#coming from someone who has paid for merch and their patreon

[pinkpeony1]

coming out of the woodworks to say that by god so many people do not know who the “the rich” are. the three upper middle class youtubers who own a small business and live in la are not the enemy. why are people more mad at them for making an streaming service than literally ANY exec at a multibillion dollar production and streaming site, be fr.

[eggcats]

"people are mad that that artists wanted to be paid" no, people are mad that they HAD places of revenue they could have invested in and instead decided to fuck everyone over and piss off their fans who have been there since the buzzfeed days

(+ the only reason they're now saying they're not pulling content is BECAUSE of the backlash, and this isn't even going into how any growth is now impossible if it's their own platform, they are NOT big enough or produce enough content for this)

like, apparently they have a patreon? have never heard of it. absolutely no advertisement on it, when PLENTY of people would subscribe if they plugged it at ALL (like, fans love bts content, early episodes, extra/uncut stuff, having their names be credited at the end, a discord, etc) but I've never heard of it, and according to people who have subscribed, they didn't find it worth their money (not an ideal baseline for their own service)

they have merch? make more and better quality/nicer designs (or just fun quotes! so much of my stuff from their buzzfeed days is just shane quotes, but the only stuff I've bought from them now is their jackets and the professor doll, nothing else. I've looked at their catalog, it's ugly. put a funny quote on a shirt and I'll buy it guys, it's not that hard)

a youtube membership for similar stuff to the patreon, yt livestreams, USE THE PLATFORM YOURE ON MAYBE???

explicitly asking fans to turn off adblock for them on their videos

but, like, I am absolutely not paying $60 just for like 1-2 shows that only get like 4 episodes a year. they do NOT have the content for this on their own (and why tf do they have 25+ employees???? bro what) - not to mention, the inaccessibility the new platform and ability for non US based fans to even subscribe

people watch bc of the dynamic between Shane and Ryan, some of my favorite episodes are ones where we get the random text on screen- nothing fancy

tbh I get what they want but it's been my opinion that too much of their stuff that I watch has become a) formuliac and b) overproduced without much to show (imo mystery files comes to mind, it's Fine but I only enjoyed the banter vs all the unnecessary visuals, the same with ghost files)

I've seen people mention how expensive just the ghost hunting stuff is, and like yeah, maybe stop buying that big fancy brandname equipment without and instead ask for sponsors to advertise your stuff, all that stuff is nonsense anyway so it's not like you're lying about like betterhelp or something

and idk, maybe having a show where you apparently eat gold and caviar isn't the best if you're struggling with money (esp bc who watches it? not me)

what they need is someone who actually knows anything as their ceo, having less than half the staff they do, and investing in the avenues they already have with SOME pay walled content (not all), and maybe learn how to actually produce their shows without bleeding themselves dry bc the fans watch for THEM not the "production value"

[genericpuff]

saw a post criticizing lore rekindled a while back, and one of the points made was "it's unfair to rachel that someone else can profit off and make money off her work"

do you profit off lore rekindled??? i don't remember if you ever said that you were monetizing lore rekindled, so i'm unsure where this piece of information came from

I literally do NOT profit off Rekindled in any way shape or form, it's a Tumblr comic that's free to read, zero subscriptions, paywalls, or ads.

I did just recently open a Patreon and apply my Twitch channel to become affiliate, but 1. my Patreon doesn't have any paid members yet , 2. my Patreon won't be offering rewards that limit the reading experience of Rekindled (it's gonna be like random doodles n junk), and 3. I haven't even streamed since I applied for Affiliate and people are watching the streams for art and lo-fi, not for any sort of exclusive reading experiences that wouldn't also be accessible on Tumblr (you just get to watch me slowly work on Rekindled while playing FF XIV LMAOO) All of these restrictions I have in place is to prevent exactly what folks assume or accuse me - profiting off Rachel's IP. At the end of the day I just wanna create an AU fanfic project, even if it's created out of disappointment for what could have been.

I *do* spend a few hundred a month though for my assistant. So I'm working on Rekindled completely at a loss, out of my own pocket. So in that regard, even if I were to monetize any part of Rekindled... it wouldn't be for my own profitable gain, I'd maybe be able to cover some of my assistant fees 🤣 (but that's just hypothetical food for thought, because as I said above, I don't want to monetize Rekindled because of the potentially legal and ethical issues in doing so. Making money is also just not why I'm making Rekindled because it's something I wanna just do for fun! Money complicates things, turns shit into a job :'0) And let's be real, in that hypothetical scenario, I don't think any money I could generate on my free to read Tumblr project would come anywhere close to threatening Rachel's bottom line 🤣

And this isn't to throw anyone under the bus but when people get suspicious of Rekindled profiting off LO, I can't help but think of the actual fans of LO selling handmade LO merch on Etsy and LO-style adoptables and other arts and crafts dedicated to their favorite comic. And I'm not gonna judge them for that, more power to 'em if people wanna buy their cool stuff (and some of it is really REALLY cool, like I wanna buy their stuff too LOL), I just think it's ironic that people separate the two because... I'm not a diehard fan? Or because Rekindled has gotten popular here. Beats me. All that "popularity" is still just a niche remake of a niche comic in a niche medium. It's not Spiderman Lotus levels of big 🤣 but I know it probably feels that big to people who are engaged with this fandom and spend a lot of time in it.

There's an opposite side of being a yes man that perpetuates similar behavior on the other side - when you come up with reasons to rag on someone just for the sake of it because you can't rationalize them NOT being the all 100% pulp of evil LMAO (and I see people do this even to Rachel and it's not fair imo, like people who use the Lolita thing as a way to accuse Rachel of being a legitimate pedophile? Like no, I don't think we should be normalizing serious accusations like that. I think she's just misinformed in a lot of ways at worst and suffering from dark romantasy porn brainrot at best LOL).

Like, as an example, I've also seen people claim stuff like I'm in the fan spaces telling people not to read LO and to read LR instead? Which like... why would I do that, LR isn't for the fans anyways and I don't gain anything by being a dick in their space 🤣 If my own readers are doing that, that's out of my hands (but respectfully don't do this please!!! there's a reason I don't use the standard LO hashtags and only stick to the anti ones!!!!) but again (and this is a big assumption so take with grains of salt) I think people just like to claim these things because they feel it's just naturally the right thing to do when someone who has opinions they don't like actually puts them into action. Because now they can't say shit like "well if you think you're so much smarter than Rachel why don't YOU write the story!" and "you don't know what it's like to manage a comic!" so they grapple onto whatever other argument they can even if it's misconstrued or entirely pulled out of thin air and not backed up with any legitimate evidence.

Their perspectives make sense to them. My perspective makes sense to me. I don't blame people for being suspicious when they see someone like me pour this much time and effort and money into a project like Rekindled, they assume it HAS to do with something they can rationalize from their own point of view, like wanting to "steal" Rachel's work or profit off it or take it for myself out of "jealousy".

Sorry to disappoint y'all with a boring answer, but I'm just someone who was once a huge fan of LO and couldn't let it go. I'm just someone who's way too hyperfixated, with a lot of passion for making comics and experience to match. I'd still be making it even if I didn't have an assistant. I'd still be making it even if I was stuck working with nothing but paper and pencil. Because I love making it and I love what it means to me, and I love that it makes other people feel the same way I do about it.

And that's really all I have to say on that.

[mk-wizard]

The Missing Mothers of Transformers Part 3

Hello, friends. This is a bonus part of a series based on a question that was asked by me a while ago. I warn you in advance that it is a sad topic and if you’re from a family where affairs and possible children through them happened, I will keep it sensitive. I am also not discussing this to tarnish the image of Rescue Bots nor do I mean to make the Burns family look bad. Anyway, here it goes and I’m sorry in advance if I make people sad.

A while ago, I did an analysis of the Burns family on why Mrs. Burns (the mother) is missing from the series. To sum it up in a recap, after noting that Chief Burns is as traditional as they come, it is shown that he has had way too much experience caring for his family alone even with so many kids with big age differences, he doesn’t wear his wedding band and no one talks about the missing mom and there are never even pictures of her. To me, this is all some rather dark evidence that it is likely that Chief and Mrs. Burns had a pretty rocky marriage and that she was in fact in a “problem child” of a wife who left all responsibility including raising the kids to Charlie and eventually either ditched them or Charlie had enough so he kicked her to the curb for the family’s own good. I should also note as someone who is married and knows other married couples; when someone doesn’t wear their wedding band yet highly values marriage and family, it is either because they do a lot of work with their hands or their own marriage was awful. In the case of Charlie Burns, other than cooking, his hands don’t get all that dirty with any hobbies or his work, so it is very likely that the latter is the case.

Anyway, as I have been rewatching the show because I like it and good shows are worth watching again, the analysis stayed with me and something began to not sit well with me. I didn’t know it at first until I paid close attention to the family group shots. I noticed something that took even more of my innocence towards the show away. The Burns kids don’t look like their dad. And what’s even more unsettling is that... each of them looks different. I mean, look at their hair! Each one of them has different coloured or shaded hair!

Even in the episode where Cody temporarily grows up, he doesn’t look like his dad. Sure they both have moustaches, but any man has facial hair.

Let me explain all of this further. Chief Burns is a blonde with hair that was once the same shade and is the same texture as Graham’s, but what about the other three kids? Cody’s the wrong kind of blonde with the wrong kind of texture while Dani and Kade are both redheads. And not even the same kinds. Also, if I saw these four kids together and didn’t know them, the only two who look related are Graham and Cody. Kade and Dani look like they came from different families and even Cody doesn’t look like his dad.

For those of you who don’t know genetics, refer to this chart;

After taking a good look and recalling that Charlie Burns is a blonde who went gray with age, in order for him and his wife to have had redheads, she would have had to have been a brunette at least. However, even with that said, would Dani and Kade have the same type of red hair? And isn’t just their hair that’s different, Cody and Kade’s faces are different from their dad’s and from each other. And as for Dani, she doesn’t look a thing like any of her brothers. In fact, recalling that only Graham looks like the Chief, Cody, Dani and Kade all don’t look like their dad or like each other.

I am putting together a picture in my mind that is making me flinch, but I have to point it out. It is not possible for three of the kids to not look like each other and yet for all of them to have come from the same two parents. I think Cody clearly took after his mother and his dad, Dani took after her dad and Kade took after his dad. Yes, I am phrasing it that way on purpose because I think Kade, Dani and Cody... each had different fathers and none of them were Charlie. I know it’s a pretty dark conclusion especially for a kid’s show, but the evidence is just too compelling. It explains why they don’t look related and also why their age differences are all over the place. I can understand them having kids back to back with the first three, but Cody is still a kid indicating that he wasn’t planned. And suppose Mrs. Burns was fooling around with other men and getting pregnant by them, it would explain why she only left the picture after Cody was born. Charlie isn’t gullible or dumb, but for a person who was still in the beginning of his marriage, he might have just chalked up Kade and Dani’s red hair to coming from ancestors on their mother’s side and I can tell you as someone who has seen tons of babies, sometimes, who they take after is hard to read. I think it was only as the kids got older and their features matured, and Mrs. Burns’ true nature revealed itself, that Charlie became suspicious. And if at this point, things between them were that rocky, it is very likely that they became physically distant too. This means that Mrs. Burns fourth pregnancy which resulted in Cody could have only come from an affair which also gave away that she was having one because how else did she get pregnant if she wasn’t getting any from her husband?

The picture I draw after this is that after Cody was born, Charlie found out the truth about his other two kids not really being his either so he divorced his cheating wife. I don’t know if he threw her out and kept Cody out of compassion because he knew he was in for a bad life with such a sleazy woman or if Mrs. Burns just left and abandoned the family. I am also not sure if any of the kids are aware that Charlie isn’t really their dad if what I’m saying is true though judging by the way they act, I would have to say none of them know.

I know this fan theory is very, very sad, but in a way it also highlights to what extent Charlie is a good man and a hero. Most men would have been broken upon finding out that the majority of their kids weren’t theirs and would have even abandoned them. Charlie did no such thing. He stepped up and clearly loves all four of those kids as his own.

I also want to point out to anyone who says “well, it’s a cartoon so it’s going to have character design goofs”, all of the other characters who are family look related at least. Frankie is hinted to be the spitting image of her biological mother though her lips are that of her dad’s and her half-sister baby CeCe is a blend of her dad and stepmother.

And even mayor Luskey and his brother look related at least. Same nose, chin, eyebrows, face shape and hair. Their dimples even fall in the same places. Only the heights, body types, weights and skin tones are difference. If these two men can be so different yet can still easily pass off as brother yet the Burns kids are not so easy to pass off as family, you know something is up. And it wasn’t bad character design.

Once again, I am sorry if I made you sad and I hope I was sensitive towards people who have walked in these shoes. It is not a pleasant topic, but in a way, it is a good thing that Transformers represents people in these situations and shows us that it doesn’t matter where you came from. What matters is that you’re a good and kind person, and that love is what makes a family.

I would love to hear what people think of this theory I drew up or rather, the expansion on an existing theory. Hats off to the REAL dads and REAL moms who step up to the plate when other cowardly leave.

If you have a Transformers theory or character analysis you want explored, please let me know in my ask box. And please, support me through Patreon or Ko-fi if you want me to make Transformers merch and videos. Or if you want a commission of your favourite bot, let me know in my shop. All links are on my profile page.

Thanks for reading and please, stay safe. And please, take time to tell your parents how much you love them especially during this time of the year.

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

Comiket Encounter [Part 1]

So, is Iroha’s booth ready?

Yeah, it’s all set up. The staff are keeping watch for now.

Good to hear. I better get over to my booth too.

You have a booth?

Yep. I’m helping to promote an internet series I developed. It’s nothing big but it gained a pretty large cult following recently.

Where is Iroha actually?

She’s still getting ready.

...

Oh, there she is.

...

Hey Iroha.

My fellow Kyojin’s. Let us go! To the battlefield!

Good to see she already understands the procedure is like being up shit creek without a paddle.

Hey there. Are you perhaps Iroha Nijiue?

Yes! Y-Yes I am.

Your table is right over here.

That guy kind of looked like your boss Kuripa.

I think he was cosplaying my boss. That would be why.

So...People cosplay other people now?

Well, everyone in Future Foundation is basically a celebrity. Especially those who survived the killing game.

It’s weird to have people come and capitalize on you. Especially when people start buying merch of you out of the nowhere. But I at least find it entertaining. Even Hifumi and Ryota have merch of them. Even Junko Enoshima has some.

I think it’s more like the clothes we wear just got a lot more popular.

Same difference in my eyes.

Is that really a good thing?

Hm?

Making merchandise of Junko Enoshima? She kind of wrecked the world, didn’t she? She’s basically the most evil woman who ever lived.

Isn’t it kind of like going to a fancy dress party dressed as Adolf Hitler?

You could look at it that way, but the people who did it originally went to Future Foundation for a grant, and we accepted.

Why?

Because we took it as a sign. A sign that people have reduced Junko to just a costumed character, and no longer feel the despair she once wrought. A sign that we aren’t scared of her anymore.

I see...Well, alright then.

Ah! Hey there! What a coincidence!

Oh, hi Kana-chan! Is this your booth?

Oooh! Are we gonna be booth rivals now?

Haha. No, silly. I’m just doing autographs for the anime series I recently voice acted in. I’m not actually running the booth.

But if there’s anything that I can help you with while I’m around, I’ll be sure to lend a hand when I’m on a break.

You know, if I GET a break. Hehe.

Being a VA must be hard work...Who do you play.

...?

*Kuripa goes to the front of the booth and looks at the placard with everyone’s names.

Oh, you’re the new VA for Pera. The Girl with the Power of Lust.

Power of Lust?

Sins of the Lord. It’s a TV show about 7 kids who fight 7 other evil guys, all of who wield powers based around the 7 Deadly Sins. The leader is Bradley, and Pera, the character I play, is the main heroine, deuteragonist and aspiring love interest.

So you know it Kuripa?

Hm...In a waaay...

Why do you sound so suspicious?

And so the mask from my face finally falls, and the truth of all that was remained hidden...

Can you stop speaking so cryptically and actually say something coherent?

You know how the creator of this series is registered Takuto Mikizuki?

Yeah...?

Truth be told...

I’m actually the creator of this anime. Takuto Mikizuki is just a pen name/alias.

...!

...!

...!

...!

...!

...

So...Someone say something...?

Wha...hah...?

If you looked into the series lore, you’ll know it started out as a basic flash animated series. Then some big company took the creator on and turned it mainstream. It paid pretty well for the time.

In the end I decided to duck out when they were talking about a second series. I decided it was time to pass the torch, you know?

They offered me a contract and everything but...I didn’t have the energy to go through it. I had enough money to get by anyway, and I do make some decent money from my typically animation work via FundMe’s and Patreons, so...

Wh-Why are you all looking at me like that?

You have to be kidding me!?

Woah! Wh-Why are you angry!?

I’m not angry! I’m just super shocked!

Sins of the Lord has 3 series already and you ducked out after the first!? It’s at the biggest it’s ever been now!

They sell toys and merchandise by the boatload and it has like...3 video games already! You’re really the creator!?

I...I don’t believe it!

Are you some kind of idiot!? You could’ve been so rich! You really blew it!

I’m already fairly rich just from the money I got from the series alone. Even I wasn’t expecting it to skyrocket like that. And don’t call me an idiot.

Oh, I’m sorry, does DUMBASS work any better!?

Tch...!

Seriously Kuripa, you could’ve been a celebrity!

That’s kind of why I passed it up. I don’t want fame. Fame would just give me a big head.

And if I ever change my mind one day, well, I’ll just have to make another anime, won’t I? It’s not like it’s difficult for me.

And I’m surprised you didn’t realize Kibin. You’ve seen me pay for a lot of your stuff and I have like 2 million yen worth of figures on the shelf in my room.

Yeah...It makes sense now...You’re no starving artist, that’s for sure.

I think I lost a few years of my life from this conversation.

Why!? You know I’m an animator!

I didn’t know you made Sins of the Lord!

Guys! Let’s just calm down. We’re attracting a lot of unnecessary attention.

Ah, you’re right.

*sigh* Sorry guys. This one is on me...

It’s fine. But...wow, that came as a surprise.

Well, we’d better get off to our booth Kibin, or we’re not gonna be there to greet the line.

Yeah...Well...Guess we’ll catch you guys later.

Good luck with your first booth Iroha!

Thank you!

[francisbaconguy]

To anyone who wants to commission VivziePop for a full scale drawing according to this tweet: https://twitter.com/VivziePop/status/1261016646853902336

My advice: STOP AT ONCE!!!!

DO NOT!!! I REPEAT, DO NOT DO IT!!!! STAY AWAY FROM THAT TRASH OF A POST!!! Your just going to end up getting your money stolen for years on end! Why? Because Viv is not mature enough to handle it! She is not READY AND NEVER WILL BE!!!!

Viv, your fans aren’t your damn welfare check! It’s not there responsibility to clean up after your shit! It’s called a JOB!!! A job that you don’t hand! Being a producer and showrunner is a career only for professionals who are responsible and can actually do proper management!

If you want to pay a bill, get off your ass and work for it! Do freelance, an office job, even a yard sale! But WORK!

Don’t sit back on your ass and use their money to pay people to do cartoons for you!

If you want to animate too for your cartoons, be my guest! But there’s gotta be some money coming from that too!

A problem with Viv is that she makes a lot of hollow promises and tries to bite off more than she can chew. She wants to make Hazbin a reality, wants to make a Helluva series, wants to animate Zoophobia, Tinder, a series of comics; but she can’t get off her lazy ass to even work on these commissions.

If you ask me, she shouldn’t have done them; PERIOD!

Because they are a huge responsibility and God knows how many she has taken. And Patreons also have to get a fucking’ speedraw with their purchase. A FUCKING SPEEDRAW!!! Her priority should’ve went to the Patreons and Patreons alone because it’s all done on a monthly basis and God knows how much money stashed was given to her.

For the production or no, that’s still a lot of bacon they gave. Not to mention that merch sales are also padded to the pile for budget, even if contributors have been given a cut.

Viv is just not good with managing money from the looks of it. I have half the mind to believe that some portions of the commission money also pile to the budget too. And maybe it would’ve been wise for her to actually make a decent and appropriate budget and work within the limitations (such as animating yourself or maybe heaven forbid; cut corners like rigging) instead of overly-expensive stuff like using a union voice record for Helluva Boss and getting big time people like Parry Gripp and Weird Al Yankovic involved.

I compare Viv’s strategy between two artists that she worked with; Nico Colaleo and Maxwell Atoms; one whom was more strategical and one that had a complete flop.

Nico was the creator of Ollie and Scoops (Viv voiced in the show). He did everything he was suppose to do before tackling on a big production he created. He pitched it first, worked on his own show for Dreamworks, and was able to build connections, save a bundle by STILL WORKING (Netflix) and was able to assemble a crew that were far more into consistency and expressive than Hazbin. And that show is gonna get a hell lot of celebrities; I’m talking Matilda from the movie, Angry Video Game Nerd and Kevin “Batman” Conroy. I’m shocked Weird Al turned the show down. Could’ve had potential.

Maxwell created Billy and Mandy and had a film that he Kickstarted called Dead Meat (Viv volunteered for it). Maxwell did not do his research and while he made a great working environment and a unique concept, had to spend a large portion of the budget on the actors alone because it was union, and he didn’t do his paperwork / research correctly which makes him legally unable to complete it without making major changes that would’ve made the project different. Most of what he can do is figure out a way to properly refund the backers because it has been 10 years. At least he learned from his mistakes and had to officially explain it instead of hiding like a coward.

What does this have to do with commissions? Because not only do I sense that the commission money is going to clean up any messes she made for production, but I also think that it’s a primary example of her falling into a flop category as Maxwell is.

I fear that people who commission with Viv are just gonna end up with no money in their pocket while Viv tries to find someone who can clean up her spilled milk.

Also, I saw a lot of posts saying that animators at Hazbin aren’t paid at all or paid enough. Most of their justifications come from using Viv’s Patreon goal of “full time paid” or Animator Guilds’ union rates to justify the claim. I will say that unless someone who literally worked for Viv immediately justifies the claim, I wouldn’t listen to it.

Rates are gonna vary from studio to studio, artist to artist, job to job; there’s no such thing as a set pay-rate. Some are paid hourly, some are paid bi weekly or weekly, some follow a “per second” / “per minute” guideline. Pencilmation, Skynamic Studios, Hobbykids and most indie productions follow the same guideline, which is a good tactic to get cheap and fair work while dangling the creative freedom carrot around. From what’s to speculate and from people who work on productions similar to Viv, her productions pay a “per second” system.

Again, rates and numbers are gonna vary from duty and artist but that’s the same system used in many independent productions. Is it common? Yes. Is it the same benefit as union rates? No. But it doesn’t necessarily support the not paying enough theory when you don’t even know the living conditions of said artists who work for Viv in the first place. For all you know, Viv’s job saved their unemployment.

However that doesn’t mean not all artists were comfortable working with Viv. There was a voice actor who was initially gonna sing as one of the main characters in one of Viv’s projects but was mysteriously replaced without his knowledge. According to him, working with Viv was stressful. Another storyboard artist was annoyed drawing her characters and was wanted to get the “damn” thing over with because they were awful. This shows that Viv can’t please everyone she works with.

All of this attributes on how Viv wants to overdo her creative urges by creating MORE and MORE. It’s okay to create outlets of materials such as cartoons and comics to keep your creativity alive, but doing too much will burn you out, which is what happened to her. She burns out too much which makes her unable to complete what she owed.

Hence why I say; DO NOT COMMISSION HER AGAIN!!! LET VIV FEND FOR HERSELF! LET HER USE HER CREATIVE VIBE ON ACTUAL WORK TO GET PAID! LET HER WORK HER ASS OFF!!!

If you wanna do it out of her own free will, go ahead. But I will advise to think it through. If you let her goat you to donate, what would you possibly have to gain from it? What’s in it for you; for the long year wait of a simple drawing?

Which btw, has a lot of questioning onto the price. While some artists do have high prices worth for their time, her room for improvement on her own artwork (anatomy, perspective) mixed with her inability to make deadlines kinda makes the price skeptical to worth that large amount.

So again, those who donate, what’s in it for you?

And if you want to donate just for the sake of the art, Don’t. Just don’t. Save your money and let her earn hers. She will be fine financially working on her own.

UPDATE: It came to my attention that Hazbin has officially been picked up for a TV show deal. Well I’m proud of Viv for making her dream a reality. However, unless I see an update on Viv on how she wants to handle the process of commissions owed or were in the Patreon, this post is still staying up. But now that she’s gonna be playing in the big leagues, please don’t commission her until she cleans up her mess. It’s better for her sake and yours!

[allthingslinguistic]

Part V - What can a Weird Internet Career look like?

Previously: How to make money doing a Weird Internet Career

Eight years into building it, what does a reasonably fully-fledged Weird Internet Career as an internet linguist look like, day to day? We can basically break this down by the headers on my website. Note that this is a snapshot as of late 2019 and the mix will probably keep changing in future! 

Freelance writing - I do some short-form article writing, especially my column for Wired and other interesting places that come my way, such as a recent op ed for the New York Times on English in 200 years. I have no need to pitch new venues, as more places approach me than I have time to write for, which places me in an excellent negotiating position for rates, but I still wouldn't recommend someone do freelance writing as their only revenue stream (people do it! but it seems hard). It is, however, worth it to me part-time for visibility, as it feeds other areas. (Note that "less than other areas because the visibility feeds those other areas" is not at all the same as "working for free for exposure" though.)

Book publishing - Because Internet, my book about internet language, came out this year. Almost all of the work on the writing side was finished by 2018 (just some edits), but I spent a solid week in May recording the audiobook and then July, August, and September pretty much just full time promoting it. (Talking about the book has been a part-time thing throughout this whole year, and more lightly ever since I announced it in 2015, and working on the book itself was the biggest chunk of my time in 2016, 2017, and 2018.) Because of the way book advances are standardly paid (one portion on signing, one portion on delivery and acceptance of the manuscript, one portion on publication), the book also brought in money this year. (For future, I need to figure out whether I want books to continue to be part of the mix or whether I'd rather focus on other areas.)

Podcast - Lingthusiasm, my podcast with Lauren Gawne, makes money from people who have listened to all the main episodes and are sad because they now have to wait for new episodes once a month. We solve this problem by letting them pay to get an additional episode every month and access to the whole back catalogue of bonus episodes, which we do via Patreon. It also makes money from people who want stylish or amusing linguistics items to show off their nerdery in everyday life, aka our merch. 

The podcast has been part time for each of us since 2016 and bringing in at least some revenue since 2017, though it also goes towards paying the awesome team that helps us make the show. We incurred upfront costs in starting the show, since we were both so busy that we couldn't take on another project without a team to help with things like audio editing and transcripts, so it only really started making some profit in 2018. When we started Lingthusiasm, my cohost and I had a combined decade+ in experience running our own separate linguistics blogs, so the audiences we had already built definitely helped the podcast get off the ground faster. 

Consulting and speaking - I do various talks and consulting engagements for companies interested in the future of communication, who want me to help them figure out how language is changing and what this means for their business. Often they read Because Internet or encounter a few of my media interviews about it and realize that they really want to ask an internet linguist their specific questions as applied directly to their industry (often tech or communications). These engagements often pay well but aren't very visible (and some are under NDA), so people who want to hire me for them often find me through my writing or media and then verify that I'm an engaging speaker though the podcast or through videos of previous talks. I expect this area to keep expanding as I’ve recently signed on with a speaking agency. 

Most of my revenue comes from the four areas listed above. (Also, full disclosure, my expenses have increased since I started doing this full-time in 2014 because it turns out that it's not actually particularly fun to live like a grad student forever, though Montreal rents remain shockingly reasonable and Canadian healthcare continues to exist.) I also do the three less profitable areas listed below, because they feed into the other things: 

Public speaking - I also do talks at conferences and public events where people are interested in understanding the hidden patterns behind the language they're already using on their devices, which don't always pay as well but can be a great way to meet interesting people, get people interested in my book or podcast, and get invited to further interesting things. This could eventually pay more, though probably never as much as more corporate public speaking, so I consider it more like the freelance writing category in terms of the visibility/profitability tradeoff. 

Media and social media - I do a ton of media interviews, both about the book directly and indirectly about internet linguistics! (This year I did over 100 in July and August alone, see: full-time job promoting the book.) I also hang out on various social media (especially twitter and the blog), posting interesting things about linguistics. These don't pay at all, directly, but they do pay indirectly when they lead people to decide to buy my book or listen to the podcast or engage me to write/speak for them. 

Other things - Sometimes I fit in an academic talk, especially when it's conveniently located or at a conference where I'm going to meet interesting people. (Trying to get paid via a university bureaucracy is becoming more hassle than it's worth, though, and I can only take on so much travel in a given year, so I'm not really trying to expand in this direction. Sorry, academia friends.) I don't do ads or sponsored content on any of my platforms (blog or podcast), the most I do in this direction is accept free books to potentially review, which honestly kinda just creates more unpaid work for myself but also I like books, so here we are. Sometimes I make a few bucks in Amazon affiliate revenue when I link to a book I like from the blog, but nothing to write home about. 

If you want to go back and trace how this developed, much of it is already available online. I'd suggest starting with my year in review blog post for 2013 (I didn't do one for 2012, even though I had the blog, because it was still solidly a hobby at that point, though I did do a one-year anniversary post earlier in 2013). Then you can go for the 2014 year in review for the first half of 2014, plus the archives of my monthly summary posts which start in mid-2014 (scroll all the way back!), which was basically when I decided that I was actually making a sustainable enough career out of all of these weird things cobbled together that it was worth documenting how all the pieces fit together in public. That's also why I'm writing this series, because it's interesting to have an archive and those first few years involved a lot of behind-the-scenes things that didn't make sense to talk about at the time but which came to fruition in later years, as described in Part II. 

I started adding caveats to the various categories ("wouldn't suggest doing this by itself" "good for revenue but not visibility" "good for visibility but not revenue") and realized that I would need to add caveats like that to everything on the list. In fact, that's why I also think of my career as a portfolio career, which is slightly different from being a Weird Internet Career. In theory, you could have a portfolio career that's not internet-based, such as a writer/actor/director/producer, or a Weird Internet Career where all your revenue comes from one source, such as a very popular app or tons of ad revenue. But I think many Weird Internet Careers are also portfolio careers, and that's probably more stable — what if you saturate the market for your one popular product, or some platform that you were relying on dries up? 

That's why, when people say "I want to be you when I grow up" or "how do I have a pop linguistics career", I always want to reply, okay, sure, but which one? The particular set of things that I have in my Weird Internet Career portfolio are things that I enjoy and am good at or at least enjoy working at becoming good at. For example, I really like public speaking, and I've been doing it even longer than I've been doing linguistics, so I'm actively trying to add more linguistics speaking now that I have time after the book, including most recently signing with a speaking agency, whereas someone else who hated public speaking might not want to branch out in that direction. But on the other hand, I don't really do a lot with instagram or youtube (except when collaborating with people who already have the production capacity for video, such as recent collabs with Tom Scott and Crash Course), even though there are totally people making a living with those as a significant area. (One person just can't do everything.) 

Plus, the cross-pollination can be really helpful: lots of people who started by listening to me on the podcast then bought my book, and lots of people who discovered me via the book are now getting started with the podcast. Another example of cross-pollination: I started taking media interviews back in 2013, and I realized that while I found it a satisfying way to get out more accurate information about linguistics (it's faster than writing all the articles myself!), media was never going to pay directly, so if I wanted to keep doing media, I needed to have something to promote, which the book and the podcast now accomplish. 

It's worth noting that this mix of activities is as of late 2019, that it's changed before and will change again. Maybe the internet or media landscape changes. Maybe what I want to do changes (I could decide I want to travel more or less, for example). Maybe I get tired of some part, or other interesting things come my way. But having multiple things going at once means that my overall Weird Internet Career as an internet linguist is a state of stable chaos — one or two of these pillars could completely implode and the rest would be able to pick up the slack.  

But Gretchen, you might be thinking, you got all this stuff by starting things in 2012 and 2013 and 2014. What about me? Am I too late to start my own Weird Internet Career? I don't think so, and the next post in this series talks about why.

I’m posting this series about Weird Internet Careers and how to build them to my blog over the next few weeks. However, if you want to get the whole series now as a single doc, with bonus Weird Internet Career-building questions to think about, you can sign up for my newsletter on Substack here, which will also get you monthly updates about my future Weird Internet Career activities as an Internet Linguist.

Part I - What is a Weird Internet Career? Part II - How I Built a Weird Internet Career as an Internet Linguist Part III - How to start a Weird Internet Career Part IV - How to make money doing a Weird Internet Career Part V - What can a Weird Internet Career look like? Part VI - Is it too late for me to start my Weird Internet Career? Part VII - How to level up your Weird Internet Career

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Art reposting etiquette

I see art theft happen a lot, and whether or not it's true or has just been happening more frequently in the circles I follow I can't help but at least feel like it's becoming more and more of a problem.

To be clear, "reposting" is downloading art from a website that you did not make or own, and uploading it as a separate post, regardless of where and how it's presented - with notable exception of header and profile pictures assuming they are not trying to imitate the artist. Not all art theft is reposting, but all improper reposting is art theft.

As cut and dry as "stop art theft it's bad, don't repost art" posts make it sound, there are several benevolent reasons people may want to repost such as:

Believing they are spreading the artist's influence around the internet

Adding intrigue or a visual aid to a fanfiction

Sharing some neat art they thought was really cool

Just to name a few

Assuming the best in people, these are not necessarily bad reasons and DON'T MAKE PEOPLE BAD, but many often don't understand there's a dark side to the reposting issue.

People who may want more art may be unable to find the original creator

People may not realize that the artist makes rent with the very artwork you're enjoying and they may be looking at stolen premium content meant to put food on the table

People take art and further edit it so that it becomes even harder to trace back to the original

Malicious websites and bots find popular fanart and illegally use it to produce bootleg merch. This has a double-whammy effect when someone sees the merch IRL when out and about and wants it because it's cool art of their favorite character but don't realize the artist is actively being robbed.

Reposting art makes it harder for the artist to track down the thief and take legal action as well as actively funnels traffic away from their business. By and large it should always be assumed that reposting for any reason is damaging to the artist's wellbeing; and frankly, if you don't care you're actively hurting someone, it makes you the asshole, not me for calling you out.

But, that isn't to say reposting is NEVER allowed, but ONLY UNDER EXTREMELY SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES. That's the point of this post.

Before you can decide if you should even attempt to repost art, check these things first:

If it says directly on the art "do not repost" don't waste your time. They are not going to make an exception for you.

Check to see if the art is already on the platform you're planning to upload to (especially here on Tumblr). Often, artists make it a point to put their work in very specific locations for their own reasons. They may not want their work on your website at all and you need to respect that.

Gain the artist's explicit permission after explaining where you want to repost their work, which work you want to repost, and why with how you plan to credit them. If you gain permission, keep a copy of the conversation for your own protection. If you do not gain permission, don't repost at all.

If you gain permission to repost art, these things are an absolute necessity:

Mention of the artist's name

THEIR main platform of choice

link to the original piece used

It would likely look something like this:

Artwork uploaded with express permission by @[artist] on [website], found here - (hyperlinked to original piece)

Bonus information to include:

Additional social media handles of the artist

Link to the artist's Patreon and/or Ko-Fi if available

Link to artist's store if available

Hyperlinking the image itself so other users can just click it to find the work/artist

Remember reposting should be about the artist, NOT YOU. You didn't create the work, and even if you supported them via Patreon it still doesn't belong to you, nor are you entitled to it. A commission you personally paid for is the only piece of work of that artist's creation you are ever entitled to unless otherwise stated in a contract when you bought it.

To continue to cover my bases I'm going to address some stances that may pop up about the issue:

"I didn't know reposting was that bad!"

It's okay. That's why I made this post. In general, as a supportive fan and consumer you should try to learn how artists are rewarded for their work on different platforms. YouTube is different from Instagram is different from Facebook is different from Tumblr. Learn which best ways to support your favorite artists in the ways that are most beneficial to them, even if all they ask for is respect and a little appreciation. And do take down any art you may have reposted. It can continue to do damage by remaining up, but removing it almost always mitigates any future harm and genuinely helps. Now you know better and can be better moving forward!

"I can't get ahold of the artist for permission."

Don't repost it then. Remember, at the end of the day reposting is only good for the reposter in fake internet points or actual money/intellectual property stolen but always tangibly hurts the artist. It sucks, but they have a right to determine where and how their hard work is displayed.

"Whatever, I'll do what I want. Lol"

Enjoy your takedown. Hey, artists, did you know you can find each website's terms of service and figure out how to submit a report with the offending post and user, and they're usually good about getting it down within days?! Look for "misappropriation" that's your ticket! 😊

But seriously, repeat offenders can get permanently banned from sites and even sued for actual real-world money and damages over your precious fake internet points. It actually pays to not be an ass!

"But I just want to support the artist and reposting is so easy!"

You know what's even easier?

It's literally only one or two clicks to support the artist or tell them how much you love their work! Most other platforms make supporting content creators just as easy, and some platforms even PAY the creators based on them or enable them to grasp opportunities to be paid!

"But I don't want to bog down my followers with a huge reblog dump of one person's stuff."

Put it in queue to space it out, then.

"I don't have money to support the artist so I repost instead to give them exposure."

Time and time again it's been proven that reposting actively funnels money AWAY from them. You don't have to monetarily support them with much. Buy one thing from their store or give them $1 on Ko-Fi. If you can't even do that, tell them you love their stuff and shout to the rooftops where someone else can pay them; but don't make it harder for them to get paid. Too many artists "die of exposure."

"Why do you even care?"

I AM an artist. I currently support artists with real money monthly because I love their work. I only ever make money off my own art on commissions, and that relies on people being able to find me. I'm not even the one supporting my two children, husband, pet, and medical expenses with only this option to pay for it, and you bet your butt I still would be pissed if I ever found out my art had been misappropriated. Some people do this to SURVIVE and I want to see that those who do have as little unnecessary struggle with it as possible.

"It's fanart/fan content put on the internet for free I can do whatever I want with it!"

At least in North America the law says you can't. Did you know that the way laws are currently written, if someone takes a picture of you and finds a way to make money off that photo they don't owe you a dime? They hold the copyright to it. When art is displayed publicly, that copyright is not surrendered and is automatically afforded to the artist by virtue of it being their specific expression and work. By being their work, they can actually sue you for stealing their property.

Ask Disney, they're really good at it.

And to close this out I want to say one more thing: the internet has changed a LOT in the time I started browsing from the early 2000's. Rules are different, cultures are different, and for younger people especially you may not understand how some have had to (and still do) fight tooth and nail over this internet space and still make it.

If you didn't know all this, THAT'S OKAY! You're learning, and the internet is more or less a wild west right now. That means it's equal opportunity to be a killing field or a place we can lift up and support each other. Reposting is just one corner of the bad things that can come of it, but now you know how to help and even start reversing the damage.

Learn about how people who upload free content make money. When you find misappropriated work, report them to the site and try to inform the artist - don't even acknowledge the thief, just slap a ticket on them and move on. Teach others how and why reposting is bad and what they can do to help.

If you love free content, show respect and protect it. Otherwise, artists will have to put it behind a paywall and that content you loved will disappear over time. Respect will get you a much greater return than entitlement.

[dippedanddripped]

Niche stars and not-quite celebrities are churning out namesake products — T-shirts, coloring books, tissue boxes — made for a dedicated few.

By Jon Caramanica

When he was 13, Leo Mandella began posting photos of his street wear outfits to his Instagram account, @gullyguyleo, and with his sophisticated color sense, confident poses and baby face, he was a quick hit. His hundreds of posts earned him a follower count comfortably in the six figures, but still he craved more.

“I want to show that I’m more than a kid who wears outfits,” Mr. Mandella, now 15, said in a recent interview. “I’ve always known if this blows up, I can create a brand on the back of it.”

Making clothing of his own would be a natural extension of his brand — Mr. Mandella eventually released a few items under the Gully brand name — but he wanted to make a loud, unexpected splash. His idea: a coloring book, with 25 line illustrations of him wearing high-end street wear, accompanied by a pack of Gully crayons. Released late last year, it sold several hundred copies.

“We wanted to make it exclusive, for the people who were actually passionate about buying,” Mr. Mandella said.

Which is to say, for the people who were so passionate about Mr. Mandella — a teenager living in Warwick, England who invented himself online from whole designer cloth — that they craved an even more tactile connection. His coloring book is part of an emergent movement of micromerch: personal merchandise for niche public figures and celebrities (or even not-yet celebrities) made possible by innovations in manufacturing and distribution, and with mechanisms greased by the ease of the internet.

Consider it the modern-day equivalent of the private-press LP or the small-batch zine, amplified for social media and very late capitalism.

Buying merch — T-shirts, key chains, mugs, etc. — to support a band, or a favorite actress, has been a common expression of fandom for decades. And in recent years, merch has begun to infiltrate fashion on two fronts. Companies like Bravado, the merchandising arm of the Universal Music Group, have propelled traditional musician merch into the hypebeast cycle. And brands including Vetements and Balenciaga have absorbed merch aesthetics into meta-referential clothing.

Now, though, small-batch merch — a couple dozen to a couple thousand items — can be made available for almost anyone, from emergent social media or reality TV demicelebrities to casual dadaists who toy with the dissemination of ideas in the modern marketplace. In an era when personal branding is presumed, no following is too small to monetize.

Want to show support for Sean Bryan, a.k.a. the Papal Ninja, an American Ninja Warrior contestant and lay minister? There’s a shirt (and laptop case) for that. Enthralled by the 1980s sunglasses worn by the rubber-legged teen social media star Roy Purdy in his absurdist dance videos? For a while, he sold them, too. Obsessed with Gordie, the French bulldog owned by Alex Tumay, who engineers Young Thug’s records? Buy a shirt.

“I’d never pitched myself as a product to people,” Mr. Tumay said. “It was kind of a sellout angle I was worried about.” But he’s sold around 50, and the money he took in paid for flights for him and his partners to go to the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin last month.

Peloton, the home indoor cycling business, has a stable of a dozen instructors, and sells merch inspired by each. Jill Foley, Peloton’s director of boutique apparel, said the company has sold hundreds of T-shirts and tank tops with instructor catchphrases like “It’s Not That Deep” (Cody Rigsby) and “Sweat Sing Repeat” (Jenn Sherman).

“We’re getting messages to people in this micro way,” Ms. Foley said, emphasizing the intimacy of the relationship Peloton riders develop with their chosen instructors. “We’re in people’s homes in their daily life.”

At times, the micromerch comes before the notoriety. On the most recent season of “The Bachelorette,” Lucas Yancey spent most of his energy screaming “WHABOOOOOOM,” rather than pursuing Rachel Lindsay. Conveniently, he was already selling shirts with the phrase on his website.

In this, at least, he was ahead of the curve. Most graduates of the Bachelor ecosystem migrate into the murky worlds of paid Instagram posts and event appearances, but Ashley Iaconetti, a contestant known for persistent waterworks and committed virginity, decided to become the brand herself. “I always thought myself being so known for crying,” she said. “Why don’t I have a deal with Kleenex or Puffs?”

Instead, she began selling her own tissue boxes (in truth, a printed sleeve with line drawings of Ms. Iaconetti’s forlorn face sheathing a plain white tissue box) along with other merchandise. “Snooki was Snooki, and now she’s kind of her own brand,” she said. “Also, Kylie lip kits subconsciously encouraged me.” (Indeed, the peak micromerch endgame is something like Kim Kardashian West’s Kimoji, which sells pool floats, mouse pads and Post-it notes shaped like her derrière, among other items.)

These nascent micro-personality businesses may never reach that level of name recognition or profitability, but they’re something more than mere pet projects. “The easiest term is to call it a brand,” Matthew Hwang of Pizzaslime said, but conceded that wasn’t quite sufficient. “We almost need to come up with new words.”

Pizzaslime is a creative agency specializing in creating viral moments, and also a rapid-response merchandise business specializing in capitalizing on them. Early last year, a sharp-tongued teenager, Danielle Bregoli, went viral following a hilarious moment on “Dr. Phil” where she threatened judgmental audience members to “cashmeoussidehowbowdah” (say it slow). Within two weeks, Pizzaslime had made a slew of merch for her featuring the catchphrase, including a $250 blanket featuring her face — all sold out.

“When anyone is smart enough to build a following on social media, strategic in the ways they build their content, they can utilize those same sort of strategies for merchandise,” Mr. Hwang said.

Which raises the question of what the smallest following a person can have while still being able to sell merchandise can be. “I’ve worked with people who have 10 million Instagram followers and they’ve done less than someone with 20,000,” said Chase Ortega, who owns the Hyv (pronounced “hive”), a merchandise company that primarily handles emerging musicians, but which has employed the same infrastructure to service merch for several nontraditional clients, including the feminist artists Grace Miceli and Molly Soda, the social media star Too Poor (an ex-girlfriend of Lil Peep and something of a modern-day Nancy Spungen), and the surrealist comic artist Zack Fox.

“I think of it as a new record label. I’m not trying to be Bravado,” Mr. Ortega said. “I want to be the Matador. I want a cool roster.”

That frees him up him to sell, with Mr. Fox, a couple of hundred water bottles emblazoned with a reclaimed bigoted phrase (that can’t be published here) derived from a Twitter meme.

For Mr. Fox, merch isn’t strictly about celebrity. “I’ve always leaned more into making things artistically valid to me,” he said. In buying the water bottle, he explained, “You’re buying a piece of performance; you’re not really trying to rep Zack Fox.”

That tension between the intentions of the purchaser and creator also intrigues Ayesha Siddiqi, a creative consultant specializing in trend forecasting with a robust Twitter following who, in partnership with the artist and musician Saba Moeel, recently collaborated on the design of a collection of shirts and hoodies. Some are drawn directly from Ms. Siddiqi’s tweets, like the hoodie that reads Spider Labor Solidarity. “It means what it says — that my solidarity is with the workers, especially those who work quietly and alone and for the benefit of all those around them,” Ms. Siddiqi wrote in an email.

But even though they weren’t intended as personal merch, some people have been buying them, she said, “because they were fans of ours to begin with and liked the opportunity to support something we’d made.”

In some cases, micromerch may be the pretense for providing an undersupported creative with some revenue, a cousin of Patreon subscriptions or Twitch micropayments. For Mr. Fox, selling merchandise has provided an alternate revenue stream, and one with ideological punch. “The idea is a seed, and it’s always going to upstream to someone making money off it,” he said. “Me selling this stuff is a way to, in one moment, protect the idea and also give myself what’s due.”

It can also be a way to extend a moment that might otherwise be fleeting, give it physical form so that it might travel far beyond where it began. And it can lead to bigger things. Recently, Mr. Mandella was tapped by a Converse to help relaunch the One Star sneaker. On his Instagram, he posted a photo of himself inside a bus covered in a 15-foot-tall photo of him. Who’s micro now?

[mcs4ssyp4nts]

Fuck Greg. Just from Patreon he makes over $4,000 plus Lainey’s little bit which is over $1,000. All together they make over $6,000 a month on Patreon alone! 

Both Greg and Lainey get on YouNow almost every single day. I’m not sure how much they average on tips per day. But regardless it’s still money in their pockets. Greg still sells merch, and his shitty books as well. He still gets money from YouTube. Not as much as he used to but still the money is there. So does Lainey. 

And this stupid mother fucker decides to make his channel a paid channel. Which okay that’s not where I have the problem. TallVideos said that he was automatically charged when Greg did this. So if that’s true anyone else that had a card connected to their account was also charged. That means people who did NOT agree to being charged for that had money taken from them by Greg. 

I call him a stupid mother fucker because he then makes a video crying about how some people say they can not pay to watch his videos. Makes a whole fucking video crying about how the IRS is about to rock his fucking world for the scam he was trying to pull with them. Compares himself to bands and their t-shirts. (He literally charges the same amount for his own t-shirts.) Cries that people say that he isn’t worth the $.49. (He isn't.)

Cries about never having a real “bond” with his fans. That all it was was the fans getting something and Greg getting nothing. Nope Greg didn’t get anything but views which got him money, attention, his wife, the girl he cheated on his wife with, ect. But that’s not good enough? Selfish fucking fans. He then says YouTube is all about satisfying the viewers if you can’t do that you’re shit. If someone doesn’t like your content no they aren’t going to fucking watch it? Are you stupid? It’s the same with any kind of entertainment? All musicians, actors, even fucking porn stars know this. You don’t get to blame people for not fucking watching you.

HE LITERALLY TALKS ABOUT ENTITLEMENT. A grown ass 30 year old man with two children, wife, and several pets who has made money from screaming at people, harassing people, bullying people, making fun of serious topics, and literally just humping things who owns hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, furniture, cars, houses, and luxury items IS CRYING ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE BEING FUCKING ENTITLED. 

Not everyone wants to work the jobs they work. 99.9% of the fucking population doesn’t want to work the job that they work. But because they are responsible adults they fucking do it because they have families to take care of and bills to fucking pay. They keep their hobbies but understand that we have to be responsible and we can’t just depend on others to pay our fucking bills for us! 

He literally brings up the whole killing himself thing again. DISGUSTING. 

“People talk about his finances like they know whats going on.” He says they wouldn’t talk if they actually knew what was going on. Greg we don’t have to know specifics about your fucking finances. We see your house, we see your cars, WE SEE YOU FLY A FUCKING PATRON TO YOUR HOUSE. We see a grown ass man making horrible financial choices and crying and blaming everyone else for those problems. A responsible adult would do what they had to to make sure they have a stable income to deal with any financial issues that are going on. Such as getting an actual job, selling unnecessary luxury items, or downgrading their living situation to be more affordable. So yes we will keep talking and keep pointing out the bullshit.

“I make content for people who care. It’s never been about anything else.” Bull fucking shit you always bring up subscriber counts to smaller channels to make yourself feel better. And you’ve talked shit on the majority of your fans before. So don’t act like you give a fuck about who’s watching as long as they are watching and giving you money. 

He uses the word survive so much I want to vomit. Again fuck you Greg you make more money than 99.9% of your fucking subscribers. Most of which are under the age of 18 that can’t pay for your Patreon or even your Youtube Channel. The rest are probably young adults trying to go to school or even just working minimum wage. Those people will make $7.25 an hour to pay their bills. In one month they will make $1,160 if they work 40 hours a week. And thats BEFORE taxes are taken out. You want to talk about surviving? TALK TO YOUR FUCKING FANS. What you make from Patreon in one month is what your subscribers will have to work 6 months for. Most of them will never be able to own a home. Most of them will not be able to afford a brand new car. Most of them will not be able to afford to buy groceries as often as they need. They will not get to go on vacation. They will not be able to afford luxury items at all. They will feel fear every time they miss ONE day of work for being sick because they can not afford to miss that day on their paycheck. So before you use the word survive again TALK TO THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTUALLY STRUGGLING YOU PIECE OF SHIT. YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO THEIR MONEY BECAUSE THEY LIKE YOUR CONTENT. 

To be a fan of something doesn’t mean to pay for that something. I do not pay every single band I like. I do not pay every single YouTuber I like. I do not pay every single person I follow on Instagram. I do not pay every single person I follow on Twitter. You can be a fan of something and never pay one single penny to that something. 

Guilting people for not paying you is complete bullshit and you are fucking disgusting. 

I feel so strongly about this because my family has been poor my whole life. As a child I was told I would start developing ulcers if I didn’t stop stressing out about money. I always feared for my mom when it came to bills. When I finally moved out on my own I couldn’t afford to pay for groceries, couldn’t run my heat in the winter, couldn’t use my air conditioner in the summer, ect. I lived in an apartment where they literally had to warn me that before they repainted they had used lead paint in the apartments, the cops made regular visits to arrest my neighbors, and I couldn’t go outside at night because it was dangerous. I had to work at McDonalds to pay my bills. Sure as shit didn’t want to but as an adult I knew I had to get a job and any job was better than none. 

Just this year I came across a job that allows me to live comfortably and to build up a savings account. I have to work 64+ hours a week but it’s a job I care about. In this job I have to take care of people who have repeatedly punched me in the face, thrown up on me, shit and pissed on me, screamed at me on a daily basis, ect. It’s a hard job but I do it. I care about these people even after all of the hard times that come with them. I don’t quit and ask everyone else to pay my bills for me so I can go do something I like that won’t pay my bills. No I go to my job and I keep my hobbies for my free time. Because I’m an adult and I understand how the world works. 

[shanalikeanna]

Otakon Artist Alley Review & Merch Haul!

Hello! This is a little late, but I wanted to get my review of the Otakon artist alley out there!! Hopefully this is helpful to some people who are thinking of signing up for the upcoming year.  Let’s start off with the obvious: it’s expensive. Depending on what table you purchase, you don’t get any badges with them. And badges are about $80 per person, sooo....there’s that. I was prepared for the cost though, this was my dream con and I was going to to pay anything to get there!! (except for the $1000 table, that’s insane).  Now this was Otakon’s first big move from Baltimore to DC, and there were definitely some moving pains. Right from  the beginning you could tell it was going to be a bit disorganized, especially when we were hit with the $150 loading dock fee or hand-carry everything on 1-2 trips the week of the con. (I don’t think that hand-carry rule was strictly enforced from what I saw, though). 

We got there Thursday to set up, which was pretty painless. We had a hotel very close to the con though, so it wasn’t too hard to get our stuff there. Long hours to set up. Picking up our badges and artist flags were pretty easy too. The downside is we discovered a cockroach roaming about while setting up so that was gross.... :P

Friday started out okay. I was still hopeful then! The first thing I noticed was that the room seemed smaller to me. I was told by others that it was DEFINITELY bigger, but maybe it was just the layout that made the room seem smaller, I also hadn’t been to Ota for a few years so that could also be a factor. But while I was told it was bigger, the amount of guests coming through just didn’t seem to match. I remember the artist alley being PACKED when I went in previous years, so to see it being so...thinned out made me worry a bit. But it was Friday, and I was doing well for a typical Friday so Saturday would be the real test. Boy oh boy was it a test.  Then came Saturday. I was prepared for a TON of people. And to be very tired. It was a long day, 9/10am-11pm. But...it was the same thing. It just seemed crazy slow, with not as many people as I was expecting to see. There were pops of course here and there, but overall...it was definitely not what I was anticipating. Perhaps it was our placement, we were way in the back after all. Not complaining, table placement is random, but it could be a reason. I don’t know what the artists with the Pro-Row tables got. Hopefully a lot for what they paid. So then it happened. It was around 8pm, I was tired and kind of in a crappy mood because I was doing so poorly, when all of the sudden staff started yelling for attendees to exit the artist alley. I, among other artists, were really confused because we still had 3 hours to go. This is where the really poor staff to artist communication started. It seemed like the staff were only a communicating to parts of the alley, we could barely hear them saying anything in the back. But apparently it was storming really badly outside, and  a water pipe had burst above an artist “island” of tables, and all of the attendees had to be evacuated from the alley. People call it “Flood Con” but it honestly wasn’t THAT much water, haha. Still a shame though, at least one table was ruined which sucks. (Luckily they were compensated). The artists could stay of course, but everyone was confused. Nobody knew what was happening.  Crazy rumors went running about, someone said an artist slipped and cracked her head open (it wasn’t THAT serious but still not good).Then we were told to cover or take down items that could be water damaged if another pipe happened to burst, so people were tearing down displays, no one was sure if we were going to re-open or not. It was a mess. It was nice in a way, though, because we all got a break and got to talk to other confused artists. But it seemed that even up in the front of the alley word wasn’t spreading around because one of the artists didn’t even realize that the attendees were even being evacuated, she was just wondering why it seemed so slow! Then there was more yelling from staff in the middle of the room and people were yelling to gather in the middle. Turns out that after an hour of confusion and telling guests to leave, we were going to re-open for the rest of the hours. Right after people started tearing down displays, and some artists leaving all-together for the night. It wasn’t really worth it though, I had barely any business in those last two hours. It was a bust for me, and stressful on top of it.  Sunday was the worst, and I could have honestly just gone home. I made a little extra money, but not any to make me really satisfied with the weekend. I don’t really know if I want to go next year, I think I’ll apply because it’s free and a lotto, so I’m not guaranteed a spot anyway, but if I do get in I might reconsider before accepting the spot. It all depends on how I’m feeling then. If you are considering going, at least apply, because like I said, it’s a Lotto. Just know that it will be expensive, long hours, and they still might experience some moving pains during their second year in DC, but I really hope it smooths out.  HERE’S FOR THE FUN PART THOUGH. I didn’t have much money to spend, but I did get to buy a few fun things from amazing artists!

When going there, I was most excited to buy some merch from @mayakern. She does a webcomic called Monster Pop!, and while I’ve only read some of it, it looks really good. Her art style is so cute and inspirational to me. I bought her book Confetti (EXTREMELY WORTH IT, it has such good content and I could stare at it for hours.) I also bought a Milk print skirt (not pictured), and I received the Eevee print as part of an art trade :) I highly recommend supporting this artist and her wife, they’re amazing. Website/Store: http://store.mayakern.com/  (Currently there’s a 25% off sale!) Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mayakern

Ahhh then during the crazy flood fiasco, my friend @lousysharkbutt told me about one of their favorite artists being there so I stopped on over to visit @pembroke (Alexa Bosy) and boy I’m really glad I did! Her work is so so nice. SHE IS ALSO SO SO NICE. She has a really cute styple and does a lot of Harry Potter fan art ;0 Which is also A+. But she was an absolute JOY to talk to. I bought these sailor moon bookmarks (holographic too!), and something else but it is a present so I can’t show it! Please definitely consider supporting this artist as well SPREAD THE LOVE Store: http://alexabosy.tictail.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/alexabosy  But that’s all folks! Make sure to show these artists some love, and if you have any other questions about my Otakon experience, send me a message~! :) 

[captaindoubled]

Old man's art pain help:

Proper rest and stretching your art arm helps the arm pain. Also learning how to properly hold your tool and how to move your arm helps loads.

But lots of times for artist, working is literally the difference between rent and homelessness so it’s not always easy to take full days off or more to give your body a break.

These are things I’ve learned and done to help ease the pain and reduce the injury.

1) Raise your prices!

Before I go into the stuff you can do with your body and your environment and your tools, the best damn thing you can do for yourself is raise your prices!

If you need $400 to pay your share of the rent, are you gonna wanna do 40 $10 pictures or 10 $40 pictures? The less you have to do the less you are causing harm to your body and the more time you can take in between art pieces.

Yes yes folks may not want to pay your higher prices and having to lower them to make ends meets can be hard and it’s sometimes a situation that happens. If you are in that situation don’t be afraid to give less. If headshots are easy for and take the least about of time, that’s your cheapest. If they feel like your charging too much for a full size picture, remind them that YOU can work with their budget and give them something worth that cost. (If base $40 is too much for a full length for someone ((it’s not)) tell them you are willing to do a bust instead and instead of clean lines, do sketch)

Post your commission information all over the place. Tumblr has a problem with forcing new artist to base their prices low (hell im sure mine are too low) but other sites have other standards.

Also, like, to be entirely honest, draw porn under a separate name and blog and page. Nsfw communities pay. And they pay good and if you are half way decent at their specific kinks, they are return customers. And for the most part don’t haggle with prices and will encourage you to charge more. (If you want more info on porn art work then come chat with me in the messages, I have no problem giving tips if you genuinely need them)

Don’t be afraid to charge more for completed shit, rush jobs, edits. That’s all damage you are doing to your body for someone else. So make it worth your time and body so that you can do less work later on down the road. All your time is money and they are costing you money with all their extra stuff.

2) Still Stretching Now

I don’t care how many things I need to work back to back on, I’m still going to stretching. Before during and after. Stretching your whole damn body. Walk about. Relax your muscles and move your joints. It’s a must.

3) Warm your body

Especially your working arm. Localized coldness can help with the nerves to reduce pain but also, just like a too cold room will cause your muscles to constrict.

Make a heating pack. You can buy one but to save money, get an old sock and some rice or dried beans. Fill it half way, tie it off with a rubber band and heat it a bit. Depends on your microwave but you’ll know it’s too long if it starts to stink. Less than a min (you can do a bit more of the sock is thick but literally it will reek because it’s starting to burn).

Warm your arm and your hands and shoulders and elbows to reduce constriction of the muscles and further damage.

Also keep an artist outfit. Mine is normally a pair of comfortable work out pants, a thin shirt and a hoodie to keep me comfortable, not constricted but warm in my room.

4) Work out

Mainly cardio but also light weights. The damage that a lot of art pain comes from is normally nerve but you don’t just use your nerves to draw. You got muscles. Cardio work outs help move lactic acid buildup out of your muscles and helps your muscles heal faster. I have a work out bike I get on but like some jumping jacks is just fine. It also helps with body pain because you still are using your whole body. Strength training with small weights help get your muscles stronger and so you can work more of you gotta grind. (But still stretch!)

5) Move your hand in a different way

The damage comes from repetition so you gotta use your body in different ways than you work.

A soft dollar star nerf type ball that you can hold in your hand and squeeze is good. (Also you can use your home made sock warmer which helps your hand). Your squeezing your hand in a different way from the way you hold a pen or pain brush. Also open your hand wide. Hold your arms above your head, stretch it the other way. Walk around if you sit a lot. Etc. Do the opposite when you are stretching and moving about.

On days when I’m not drawing, i write because it’s a different hand position I’m using.

6) Get a brace

Mainly for when your sleeping but also it’s a short term way to train your hand to draw the right way. I used one in order to force myself not to bend my wrist when I draw and use my whole arm. But don’t get dependent on it if you can help it. The part where the brace ends can dig into your arm and make whole new pains.

But it’s mainly for night and not work days. You don’t realize how much you use the same movements in day to day until it hurts like shit!? And you have no idea how you bend your hand in your sleep. I for example always prop my face up with my hands in my sleep even when I don’t sleep that way?? It’s odd and it hurts when it’s bend oddly.

7) Take your anti inflammation pill of choice

I know Walmart sucks but they always have $.89 cent naproxen (generic aleve) but they have $.89 versions of almost log anti inflammatory pain pills. Learn your generics (That’s just an adult tip! They have cheap ass allergy medicine too if you know the generic name) and get what works for you when you need it. Don’t over take it. Follow the guidelines. Don’t end up slowly killings yourself to make a buck.

8) Upgrade your software/Loosen your grip.

Some art programs are just better than others. And while in terms of quality of work the program really just is another tool, the little shit like pressure sensitivity can make a difference.

I love sai. For my ADHD it has the cleanest simplest set up by far and I have used a lot of programs and I have a lot downloaded on my computer. But it’s pressure sensitivity, even when I adjust stuff, is wack. On my bad hand days, I have to use Photoshop to work because I don’t have to press as hard to get the lines I want.

I also have changed the pressure sensitivity for my tablet so I again wouldn’t press down so hard to get the line weight I want.

But I also have been working to loosen my grip, again to keep from straining my nerves and muscles. I saw someone putting a big tube over their pen to make it more ergonomic. It’s to help with the grip on your hand.

9) Other sources of income

This is a do as I say, not as I do situation because I don’t have this set up because I’m all over the place because im just getting my ADHD under control but I know it works. It goes back to the first tip as far as money.

Things that work for folks are things like merch (prints, short print comics, buttons, etc), paid tutorial videos and the like, and also Patreon. The more you can subsidize your income with less body damaging you’re doing because you are doing less actual drawing and more time healing. Also this gives folks who can’t afford your hopefully raised commission prices (because seriously you deserve more for you art. Yes you.) a change to get art from you and to support you in a way that’s easier on their pockets as well.

Get creative, make shit other people haven’t, sell stuff folks aren’t. I don’t know from first hand experience in art but I do know this from my mothers bail bonding work, a whole lot of small consistent money goes a lot further than lump sum inconsistent money.

~~~

If you have other tips please add! And if you wanna chat with me, do so. I'd love to help.

[nursephantump]

Let’s Talk About Youtube

Real talk, some of ya’ll talking about youtube and what’s going on over there have literally 0 idea what you’re talking about. So I’ve decided to make a comprehensive guide of shit you can and cannot do when it comes to youtube stuff. If you want more information, I highly recommend a channel called Philip Defranco and his videos on what youtube does and is doing from an ex-youtube content creator and someone heavily involved in youtube

Part 1: Youtube Monetization

Honestly I’m not going to go into this too much because it’ll probably change within a month. So here’s the basic shit to prove common misconceptions.

Youtubers are not paid by how many views they have or how many subs they have. That’s simply not a thing. They are paid a very small fraction from ad revenue. The current estimation is around $7.60 per 1000 views. So unless you have tens of thousands of subs, you ain’t making much on youtube and most youtubers aren’t actually rolling in money as most mainstream media will have you believe. Unless you’re as big as Markiplier, Jacksepticeye, or the disappointment man (sorry Felix but I’m still not the happiest with you) you’re making enough to afford a middle class apartment.

Adblock exists. Adblock greatly effects youtube creators. Adblock literally takes away youtubers only source of income by taking away their ads. And considering the vast majority of internet users use some type of adblock to some degree, youtubers once again are not rolling in the youtube moolah. If you want to REALLY support a creator, turn off adblock. I know, ads are annoying as hell. But unless you have money to donate to a youtubers patreon that might maybe possibly exist (a lot of youtubers don’t have a patreon because they feel bad for asking fans for money) just suck it up and turn off your adblock so you can support your favorite content creators.

Part 2: Dealing with Hate Speech

This one is a very big problem with youtube. A very, very big problem with youtube. So here’s a list of things you should and shouldn’t do when it comes to hate speech on youtube.

Do

Report the video

Report the channel

Flag content with appropriate categories shown below

Don’t

Share the video, you will only ensure the person makes more money.

Simply dislike it and move on. That tells youtube nothing.

DO NOT AND I REPEAT DO NOT REPORT THIS TO ADVERTISERS ON YOUTUBE!!!! This is INCREDIBLY important and I’ve seen people call for this before. This does nothing but HURT the content creators you think are supporting. Actions like these have lead to the current youtube boycott that ad companies are doing which has lead to people making less than half of their usual income from youtube. This is peoples livelihoods and by reporting it to youtube advertisers you will only make those advertisers pull their ads of youtube FULLY.

DON’T BOYCOTT YOUTUBE ENTIRELY!!! Again, this will only harm the creators you wish to protect and help. This does nothing but hurt people and keep you without content. This is again something I’ve seen a lot of calls for but this will only do to hurt any POC, LGBT, and any other youtubers you are trying to help. Do not do this.

Small F.A.Q.

I don’t like something this person said on a video!!! What do I do?

Is it hate speech? Does it show abusive or harmful actions? Is it spam or incredible amounts of clickbait? Report it, dislike it, move on. Is it just an opinion you disagree with and in hind sight doesn’t harm anyone? Suck it up and move on.

Youtube has done _________ and I don’t know what to do!!!

Youtube doesn’t communicate. It simply doesn’t. Creators and viewers alike have no idea what the fuck is going on most of the time. Try to find videos from people who can at least estimate with pretty good accuracy what’s going on and hope to figure shit out from there. I recommend Philip Defranco or h3h3 productions as they tend to know what they’re talking about (fair warning, h3h3 uses the r slur a lot so if ya ain’t chill with that try phily D over there.)

What can I, as a viewer, do to support my favorite creators?

OK first things first, turn off your adblock. Do that right now that is one of the best ways to support them. Then, check if they have a patreon. If you can, throw some money their way. Then after that, check to see if they have any merch available. That’s a very good way to support content creators as well. But the absolute most important one is turning off your adblock.

But I don’t want to support videos I’m only watching because they’re bad and I want context!!

Just turn adblock back on before watching that video then turn it off when going to watch a video by the person you want to support. Simple as pressing a button, literally.

Well I don’t want to do any of those things!

Then ya don’t actually want to support that content creator, simple as that.

There ya go, that’s it, I hope this has been informative in the most informal way possible. Now be free my children, understand youtube better or as best as we all can because youtube never fucking communicates with us. Freedom my children. Freedom.

[politicalfilth-blog]

Who Is Jeffrey Epstein?

We Are Change

Hi everybody Jason Burmas here, reporting for WeAreChange.org. Today I am taking an in-depth look at someone that has largely been shrouded in mystery over the last decade. This person is Jeffrey Epstein, and he is the man that is behind the so called Lolita Express. Lolita Express is the name given to his place in the Virgin Islands where he was trafficking young girls. We will be investigating his actions and crimes and look into why he got off so easily.

There’s really not a lot known about this guy, so I wanted to do my own little investigation into where he came from and how he got his money. He is rumored to be worth billions, so who is Jeffrey Epstein and how did he get his start? How did he get such a sweetheart deal from both state prosecutors and federal prosecutors alike?

When I began to look into Epstein, I was surprised to find out that there is a nonfiction novel written about him, it’s titled “Filthy Rich.”

What I found most fascinating is that the author of the book James Patterson is a prolific best selling fiction author. Patterson novels are everywhere; he lived in the same Palm Beach neighborhood as Mr. Epstein. He chose to investigate the rumors that he’d followed in the local media. He got another author to help and an investigative journalist to help write this nonfiction novel.

This was great source material for me; I couldn’t believe what I was reading as it is the most in-depth expose on Epstein. I found it very odd that this book only gets two or three stars reviews. Usually, this author gets four and five-star reviews. It seems like people may not want you to read this book and with good reason. It goes in depth into Epstein and who he was before this scandal hit.

I am going to go over some of the details that the book reveals. Epstein doesn’t seem to have earned any university degrees. This despite attending the Cooper Union and then New York University where he studied mathematics and physiology; he seems to be more of a social climber.

No one seems to know how he ended up teaching at a wealthy prep school called Dalton. This is where he starts to make big connections, one of whom is Ace Greenberg who gets him a job at Bear Stearns.

He spends some time at Bear Stearns and leaves during a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation during the early 1980’s.

Epstein seems to transition himself, and in the book, they focus on one major deal where he was able to recover invested money for a rather prominent aristocrat out in Spain. Epstein somehow gets that money back, and suddenly he has a portion of it. This seems to be where Epstein finds his calling. Also alluded in the novel is how he begins helping the rich hide their money in tax havens. All we know for sure is that Epstein appears to have made a lot of money.

Epstein seems to have been with a number of women of age who are very loyal and protective of him. It seems that he can talk to people and build relationships with them. The women he is with say he was nothing but a gentleman.

However, this is before the allegations that take place in the early 2000’s. There is a section in the book where they discuss how Epstein would rarely talk about what he did for a living. He did mention that he worked with governments, now this was often brushed off and may have been a fabrication since he lied about many things.

We do know that he had a close relationship with Bill Clinton. His flight records according to Fox News had Clinton on Epstein’s jet at least 26 times by the FAA’s logs alone. That is a lot, and it’s probably much higher than that. Eric Prince, the founder of Blackwater, has stated that Hillary Clinton herself has been to Pedophile Island several times and had her own relationship with Epstein.

Audio Clip of Eric Prince with Breitbart: “Including the fact that Hillary went through this sex Island of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Clinton went there more than 20 times, Hillary at least six times. The amount of garbage that they found in emails of criminal activity by Hillary, by her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress was so disgusting they gave it to the FBI and they said we are going to go public with this if you don’t reopen the investigation, if you don’t do the right thing with timely indictments.”

So is it that far off to believe that Epstein may have had some government connections. Let us discuss the actual crimes that took place and the ongoing aftermath and where things stand today.

Epstein was accused of having young girls come to his home and give him erotic massages and more.

Text From Inside Edition Video Clip: “She was the air hostess on board the notorious Lolita Express. The billionaire’s private jet at the center of a sex scandal making lurid headlines across the world. Sleazy Wall Street tycoon Jeffrey Epstein used the Lolita Express to ferry a bevy of beautiful young women, among the passengers former President Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Andrew.”

In this book, there are actual police interrogations revealed of some of these young girls that were both molested by Epstein and then taught how to groom and procure other young girls. The allegations have these girls as young as 12. The book gives prominence to one girl who is 14 years old, and another who is currently suing Epstein stated she was doing this at 16 and 17 years old. I won’t go into the sordid details, but they’re out there. The amount of evidence gathered, and individuals that came forward was overwhelming with dozens of people on the record.

Text From Video Clip: “After years of silence, she’s talking about the day she says Jeffrey Epstein paid her for a sensual massage. Jane says she was a sophomore in high school just 15 or 16 years old when someone at her school told her how she could make some quick cash. “We go to this guy’s house for $200 and give him you know a massage for $200. Basically, it’s an in-and-out thing, it’s a massage you know nothing bad about it.”

Jane says she and a girl her age took a taxi to Epstein’s house on Palm Beach. Jane said an assistant paid the driver and took them into an upstairs room that had a massage table and a shower. That’s when Jane says Epstein walked in completely naked, “he jumped in the shower and told me to remove my clothes down to my bra and panties. We both were looking at each other like what are we going to do now.”

When all these things being to be revealed Epstein himself starts to send investigators after his alleged victims, and those in law enforcement that are investigating him. He pleads guilty to one act of soliciting a prostitute and one act of soliciting an underage prostitute, so he is, in fact, a sex offender. Epstein ends up getting this unbelievable sweetheart deal where he serves 18 months, but is only in jail for 12 of those months and is on work release, so he’s spending many of his days in his office.

Many people were appalled that he was able to get this deal. In the last few weeks the FBI, after ten years has broken their silence, on why Epstein got such a deal. They claimed that they didn’t think the witnesses would hold up in court. It should be noted that the FBI has pulled some very shady dealings especially in other cases involving high-profile alleged sex abuse of children, mainly the Franklin scandal.

You will see a lot of corruption within the FBI when you read the books by both John DeCamp and Nick Bryant. I’ll let you guys read that information and depositions for yourselves.

I may actually be a bit more sympathetic to the FBI since many of the girl’s families had no idea that they were involved in this and many likely did not want the sordid details coming out in court. Many of them also had priors, that would have all come out during a jury trial. The big surprise is that during this ‘non-prosecution,’ there was a deal made where thirty of his victims were going to get compensation. The FBI probably thought that since Epstein had already settled many lawsuits, that at least the victims would eventually get some kind of financial compensation. They would not have to go through civil court, and they may have felt that it was the best overall win.

I think the truth probably lies somewhere in between; the bottom line is that compensation never happened. As soon as he got out his lawyers Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth Starr, stated that they were not going to pay the victims. There is a civil trial brought against Jeffrey Epstein that begins in August. Whose names are going to be on the case and how far is this going to go. We already know about the Clintons and British Royalty including Prince Andrew. There’s likely going to be additional names mentioned. One of the young women was trying to get Donald Trump as a character witness, but they think they can win the case without him.

This is definitely something that we need to keep an eye on, after all, Jeffrey Epstein is still out there. He still owns all these properties, he is not in jail, he’s walking around with beautiful young women today and he still worth a fortune.

As always folks, if you like this video and article, please share it on social media. Remember to check out wearechange.org; it’s only through your financial support that reports like this one are possible. Thank you very much.

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from We Are Change https://wearechange.org/who-is-jeffrey-epstein-convicted-pedophile-child-trafficker-lolita-pedophilia/