The Patreon Letters - June 10, 2017 (Patreon)

Hello everyone! M here again for another weekly update. We're in the middle of spinning a lot of plates, so excuse the bunch of updates in this piece.

• We're still taking suggestions for games to play. So far nobody's really been forthcoming. If you're reading this, YOU can suggest a game and get it on our polls for next month. The poll will be going out next week so you only have like ten more days to suggest something. 
• Amory Score episode 4 came out this week, and it's the dumbest one yet. Even if, like me, you don't give a single fuck about Coheed & Cambria, it's a good time to laugh at bad music and worse edgelord storytelling. Also be sure to check the site for screencaps from the comics that tie into those albums. It's a good stupid time.
• My Life is Strange LP started this past week. It'll be running twice a week for now, because I'm in the middle of trying to play KotOR 2 and that's a very long and consuming game. After that I will probably go back to my MWF schedule, but we'll see.
• Goof Zone records today, so please look forward to the return of that. There isn't a date set for publishing it, but it's coming. 
• Second Officer Slog drops on Tuesday, and it's a lot.
• Our first youtube episode of Abnormal Mapping should hit on Friday this week. That was unlocked with your Patreon support, and is a look back at our very first episode with some conversation about the genesis of our podcast and how mortified Jackson is about their teenage self. It's a good time. The episode will also be going up in the normal podcast feed with the new audio. A great chance to enjoy old episodes you might have missed the first time!

Okay, that's enough updates. So far these letters have been very media-focused, but honestly all I've done this past week is work on podcast stuff and watch Arrowverse shows while playing Injustice 2. I'm kind of stuck in a media rut right now, so I'll spare you more DC comics navel gazing and get a little more personal about things I've been thinking about in this fallow period for productivity.

Laziness is a strange word to use for people with creative hobbies and day jobs. I work a normal full time office job to live off of, which is normal, but that means that everything else I do has to be done around 8 hours of work a day and 8 hours (hopefully) of sleep a night. That's a narrow window in which to fit everything else. This is true of a lot of people who make podcasts or write or do art or anything else. We have to fit it in around the edges of the obligations to health and stability. 

Unfortunately, we're all trained to compare our hobbyist output to those who do these things as a job. I look at the Abnormal Mapping podcasts and compare them to similar podcast networks that make podcasts as a full time job. I think about our youtube channel and am frustrated me and Jackson don't record more, but realize my metric is professional LPers who make youtube their entire job. I get frustrated drawing when I can fit it in, because it's a new hobby for me, but realize I'm comparing myself against webcomic and fan artists on youtube who live off their work and travel to cons across North America because they're good enough to have that fan base.

I know I'm not alone in this. One of the most insidious aspects of living in our present capitalist hellscape is that the line between hobbyist pursuits and professional hustle has become so indistinct as to be effectively useless to people on both sides of the line. Actual professional writers and broadcasters have to compete with the verve and flexibility of someone doing things out of the bedroom, while us bedroom creators are constantly told how we should act if we want to make our hobby our job even if we never started with that intention. The poison of professionalism seeps in and convinces us that if we work harder, the money and recognition will come. More than that, it has to come, because otherwise why would we create the thing? The compensation and capital are the ends, the creative work a simple means. How could it be special? Everyone's got a podcast. Everyone had a blog. Who cares?

This is, unsurprisingly, a really poisonous way of looking at the world. In some early Abnormal Mapping episodes me and Jackson talked a lot about this problem back when we struggled with the idea that Abnormal Mapping should be a place where we write articles and reach out into games culture. Thankfully we've mostly been spared that. The patreon allows us just enough space to indulge in our interests without going broke, but in a private way that doesn't really suggest that we 'hustle' aside from asking everyone to share and support the Patreon every few days. Abnormal Mapping as a games site has focused mostly on the podcast as me and Jackson explore our other interests through new shows. We watched as our friends struggled to pay the bills with games writing, and didn't go down that path. I don't want to speak too much for Jackson, but I don't have that kind of hustle. I already have a day job.

As I said at the top of this letter, I've spent most of the past two weeks reading comics and playing Injustice and watching Arrowverse shows. I feel guilty about this: I burned through my youtube backlog, I don't have fresh content for these letters, I have to rush to get KotOR 2 done before we record. But that guilt is a cultural pressure we all have to fight against. If I'm taking care of myself, if I'm going to work and getting sleep every night, then it's okay that I spent two weeks doing something with the few hours I have free that isn't going to be turned into content. It's okay that I cracked open my sketchbook for the first time in months and drew horribly because I'm so out of practice. It's okay that I do things just because I like them and not because I can turn them into something for twitter or for the Patreon.

When I think of the problems endemic to our generation, I think this might rank among the most pervasive. We've all been taught that we can do anything we want for a living so long as we work hard enough, so it must go to show that our wants should be work to make that living. It isn't sustainable. There's only so much money and most of the people who have it aren't giving it up. It's okay to do things for ourselves. It's okay to reject the hustle. It's okay to live a life for the living itself, not because it makes Good Content.

Please share our podcasts and Patreon with any of your friends who don't listen to us yet. We survive on your support. 

Talk to you in two weeks.

M