sincerelywhistler - Tumblr blog

sincerelywhistler · 10 days

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Love you, Kayla— proud of you for sticking your thoughts and concerns to the man. Professional, easily digestible, sincere, and straightforward while still with firm kindness. Bravo 👏

Hi Redacted Fandom Let's fucking talk shall we?

Most of y'all don't know me. I don't talk much in wider fandom spaces due to personal experiences, traumas, and anxieties that lead me to not be super comfortable being myself in larger spaces. My name is Kayla and I am almost 38 yeas old, an Exvangelical, AuDHD, bisexual, and nonbinary (also white which explains The Audacity), and I have been on the internet since I was in middle school (around the late 90's *shudders* dial-up internet age). I have been an audience member of many many content creators online and befriended many many more. I have seen the ins and outs of what goes into scripting, recording, editing, and marketing online content, particularly video based online content.

All of this preamble to say that I was the one who wrote Erik the email that prompted his Pateron post yesterday, in fact here it is in its entirety:

"Erik,

I’m generally a firm believer that online spaces/subscription sites are not like an airport, and I do not need to announce my departure. And while I hate writing this email, I need to say what I've been thinking for a long time. I fear that if I don't say it, no one will.

First, I want to make it clear that I love the content you produce. It's some of the most thoughtful and well made storytelling and world building I’ve ever seen on the internet, and I’ve been in and around the internet for a very long time now. However, even though I enjoy and appreciate the content, there’s still some issues to be addressed.

You need to stop ghosting your audience, especially your Patrons, when life gets stressful. I’m not saying, “never have setbacks." I've seen how your life has been a walking cavalcade of bullshit over the past two years. But your response of going radio silent whenever things get even slightly stressful is wrong. It’s wrong to do that to your bosses, it's wrong to do that with your family, it's wrong to do that with friends and romantic partners, and it is egregiously wrong to do that to people whose money you’ve received in promise for services rendered.

Again, I’ve been around for years, and I have compassion for the fact that life keeps kicking you in the teeth, but this harkens back to something you said in your apology video in January; shit kicks you in the teeth, and you don’t adjust your life accordingly. You also keep making mention of the fact that the best apology is changed behavior, but your actions of disappearing whenever something goes wrong is the exact behavior that you apologized for in January, is it not? If that wasn’t what you were talking about, then I have no idea why you felt the need to apologize to us.

At this point you don’t owe us your life story. You don’t owe us a perfect schedule with no setbacks and no delays. You DO owe us a sentence or two of explanation when shit gets this delayed on your end. It’s starting to feel less like appreciation and more like being taken for granted.

I don’t know what a change like that looks like for you. Is it that you need assistance with all the backend bullshit? (I know from watching others in the creator space both from the audience standpoint and from watching my friends work to become successful at this that backend bullshit can be a bitch to do all by yourself after a while). Does it mean drastically curtailing your posting so you’re only making one post a week or two posts a month until you can get your energy levels back up? Does it mean you have to go on an official hiatus? Does it mean that this is too much work and no longer worth it for you? I’m not in your head, so I don’t know, but this way of ghosting us and making grandiose promises of future content that never materializes because your life got hard again isn’t worth my $20/month.

Sincerely,

Kayla Moore"

Erik is a consummate professional who kept my name out of his mouth while addressing the substance of my email, I however am a maladjusted bitch who stands by what the fuck she said. You'll note NOWHERE in the body of said email did I demand that he produce the content right now, nowhere did I imply that he can never have delays again. In fact I went out of my way to say the exact opposite multiple times. I am always and ever aware that Erik is managing what is a fairly decent sized platform on his own with what little free time he has. I am ALSO aware that that is an unsustainable position to take and that he is RAPIDLY pushing himself towards burnout by not acknowledging his limits. What it all comes down to is that yes, once money has changed hands at the very LEAST what he owes us as his Paterons is an update on the content *that he told us would be out by a certain date* that got delayed. In fact all I really want is just a quick "Hey sorry life is lifeing this is going to be delayed I'll check back in with y'all soon" That's it. That's all I want when delays happen. That I feel is not an unreasonable request to make.

The reason I am showing you all this is because, quite frankly this fandom has a HUGE toxic-positivity and Purity Culture problem and y'all keep talking about shit you don't know and weren't privy to. Well I stand by what I said. I choose to email him about it privately to give him the opportunity to respond as he saw fit. But yes let's break this down: when you are a content creator who steps into the realm of being paid to produce said online content then you have an obligation to the people that you're paying to be upfront when limitations happen and things aren't coming out on time. Life happens. That's not in anyone's control, but how he responds to Life Happening is the key issue here. Lately his response has been to hide away and it's making the growing frustration around how much he values us his Paterons, and the way he's chosen to show it. The fact that you personally do not mind is irrelevant to the larger point. Your not caring does not mean that he was acting in a professional manner on this subject. Also he's not your friend no matter how much you might feel that way. He makes content that makes us feel good inside and it's easy to want to extend someone who gives you so much dopamine grace. That's good, that's normal.

The thing of it is though y'all can't seem to stand when people say something even slightly negative about him. Yes he's one person doing all this by himself. Yes that's a lot of work on top of a job and a personal life. He's also *choosing* to do this all by himself. He's definitely making enough that he could hire an assistant or two to take some of the load off his plate. He hasn't. And part of that is probably due to the toxic pride he mentioned in his Pateron update. Also "Please take care of yourself/rest/take all the time you need" and "Please give us an update if the content you promised by X date is going to be delayed" are not mutually exclusive feelings to have and the fact that some of you don't seem to understand that is...somewhat troubling to be honest. The fact of the matter is that something about the way that Erik does content needs to change. There have been too many delays, too frequently, and over too long a period of time for him to just chug along as things were and pretend everything is fine. I am not the only one who has felt this way as @tepid-judas can attest to. (And others but they haven't given me permission to tag them in this post they do not know I'm making so ya know I'm going to do him the courtesy of not doing that). Like Erik said this is a matter of respect and a matter of financial transactions that have not been met in a satisfactory manner. He even apologized to us for exactly this back in January (this being life happening to him and him not adjusting to those circumstances the channel/Pateron experience suffering as a result), so it's not unwarranted to ask 4 months later when things have collapsed back into a status quo that was unacceptable in his eyes, to ask him for a little accountability.

Y'all may think I'm an ungrateful bitch about this, y'all may be taken aback that I am an Obsessed Tier Pateron who had the audacity to send him an email like this. To that I say you are entitled to your opinion, but I am entitled to mine, and like I said I'm not the only one who feels this way, but I was right in stating that I think I'm the only one who had enough That Bitch in her to say something about it. And I'm glad I did because if all he ever hears is "This is fine, don't worry about it" then all we're ever going to get is anxiety inducing radio-silence as we wonder if he's almost lost the ability to walk again. And then he lands himself in the kind of burnout he can't come back from because he keeps trying to Not Let Us Down by pushing himself to do things he cannot do at a scale that is impossible to do over a long period of time. It's not ok that he ghosted us with out a word for 8 days after the project had already faced set backs, no matter how much you convince yourself that you do not mind. Your minding is not relevant to whether or not is was right or professional of Erik to do that to us.

Sometimes it's good to be the person who complains and says "No actually this isn't ok and you DO need to work on this." Sometimes that's what someone needs to see in order to truly understand where they need to make changes. It's hard to see that shit when you're standing in the middle of the Must Produce Content mines. Sometimes you need the canary to remind you you're running out of oxygen.

I know I've pissed some of you off for daring to talk to Erik like he was an adult with responsibilities that he voluntarily took on by himself without any prompting from anyone else. I know it breaks the illusion that we are all his bestest buddies or his lovers or whatever, but at the end of the day the nature of his relationship to us is a lot less and a lot more personal than that.

We are in a recession regardless of how much our governments want to deny this fact. The price of everything has skyrocketed since Erik started the Pateron, it is not unreasonable to want some confirmation that he realizes he missed his own self-imposed deadline when that happens. This isn't about demanding all the content now, it's about the respect we are owed as a fandom. And we're owed at LEAST a sentence stating that things will be delayed and maybe a follow up if things are taking even longer than expected. The fact that it took 8 days and my email for him to say anything is not great. Erik to his credit realizes that and is appearing to address the issue head on.

Also I saw something that said something along the lines of Erik walking away because this fandom can't understand that he is one person. And to that I say that is far far more likely that he burns himself out on the alter of toxic productivity and alienates his fanbase due to going radio-silent out of fear and shame trying to maintain a release schedule he can no longer keep up with. THAT is what will cause him to walk away faster and it will mean that he is *unable* to come back.

It is right and good and necessary even that someone speaks up and says "Hey this isn't right" when something isn't right. And if you keep trying to sweep it under the rug all you're doing is creating a big dirt pile that everyone has to ignore and walk around instead of bringing issues into the light and effecting change. It's ok to extend creators grace and benefit of the doubt, but we should also be extending our fellow fans that same grace. There was no need for any of y'all to go jumping to conclusions about this. If you want your pound of flesh for my having the audacity come at me, my block button is fucking hungry.

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sincerelywhistler · 18 days

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Been thinking about my experiences as a POC within fandom while also being an artist and how much that sucks sometimes. This is primarily in regards to the Redacted fandom, but could be applied to any other fandom honestly.

Proper "fussing" under the cut (for those who would rather not see):

Sometimes, I really stop and think about what it must be like to be a white person in fandom, especially when you're an artist. To see yourself reflected in the spaces you exist in all the time. There are some exceptions to this, of course. For example, lack of body diversity is just as much of a problem in my opinion (Like fat people exist. Disabled people exist. Fat, disabled people exist. You can draw them, y'know? /rhet) But generally speaking, it's not difficult to find designs that probably look like you. There will be blondes, brunettes, redheads even— It's everywhere you look.

I don't think most people realize how isolating that ends up feeling though.

Because it's not just the fact that most of the art/designs you'll stumble upon won't resemble you. It's the fact that the prevalence dictates how everyone else interacts with fandom too.

Do you know how much it sucks seeing a post saying "So we all agree that Asher's blonde, right?" and knowing that most people are thinking of a white guy and nothing else?

Or noticing how Alexis, a generally "hated" character in the fandom, is the only vampire most people are willing to make visibly brown?

How about the fact that Gavin, the "thrilling" and "sexy" incubus, has so many black and brown designs— But I can count the non-white Lasko designs I've come across on my hand?

People can do whatever they want. I've said it before, and I'll continue to repeat it when I make these rambles. If you want to make every single design you have varying shades of white and never stray from that, that's your prerogative. But for the love of god, I wish I didn't feel like I was fucking crazy for talking about how much that shit sucks to see as a person of color.

On top of that, do you know how frustrating it is to watch white artists get praised for generic diversity when POC artists have been consistently bringing forth such compelling, stunning designs to table? Like I see the kind of shit that gets praised in this fandom and what doesn't. Racial ambiguity or the slightest addition of a curl gets treated like it's revolutionary— And that's only if it's the "correct" character. It has to "make sense", right? The same way Sam has to have sun-kissed, golden skin even after he's been turned, or the way Guy has to be white because there's no way someone with that personality could be anything but.

Do you know what it's like to be filled with such a sense of joy because someone made a design where a character had your skin tone or hair texture or facial feature? Like, I genuinely have a strong reaction whenever I find a black or brown design in this fandom because they're so rare in comparison to everything else. And when I really stop to think about that, I realize how fucked up of a phenomenon that is.

I love the designs that I've made, but I've also noticed which ones "do better" comparably. I don't change much of anything with how I go about posting or promoting them. The only difference is that some of them fit what is considered widely "canon" in fandom. And the others... don't. I go out of my way to make every design POC in some regard, and you can usually tell visually even without the addition of colors. I'm not gonna stop doing that because I know why I started in the first place. But fuck, it does start to hurt seeing white artists with the same general white designs get hyped up endlessly while I internally debate if I should even make another character look like me or not. If it'll even matter to anyone but me.

Some days, I just really wish it didn't feel like shit being black in this fandom. I hate knowing that I'm gonna post this, and I'll probably get responses for other people of color primarily.

But maybe putting this out will help that pill get easier to swallow.

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