End of Year Update (Patreon)

Hi Everyone! This is the same text I sent directly to your inbox, but I'm posting it here too because Patreon DMs have been kinda messed up and I want to make sure you saw it!

Firstly, I want to say thank you for supporting me on Patreon this year. Whether you have been here since my extremely humble beginnings on day 1 or you just joined yesterday OR you just came in for a month or two this year- your financial and emotional support of my channel has not gone unnoticed. 

Two years ago, I got into drag for maybe the 5th time in my life and uploaded my first extremely cringe-worthy video to YouTube. It probably got 1,000 views. I continued uploading videos about once a week to relatively unceremonious reception for the next 8 months, and finally started to taste a sliver of success with my first “Hot or Rot” video ever: Dragula Season 3, Episode 1. This video got something like 15,000 views and I was shook. This series was also the first time my videos started to earn any money (a laughable $3-10 per video from YouTube adsense). But, I was intoxicated with the idea of becoming the most viewed/respected drag channel on YouTube and turning this passion project into my full-time job.

Fast forward another 6 months and about 5,000 new subscribers - to Drag Race Season 12 Hot or Rot. That’s when my channel really started to gain traction. It was at this point I also realized I needed to publish more videos and push even harder if I wanted the success I dreamed of. Things were finally starting to “happen” for me on YouTube, but I still wasn’t earning enough money to make my channel possible in the long run with the amount of work and money I was investing in it. That’s when I discovered Patreon! 

My first month on Patreon in February 2020, 9 supporters helped make Bussy Queen possible. Today in December 2020, there are about 360 of you financially backing my channel. That is an INCREDIBLE amount of support. Thank you to every single one of you that is here today, or has been here at any point in time. Your financial contributions have helped me pay rent, feed myself, purchase filming equipment, clothe Busy Queen, pay for wig commissions, and so much more. Without your financial contributions, I probably would have thrown in the towel a long time ago because 60-80 hours of work a week on a channel with only YouTube ad-sense as a reward would never have been enough.

Beyond just financial contributions, you have also helped contribute to my emotional growth as both a person and entertainer. I strive to provide not only the best Patreon rewards across the platform to those who choose to support me, but also to listen to each of you when you have a concern or feedback for me. I am extremely proud of the community I’ve built here on Patreon, the Patreon Bussy Queen Discord server, and YouTube at large. And speaking of YouTube, I’ll be ending the year with almost 50,000 subscribers (48,952 as I write this) and almost 5 MILLION views on my channel (including the 1.8 MILLION I had to delete a couple of months ago). This is an accomplishment I never dreamed could happen SO quickly. With great success, however, comes great responsibility. And never forget- I would NEVER be here without you. I look forward to our continued relationship, and I expect y’all to always hold me accountable, no matter how many millions of views my channel receives!

As for the future: Bussy Queen has always been a one-stop-shop. I’ve done it all from day one. Makeup, wigs, filming, editing, community management, SEO, thumbnail design, and more. In the past couple of months, I finally reached a point in my career of content creation at which I can no longer do it all. I simply do not have enough time in the world. Thankfully, I’ve been able to afford things like wig styling commissions and more recently have paid an editor to edit two of my videos. I am in the process of training him and hope to have him working on multiple videos on my channel per month in January. This will allow me to spend even more time with y’all as a community doing things I am consistently asked for such as live-streaming & gaming channel content, more creative content creation on the main channel, and expanding “Bussy’s Back Door” into a full-time podcast style channel. I’ll also finally have some free-time to design and work on Merch! And, maybe I’ll even have time to have a day off once in a while. :)

Concerning Patreon, I will need to adjust some of the benefits in the tiers in order to streamline the editing and filming process. Certain benefits were feasible when our community was smaller, but now that we have reached this amazing size, there are some that no longer make sense. I currently scroll all 360+ patron names in every video and shout out almost 100 names in every video. The credits sequence in my video is sometimes over 1 minute long and truthfully is a bit too long for the casual viewer. 

For the greater good of the channel at large, the benefit “Your name included in the credits of EVERY video” will be moved up to the “Warming Up!” Tier and higher, and the benefit “A personal shoutout in every video” will be moved up to the “Hottest Hot” tier and higher starting January 1. This allows for everyone that has paid to receive these benefits for the rest of December to still receive them, and also gives you time to plan to change your tier if that is what you wish to do. A new benefit, “A personal shoutout when you JOIN my Patreon” will be added to the “HOT!” Tier. All other benefits will remain the same for now.

Finally, I want to thank you again for an amazing year. And I want to give you an extra special ‘thank you’ for supporting me during one of the most chaotic years to exist in our modern times. I wish happiness, health, and wealth to each of you and send all of you my love during the holidays. I can’t wait to see what we accomplish in 2021.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Love Always,

Bussy Queen <3