Final November Update *Important* (Patreon)

Hope everyone had a safe holiday! Just wanted to let you all know of a couple changes to the Patreon moving forward. This will be a longer post but hopefully you'll take a minute to give it a read as it has some important info.

First, I really liked recording reactions for Midnight Mass and YOU all at once (in 2 sittings in the case of YOU) and so going forward that will be the plan with all shows I do (aside from Always Sunny). Obviously this won't apply for ones releasing week by week, but for shows with full seasons readily available that will be the case. However, if the season is longer than 8 episodes it'll be split up into two groups a bit farther apart, as any more at one time would overwhelm me based on what I learned recording the other two shows mentioned. You can expect two shows per month recorded like this (up to 16 episodes), with the possibility of more depending on my schedule. So there will still be the same amount of episode reactions as before when I was doing a show on Tuesdays and Saturdays, except you'll receive all the reactions over a few days. No specific release schedule on them, but it'll likely be on a weekend like the other two shows since there's other filming and editing that has to be done during the week.

The second change is one I've been thinking about for quite a while. For the time being there will no longer be any polls to select movies or shows on here. There's quite a few reasons for this decision so hopefully I can convey them properly. Also, it's of course difficult to gauge emotion when reading text, so just know there's no ill-will or malice at all in this decision. If you've been following the channel for quite a while you've probably already noticed the change to this slowly being made, so hopefully this won't feel too drastic. Quite a few months ago I decided to start doing a movie of my choice every other week, which eventually became every week, as well as one of the two tv shows being selected by me. My goal with this channel is to create a community for people interested in film and the art of it (while having fun as well of course) more than just following an interest in a particular movie or series. Basically like a book club, but with movies and shows. Over the past several months I've felt the polls, while great for giving everyone a chance to be involved, take away from this goal. I'll say now if anyone is worried about movie choices going forward, just keep in mind the polls were compiled of movies I selected anyway, so it won't be like every viewing will be the most obscure arthouse film. Building off of this reason, I feel the original intention of the polls changed since I first started the channel. Originally it was intended to encourage discussion and build community connection while exploring a variety of films, but over time it became the source of a lot of contention amongst people and I had to even change the format of how I did polls because certain films or genres would get overlooked every time (ex: creating a poll specifically for David Lynch). The last straw for me there was a member (who's now permanently banned from the Patreon) significantly harassing a member in the comments of a poll because of the films they expressed interest in. It's really disappointing that this has to be one of the reasons for the change but that's the unfortunate frequent side effect of any social media platform.

Another reason for the change is that we've never really finished any series except for at the very beginning of the channel. Originally, I'd start something like Back to the Future/X-Men/The Godfather and I'd go through the whole series, which I loved (even with some of the duds in the X-Men series it was still enjoyable to go through it all in a reasonably short time). Since then, after the first film in a series the subsequent films usually do pretty bad in the polls. This is why some series have been spread out over a year or more (which I know has probably been frustrating for some of you). I also know this may look slightly contradictory to my previous statement about not focusing exclusively on the interest of certain films or series, but unlike the very beginning of the channel there'd be a lot of other movies amongst any series instead of the series being the only thing I watched over a few weeks.

An additional reason is I feel the channel can be more geared towards what you and I are interested in at a certain point in time (which I want you all to know I still very much value all your input and suggestions, just because there won't be polls doesn't mean you can't suggest films/shows). With polls we've been committed to and had expectations for certain films coming up in a certain time frame, so if something came out during that period that you and I wanted to see we'd either have to push it down the road a couple of weeks or postpone poll winners, thus disappointing those who were expecting and excited for those films. With no polls, adjustments can be made more on the fly. 

One last reason (I didn't realize how long this would end up being lol) is I just simply would like more ownership of the channel and for it to be exclusively my voice coming through in the decision making process, since it otherwise would not be unique from any other channel. If I'm excited about seeing a film that's flown under the radar I want to be able to choose to share that experience of watching it with you all, but also if there's a big name film that I haven't seen I want the process of watching it to feel natural instead of the possible thought 'he's only watching this because it won a poll'. 

This change obviously affects the $1 tier on Patreon, but I will still try to find ways to get everyone involved in certain things or provide some extra benefits, overall though it will just be more of a general support tier if you'd like to support the channel (which it already kind of has been anyway). In particular, for December I have something hopefully fun planned that everyone can participate in. I understand some of you after reading my reasoning may still dislike the decision, and that's ok, I understand if you'd rather not be in the tier anymore.

A third change for the Patreon (and I guess channel too) is that I want it to feel more fluid and adaptive rather than feeling so routine. Part of this has already been explained with the tv show plan above, but in regards to movies, for example, I think it'd be fun to occasionally do a marathon of a series (similar to the tv show plan, but just watching a couple movies back to back). Kind of relating to the poll comments above, I'll watch some films that I really enjoy and either get really into the genre or the director's style and I'll want to continue on that wave but either there's already a bunch of poll winners coming up or the films that'd scratch that new itch get destroyed in the polls. Two examples of this is early on when I was really getting into Daniel Day Lewis' acting I desperately wanted to see more of his work but every single film of his I tried putting in polls got not love, and more recently after the masterpiece that was The Grand Budapest Hotel (and The Life Aquatic which was also fantastic) I basically wanted to do a Wes Anderson marathon but he too wasn't a poll darling. Along with just reaction related content I also want to do other types of videos on occasion. One thing I've put on nearly a complete hold since making the channel is going to watch things at the theater (obviously the covid outbreak played a significant role here too). In 2018 and 2019 I saw over 60 new release films each of those years, and since the channel began (not including Malignant & Nobody which I watched at home) I've watched only 3 films in the theater. It's been really bumming me out the past few months that I've lost such a significant part of my life and so I really want to get back to regularly attending the theater again. This means two things for the channel, one is that there'd be reviews for the films I'd seen if that interests you, and the second is related to the "adaptive" nature of the channel where some weeks I may have a couple films I want to see in the theater so the reactions may be lessened that week (again there'd still be review videos) or they'd be pushed a couple days to the end of the week instead of the middle.

The fourth, and final, change depends on the preference of all of you. I'll put a poll up soon asking how you all feel about me revisiting certain films and doing occasional commentaries again because personally I enjoyed doing them (feels like an eternity ago now) and there's a lot of films I'd like to revisit through the lens of the channel. They wouldn't necessarily be all-time favorites like I initially did, but a lot of films I've seen and either don't remember much or remember having mixed-feelings on even though lots of people love them so I'd be interested to see if my opinion has changed (ex: I watched The Witch years ago and remember just thinking it was ok, but recently I've wanted to go back to it because I feel I'd appreciate it a lot more now).

Apologies for the very long post lol, but there was a lot I wanted to get out. I also wanted to make sure I was detailed in my communication with you all about certain changes instead of just saying "No more polls" and moving on. In addition to that though, I just wanted to make clear my feelings on what the channel is to me. A lot of the changes I'm doing are focused on making the channel more of a community and personalized one (which I personally think it'd lost that feel slightly for a time from where it began, mainly when I wasn't editing the videos and trying to upload 8 videos a week for the sake of pleasing the algorithm). I made the channel originally because I love film and I wanted an avenue to express my thoughts and feelings on it and initially I didn't even know if it would end up being something that could financially sustain me since 'classic' movie reactions weren't really a thing at the time. But even though it did end up being that, I don't want that original motivation to be diluted and fade away, and so I'm hoping these changes make things feel more natural. I know some adjustments I make are definitely not "big-money" moves or necessarily crowd-pleasers in the reaction space, quite the opposite in fact judging by the views on most of the movie reactions lately, but I'm more interested in an enjoyable and genuine experience as well as a quality community base at this point (which you all are!). If you managed to read up to this point, thanks! I appreciate all your support and am looking forward to closing out the year strong with you all!