Sweet Spots & Sociology

Hello there

You know that thing I’ve mentioned before about cursed posts?  Yep…if I believed in such a thing then this would be one of them.

Finally getting to the point of sitting down at my desk and writing this has been a proper fuss and battle – lots of non-work stuff to contend with, some Rocky Robot work stuff, and I just took a phone call from a former acquaintance who I have not spoken to for a long time.  They drunk dialled me, said they missed me, said they loved me, then said I was a prick.  Loads.  So, believe me when I say it is genuinely nice to get some time speaking with normal people.  Hi. You are genuinely the best part of my day today.

This morning I was thinking that I’d like to have a little chat with you, discussing my present theories about digesting online content.  I do this a lot – I have little moments of analysing and theorising about how the land lies.  As I mentioned in Cabin Fever at the weekend, I had an odd little blip of grumping about responses to work last week.  It’s one of them where you get so self-absorbed and work so hard on stuff (too hard), and can’t quite get your head around why the world hasn’t stopped to immediately tell you how brilliant it is.  I’m really awful for Patreon deadlines in a similar way, like I think the sky is going to fall in if I don’t have a post ready to go by 11am, or even worse – no post at all.  I honestly act like a kid who’s not done their homework, but really needs to do their homework. As if keeping my head down at the back of the class isn’t an option.  I’ve probably wandered too far into this tenuous metaphor.

Thing is, I know first-hand, from a consumer point of view, how it is.  I certainly know that it’s a particularly distracted time at the moment, so any engagement/interaction is hard-earned, particularly when it involves a concentrated effort.  Like the Diablo story last week.  That’s quite the commitment to expect somebody to find the time to sit and read that.  If it had been on somebody else’s Patreon page that I followed, it would still be on the “to read” pile at my house. Podcasts too, I flit between listening to five in a row and then frustrated at there being no new episode.  By the time the next new one does arrive, I’ve accidentally fallen out of the loop.  Either that or I just forget.  I forget my own work that I’m in the middle of, so heaven knows what chance anyone else has.

Back to how it is on this side though.  From speaking with other creator/creatives that use this platform, we are generally in a trough at the moment.  Now, I really wish I had written down somewhere when it was, but there was a Cabin Fever or Ask Ian where I predicted this exact situation.  You’ll have to take my word for it (unless you can remember), but it was well over a year ago. There was a prime peak  around the lockdowns, but I was confident the bubble would burst there, and it would change.  And lo, so it has come to pass.  The problem was, I didn’t know how to word my prediction at the bookies, or I’d be quids in here…

I’ve found it slightly frustrating, not for the reasons you’d maybe think.  As a comparison, I’ve spoken plenty of times about the ruining of podcasts.  I still don’t like that an underground new way of doing things was hijacked and monetised.  By monetised, I mean other people syphoning cash from the independent thing, by making it into a business/production line.  I know it’s a romantic (and clearly impossible) ideal to dream that something stays independent when it’s proving successful as a movement, but I just thought it was relatively revolutionary in bypassing the ‘industry’ that had been so impenetrable for so many.  Of course, as soon as the industry got wind of it being successful, they bought it all up and made it essentially a closed shop again.  The bulk of BBC radio shows are now podcasts.  It was meant to be an alternative.  That’s how I saw it anyway. They stole our game.

Again, I must stress, this isn’t about the creators making money, it’s about all the unnecessary parasites who have created a system where they present themselves as indispensable.  They were never needed for podcasts.  They just forced their way in.  It’s the “Just Eat” business model.  A middleman that wasn’t needed, that then dictated and ruled the market.  I see it as a protection racket (and I’m not even exaggerating).

Anyway, the actual frustration I’ve had overall is the fact that I was doing this Patreon thing as a decision to bypass my involvement with the industry career I had before.  I wanted out of that and believed in the growing indie movement that online creators could curate.  Now, of course, lest you consider me a hypocrite, I'm doing this on a platform (Patreon), that could be considered a middleman.  However, I have no abilities on the technical front, with regards to websites and all that.  Like, absolutely none.  So it was relatively handy that a fledgling platform was available to me as a framework of where to put it, with the financial side all in place. I can’t even stop my own film from being regularly uploaded to YouTube.

I knew, and have always known full well, from working in the proper comedy industry (as in with the genuine movers and shakers), that the route advised would be horrible for me.  I also know that taking that route has a decent return.  Assuming that you are happy to do that.  Which I wasn’t.

So, I always knew that campaigning and canvassing to get on Mock The Week, for example, would be helpful in a comedy career.  In business senses if not artistic ones.  It all depends on what you want from it.  I felt pretty strongly against it.  In fact, even if they took a member of my family hostage, I wouldn’t have set foot on it.  I turned down the warm-up.  I’m not being pious about it, just explaining my personal feelings on it. I’ve no issue with anyone who wants to do it, doing it. We can all do whatever is right for us.

I knew that I wanted to try to curate my own fortress, where I could do all my stuff in the same place.  Which is where I run into another issue.  I know that the most stable way of doing a Patreon page is to have one thing you make, or different projects around a theme.  If somebody is a musician, they would do their music on it.  If they were an artist, they would do their art on it.  You see where this is going? I’m doing several types of art, several types of podcasts, several types of writing, several types of video posts, etc etc.  I have even launched my music career since getting that autoharp, and I imagine there are a lot of folk who get up in the morning, wait anxiously to 11am, check my post and then turn to their significant other with a sad face before quietly saying “no…he’s just written a short story…” Then their partner will put an arm around them as they softly cry, and whisper “Hey come on, it’s ok…he will do a Harping On podcast again soon…I’m sure he will…tomorrow maybe?”, and then the crying one will say “Yes…yes…maybe tomorrow” and their partner will say “Maybe tomorrow”.

But I digress…

Point is, just because I am in the mood to do something, under one of these headings, it doesn’t mean that you will be in the mood on that day.  It’s a spin of the wheel, where it could be something you like, or something you don’t.  On the up side, the content is so constant that something will be along soon, so really this is one of those Patreons that posts once a week concentrating on one thing.  It’s just that I do several ‘one thing’s each week. So it’s daft when I feel sulky because it’s not even how I view it. Sometimes I lose sight of the bigger picture of what I’m doing here.

Whilst the ongoing day after day stuff is essential, I’m also building a library of content. It’s also, as a pleasant by-product, peppered with resources too. Which is why it is so frustrating that Patreon can be so difficult to navigate, and why I began the pinned contents page. On the subject of that, if (and it’s a big if), there are any days where I appear to have been missing this week, you’ll see that on those days I will have been updating that contents page.  So I’ll still have been earning my wage, it just won’t be right under your nose. I’ll see how I’m getting on, before committing to that being definite this week.

What I’ve theorised with Patreon, is that in 2020 it became a totally understandable lifeline for a great many people who could no longer go out and do their regular job.  It was a way of transplanting their talents to the only place they could legally be flexed.  Actually, that bit isn’t theorising, that bit is just true.  The next bit is the theorising…

Patreon, in my eyes, is built around independent creation and curating – without interference – your own corner and audience.  This was a fast-growing attitude shift in creators and audience alike.  The same reason podcasts were so exciting in the early days.  Creators and audience, in sync, with a ‘buy-in’ on both sides.  Audiences understood it was a case of ‘use it or lose it’ because – by nature of it being unsubsidised by industry – independent work can only survive a limited time without the support.  It was this buy-in that made Patreon and podcasts feel like the aforementioned revolution.

Then, it wasn’t filled with people and audiences who had chosen to do it, it was filled with people who had to do it.  It wasn’t an ethos, it was a necessity. For over eighteen months, people were watching and consuming independent work.  The legal and health limitations meant that even the industry output looked like it was independent. Total saturation forcing a steadily growing and potentially fragile new movement into being the main thing.  Which it was not ready to sustain.  Especially given that the bulk of the audience had the perfectly natural underlying resentment that they had no choice.  It was this or nowt.

Which is why now – I feel – it is generally a harder sell.  Once folk had the option of “proper” stuff again, they were more than happy to not go near the indie stuff they’d had to engage with.  It’s a simple switch in reclaiming normality.  When McDonalds was shut for that period of time, folk went and utilised the independent cafés etc that were managing to stay serving.  Yet, all the time, there was an underlying frustration that this was because McDonald’s wasn’t even an option.  So when McDonald’s did finally reopen…yeah…you know the rest.

I’m reasonably hopeful it will stabilise before it’s too late and people have to abandon this manner of working.  I maybe feel it a bit more pronounced because this is my main job and I work full time on it, rather than it being a support beam in a bigger beast.

It’s certainly uncertain (check out the wording on this lad), but we all battle on, eh?  Very challenging for most of us at the minute but I feel like we will win.  Genuinely do.

Now come here and give me a hug.  We got this.  I’m very grateful for you.

All the love to you

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