noticed that when you search for the n-word, sometimes some of those pages are words like bigger, You know, it's a different word, but it's so similar, I guess they showed it.
So I did a search in quotations, and I found really, really bad posts.
The reason this is important is that Patreon has had a week plus to simply go into their system, look at the post, and click remove.
Get rid of it.
They haven't done that.
Why?
Why haven't they done that?
It seems like their explanations don't make any sense.
And that says to me that all they're really trying to do is simmer down the PR disaster that's affecting their platform right now.
Do I think that Patreon is going to die?
Absolutely not.
They have been growing this whole time.
So another thing that frustrates me is people keep saying things like, oh man, it's so bad for them.
No, it's not.
Look, it's bad for Patreon.
They're getting a bunch of PR flak, sure.
But most people don't care.
And they won't care.
And that means Patreon is looking at the culture war, right?
And I don't think they understand what they're looking at as the culture war, but they're looking at these two groups.
The far regressive left saying, ban these people, we don't want them.
And they're looking at the moderate, reasonable individuals who are saying, we don't care about that group.
So, it's simple.
Patreon says if this group doesn't care about that group, like they complain about it but they don't want them banned, and this group does want them banned, it's safer for us to get rid of the people who are more reasonable because we don't face action from them.
To put it simply, the analogy I often use that I really enjoy is, in banning Sargon, do you think he will show up with a group of liberalists and engage in riotous behavior, smashing windows and throwing Molotov cocktails?
No, of course not.
Sargon simply complained about it for an extended period of time, as have many of us.
But we do know that the far left does engage in extreme tactics, violence, and so Patreon, as a Silicon Valley company, surrounded by these people who commit hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage against campuses when people speak, have to make a choice.
Do we cater to the people who aren't complaining, or the people who have shown us they are violent and are complaining?
It's simple.
Patreon is not safe for your business.
They are surrounded by dangerous individuals who will act in dangerous ways.
Look, there's a lot to go through in this transcript, but the last thing that I want to talk about on this issue specifically is how she mentions the Tier 1 and Tier 2 categories.
Last year, Lauren Southern was banned.
And she wasn't given a warning.
So many people said, hey, maybe you should warn creators before removing their livelihood.
And Jack said he pledged to do so.
But now they're claiming there's a tier system internally, and so warnings are meaningless.
More shockingly, though, Jacqueline specifically references that because they talked about Sargon publicly, she said, that to me would indicate that, yes, this creator has been given a warning.
The reason this is so particularly dangerous is that, look, They went back in time to an incident where Sargon went to a panel discussion and then did nothing.
He attended a public panel with Anita Sarkeesian, who then called him out unprompted.
If you were to ask me, reasonably, Anita is the one who committed the infraction.
I understand it was probably stressful for her having Sargon appear there because they're at odds with each other.
I can certainly understand the criticism that Sargon should not have done that because there's some professionalism and you should be cordial, understand the situation you're creating.
But from a technical standpoint, he didn't do anything wrong.
Patreon agreed with that opinion.
Patreon said publicly he didn't violate any rules.
The fact that she would now claim that was a warning When they said he didn't do anything wrong is particularly terrifying.
They have gone back in time to an incident where they said Sargon, you're good, and now said you should have known better because we warned you by talking about it publicly.
He didn't.
The warning system doesn't exist.
Patreon is clearly siding with news stories that lean far left.
In almost every circumstance that I've communicated with Patreon, I do think that they believe they're being fair, but their information is absurdly wrong because they go to partisan news sources.
Like when I was talking to Jack Conte last year.
He said, if only Lauren Southern had just stayed in the boat and yelled, she'd be fine.
But she tried to block a refugee ship.
And I said, for one, refugee is... that's the far left perspective.
The UNHCR says these are migrant ships, not refugee ships.
When he says that to me, I can tell what his perspective is going to be.
Now, by all means, I don't agree with Lauren Southern getting on that boat and saying, get in front of it, get in front of it.
But I said to Jack, I was like, you realize she didn't get in front of the boat.
She did just stay off to the side and wave a flare.
And it seemed like he didn't know that.
What I think happens is that Patreon gets their news from extremely biased sources, and they do hold these politics.
What ends up happening is plain and simple, as I've already explained it.
They take sides with those they're scared of and partially agree with.
This means that there is, once again, ground being taken to a rather extreme degree.
And this, in my opinion, could lead to a few things.
Resources are being stripped away from center-left, center, and center-right individuals.
But at the same time, when they attack the center and go after Sargon, they caused a massive shockwave.
And that's why I've lost so much money.
Not because people don't like me, but because they don't like Patreon, and they've gone to other places.
While I can show you that I have lost a lot of money on Patreon, The majority of my income, I haven't actually lost the majority of my income in general, because people moved over to PayPal, people have started sending one-time donations, people are sending crypto, so the support is still there.
And I'll say this admittedly, before Subscribestar got shut down, my income actually was slightly up.
Because I think there's a lot of people who didn't want to be on Patreon who felt like they could support me now that I had an alternative, but with the attack on Subscribestar, it once again puts me in an awkward position where I do believe overall my monthly subscription income has gone down.
But I'm not gonna stop what I, you know, doing what I do.
It's not that big of an issue for me, and hopefully this does result in some kind of competition.
I'll say one more thing because I've been talking about this for a long time, and I know I keep saying I'll be done soon, but I'm a social liberal.
I'm okay with regulation.
I recognize the market can't solve this problem because of monopolies, right?
Whenever a company emerges as a competitor to Patreon, they get their income, their payment processors slashed.
And so it really makes you think, it does.
There are solutions that can be implemented, and I do believe that to an extent the market will come up with something.
But Patreon does have the best service.
In terms of actually supporting creators, they just have the worst terms.
Remember, Patreon was marketed as a safe place for creators who were being demonetized and needed extra income, and now Patreon's rules are actually significantly stricter than YouTube's.
Keep in mind, the video where Sargon said those words, it's still up.
YouTube doesn't care.
It's unrestricted.
You can freely share the link, like, share, whatever.
There's no limitations on it.
But Patreon banned Sargon over that exact video.
Patreon is actually worse than YouTube is now.
So what's the point of their service?
Nothing, in my opinion.
Anyway, this has been kind of like a loose rant video.
I'm gonna wrap it up here.
You can follow me on Twitter at TimCast.
Stay tuned, new videos every day at 4 p.m.
And I'll have more videos up on my second channel, youtube.com slash TimCastNews, starting at 6 p.m.
