Extinguished: Fireside Chats Ends This November (Patreon)

Hey All.

It’s with a heavy heart that I announce Fireside Chats will be wrapping up towards the end of this year. While I don’t want to “retire” the brand forever -- because maybe one day I’ll bring it back or decide to do one-offs or something -- the show will go quiet beginning this fall.

I’m currently sitting on six episodes of the show that have yet to be published, and have eight more scheduled. All six of those episodes will go live, and all eight of the scheduled episodes will be recorded and posted as well. So, you can expect 14 more episodes, with a 15th from me, before year’s end. All episodes will go live, as usual, on Wednesdays at 9a PT.

How did I come to this decision? Well, I’ve been mulling it over a lot, and have had a lot of ups and downs in figuring out what I should do. The reality is, the Internet is a hostile place for everyone, but it’s especially hostile for public, well-known figures like me. And I’ve come to the conclusion that “it only takes one” to turn over the applecart, and that maybe I should pull back before someone proves my math correct.

The nature of my show is complete vulnerability and openness. I record Fireside Chats in my apartment, and it requires incredible trust. I give people my address and my phone number, I invite them into my home, they often meet Erin and Lola, and so on. A lot of people might not know this, but I never look at who a person is as far as their Patreon level (or if they support me at all), nor do I Google around about them, or anything else. It’s what makes the show fun, I think. I don’t know anything about the people that are coming through. But that also makes the show a bit of a wildcard. I never know what I’m going to get. But that’s also the downside.

The reality is, putting myself repeatedly in this sort of situation is unwise. Because, as I’ve been running all of this through my head recently, I can’t escape the fact that my safety has been threatened on many occasions over the years, including recently over the PAX fiasco, and that perhaps I’m being too cavalier not only with my own safety, but more importantly those around me. I want to be clear that no one has done anything wrong, and I’ve had zero bad experiences with people recording the show. But I also know there are people out there that want to hurt me, and I don’t want to expose myself -- and especially my loved ones -- to any danger. The latter of which would be maximally selfish. I'm a grown man, and grown men make decisions not only that benefit them, but those around them.

Ironically, as I recently started to edge towards maybe continuing to do the show, two things happened that convinced me not to, almost back to back: Side Quest’s writer, Sophia Narwitz, was doxxed. And then the next day or so, my friend Blaire White was doxxed. This is on top of everything else you see every day. The bickering, the fighting, the back and forth. It would be easy enough for someone to ask to be on the show, come into my apartment, and do anything they wanted. They could distribute my number and my address. They could do any number of things.

I’m sorry, crew. I simply cannot run these risks anymore, not only for me, but for my family. I have the strange feeling that if I don’t make this call now, I’m going to regret it.

Fireside Chats is by far Colin’s Last Stand’s least-trafficked show, and it’s not the reason that very many people signed up for Patreon, at least not in its entirety. But I know there are fans out there that love the show. I happen to be one of those people. But all good things must come to an end. A two-plus year run for an eclectic interview series is awesome, but as someone close to me reminded me recently, it’s also a relic of “the old CLS.” I think it's time to let it go.

I don’t feel an incredible need to replace Fireside Chats with anything. I’d argue that Colin’s Last Stand’s Patreon offering -- between Sacred Symbols, Sacred Symbols+, KnockBack, Side Quest, and Let’s Plays -- already gives incredible bang-for-your-buck, frankly well in excess of any Patreons I’ve encountered. You’ll still get all of these shows (I promise, none of them are going anywhere), you’ll still get to interact with literally every one of them (whether by submitting inquiries or picking topics or games… or both!) as we move through 2019 and into 2020, and I have zero intentions of freezing any further shows.

Knowing me, I will also probably launch something new anyway. LOL. But we’ll see what the future holds.

I know this will be disappointing to some of you, and that to a lot of others, it won’t matter at all (again, I see the traffic!). But I hope you understand where I’m coming from and why I’m making this decision.

Thank you for your understanding, support, kindness, and love. As always. -Colin