Optional Patreon tweaks and making sure you can find your rewards

It's our fourth anniversary! 

We just wanted to take this moment to tell you about some additional features that Patreon has been adding lately which you might find useful, and also remind you of the perks of being a patron and make sure you know how to access them. 

Nothing is actually changing though, any settings updates are entirely optional. 

Patreon in more currencies

Patreon now allows you to support the show in US dollars ($), euros (€), or British pounds (£), which means no currency conversion issues for people in those currencies! The pledge value for each tier has been set by Patreon on the basis of the US dollar tiers. We've been told they're looking to keep expanding this range in the future (Australian and/or Canadian dollars, anyone?). 

If you normally operate in euros or pounds, you can elect to just keep going with US dollars as before or change your currency, it's up to you. For more about changing the currency of your membership, check out this Patreon help page.  

Patreon annual memberships

Patreon also has a new feature that lets people pay for a Patreon membership for a whole 12 months at a time, at a modest discount. This doesn't really affect current patrons, although we figured we'd let you know about it in case you want to switch, but it does mean it's easier to give (or ask for) a year's worth of membership as a gift. (Gifting isn't an official feature, but you could set up a Patreon account for someone, pay for a year's membership, then de-link your credit card so you aren't giving your teenager relative or whoever access to your credit card. Some but not all other Patreon creators also have annual memberships, in case you have someone to buy for who is a fan of something else!) For more about annual memberships, there's a Patreon help page. 

The Lingthusiasm Discord community 

We set up the Lingthusiasm Discord as an experiment in January (so, like a thousand years ago), and it turned out that people immediately took to it! 

If you're at the Lingthusiast tier or higher, you already have access to the Discord, but in case you haven't gotten around to joining and you're wondering what it's like, we asked the current Lingthusiasm Discord members for some messages to pass on to you: 

"It's like a coffee shop filled with people who like linguistics!" -mikonai [she/her]

"It's a pretty fun way to reduce your productivity during work hours" -GRAG (he/him)

convos about literally anything form coffee to pets will segue into linguistics! -iaraya

There's always someone around to chat, but there's never an overwhelming amount of notifications -Veronica (she/her)

"if you're a patron, you're probably dying to talk to someone about the show. Well, here we are." -DialMforMara (they/them)

“It’s that alignment meme about what is a sandwich but like about everything” -jetPlane

If this sounds appealing, we'd love to have you! To join the Lingthusiasm Discord, you'll need to link your Patreon and Discord accounts (which means creating a Discord account if you don't have one already). It's a bit of setup, but after that you'll be automatically added to any other Discord servers that other creators you may support on Patreon have.  Here's a step-by-step guide from Patreon. Discord itself is very easy to use once you're there, if you can type in a box you'll be fine. 

We're excited about doing more community-building activities next year, stay tuned :) 

Patreon-exclusive merch

If you're in the Ling-phabet tier, you're automatically on track to get a Lingthusiast sticker in the mail after three months, and if you're in the Phil-ling-thropist tier you're automatically on track to get a Lingthusiast mug! These aren't available in our regular merch store, they're just for patrons! (But there is quite a lot of regular Lingthusiasm merch and it makes a great gift.) 

Here are some pictures from people who have already gotten their Lingthusiast sticker or mug in the mail, if you're curious about what those look like. 

Bonus episodes

Bonus episodes are, obviously, still going strong and here to stay. We're already excited for some of the topics we have lined up for 2021! 

Don't forget, your membership gives you access to a custom RSS feed, which means you can play your bonus episodes in your podcast feed of choice, or by just hitting "play" from within Patreon, whichever you prefer. Patreon has a step-by-step guide for locating your custom RSS feed on your Patreon page. 

If you're having a hard time accessing this or any other reward, do feel free to send us a message! (via Patreon is best as that way we know which account you're talking about, but if that's confusing for you then contact@lingthusiasm.com is also fine!)

It's our fourth anniversary! 

We've just hit four years of Lingthusiasm! 

Lingthusiasm only exists because you, our wonderful patrons, keep us running. We don't have to run ads for language-related startups of dubious quality, or spend time seeking out other sources of funding, because of you. We also appreciate that you are some of our most passionate public advocates. Not only do we not have to rely on ads to fund the show, we also don't have to rely on them to get the show to new ears. We're so grateful every time you recommend Lingthusiasm to someone who needs more linguistics in their lives. Here's the public anniversary post if you're looking for something to share with people. 

This is definitely not the 2020 that anyone was expecting a year ago (Gretchen is, like, a tiny bit convinced that this entire thing is her fault because she hubristically insisted that Lauren call our planning notes "2020 Vision"?), but we know that in stressful and isolating times, parasocial relationships are one of the things that keep us going, and it's an honour to get to be that for you. 

Stay Lingthusiastic!