To my very first group of Patrons (Patreon)

Ooooo it's just us here. This is kinda secret, kinda sexy, kinda espionage.

Ahem.

 I've never had consistent supporters before, but I've been dreaming of it (or the equivalent, really) ever since I was 13 and wanted to be an actress. And then after that, when I was 22 and realized I was actually a writer (and had been since third grade), achieving a professional status has always been The Dream. I'm not like my future wife, who draws and crafts and crochets purely for her own pleasure. I'm a Slytherin, I've got ambition for days.

But there are a few vital exceptions to my ambitions. A streak of Hufflepuff tendencies, if you will. My desire to be a professional writer/entertainer has always, always, always come from a desire to help people. And if you're making a living at any art form, that means you've connected with people and helped them in some way. I've only been doing Gaywatch for 5 1/2 months, but I've already received so many comments about my videos brightening people's day, or getting them through a hard time. That's it. That's why I do it. I'm not here to make millions, but if I ever helped millions? Life purpose fulfilled.

I believe art and commerce can have a healthy, functional relationship under the right circumstances. I consider Patreon a much needed step in the right direction, putting the emphasis on artist/patron relationships where it belongs. They take their cut, sure, but that's not inherently evil. They need to get paid too. The important part is that they stay out of artists' way. I get touchy when someone tries to control what artists create and how. This is why Youtube will likely never really be on my side, even if my monetization application goes through. I'm queer, my content is queer, and I swear on the regular. I refuse to change any of those things for the sake of pleasing advertisers. No, not even the swearing. And if that means I only ever earn scraps from that site, fine. (I never wanted Youtube to be a main source of income anyway. It's too arbitrary, unpredictable, opaque, and as we all know their interpretation of Fair Use is abysmal. Youtube's main function for me is exposure and storage space. No other site does both for free.) 

Should my Youtube monetization go through, I have a whole video planned for addressing my ethics when it comes to money and ads so I won't bore you here. But I will take a second to promise that, unless me or my future wife are literally in the hospital and need to pay the bills, I will never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever have mid-roll ads on Youtube. I fucking hate them. 

Anyway, this may seem a tad overboard and premature when talking to 32 patrons, but I don't care. 32 of you have shown up for the beginning of something I'm going to try my hardest to grow with love, transparency, ethics, and lots and lots of queerness. If that's not worth an honest, over-eager, heartfelt welcome message then I don't know what the fuck is. We'll get to voting and livestreams and all that jazz soon enough, but for right now I wanted to say hello. Welcome to the party. I'm your host, Brittany, and I hope to make you proud.

'Til next time. <3