Pay your Artists

One of the Youtubers I watch went through quite the drama this weekend. He'd posted a vlog about his coming out story and got rather emotional about it (it was a bad situation). In doing so, he probably mentioned more than he intended about his current financial situation. Some people were kind about that. Others did what they could to help him. Some people, however, couldn't help themselves and be critical.

The next day he did a video where he talked about how people were coming for him because they don't think he's handling what money he has in a frugal way. They think he isn't trying hard enough to find work. They took every aspect he had revealed about his life and used it to try and rake him over the coals. It was sad, but not surprising.

Here's the thing. This man does videos almost every day. Some are edited, like his Rupaul reviews, others are live chats where he engages for at least an hour with his audience, answering their questions, and talking to them. In the midst of this, he also runs his Instagram and Twitter, engaging with people and posting content to both. In other words, the amount of hours he spends entertaining his followers (between editing, recording, live vlogging, and engaging) is MORE than the hours one would put into a full-time job. And I've noticed that people want him to do even more content than he's already doing.

So he IS putting in the work. He asks for patrons at the top of his videos and then quickly at the end. He gives links in the comments to let you know where to go. That's all he does. He isn't begging for money. When you 'beg' for money there is the understanding that nothing will be given in return. Instead what he is doing is asking to be paid for the work he's doing. He's asking to be paid for providing the content his followers have demanded. He's asking to be given compensation for the hours he spends on his art so that he can continue to do the art.

A lot of people GET this or at least they're starting to get it more than they did. Artists are trying their best to cut out the middlemen because said figures tended to take more than they were ever really providing to the artists they claimed to be helping. Some people believe they should get all their content for free, and the truth is, you CAN get it for free. So long as others are doing the patronage, you can watch people all day long and never donate a dime.  However, some people feel they not only have the right to get entertained for free but also to be angry that someone would ask to be paid for their work. That isn't right.

All that will do is drive people away from creating the things that are entertaining us.