A patreon... why exactly?

Welcome to the official RojoFern brand patreon page, a bastion of fun, depending on your definition of it.

So I get creating a patreon is nothing out of the ordinary for a youtuber; it's a pretty standard way for one to supplement other sources of income, be it from youtube directly and/or elsewhere; many people do it. I'm going to be frank with you, though, and this may or may not be a surprise, but I don't make a dime off of the videos I create. I don't make money from ads, nor do I ever expect to. I'm not in the youtube partner program; my channel has been deemed ineligible (presumably because of past content I've made, which is understandable).

Now, not being in the partner program has ultimately been very freeing, as it has allowed me to use a host of media that I otherwise wouldn't be able to if I wished to personally monetize my videos. That's right, I don't license the music I use, which is indeed copyright infringement. Obviously, though, youtube has the content ID system that, while flawed, allows me to use the copyrighted works with the trade-off that all potential ad revenue from my videos will go to the respective owners of said works (the music companies and such), which I feel is fair. My videos aren't massive viral behemoths raking in millions of views and thousands of dollars, so the loss of ad revenue is actually less than what it would be if I were to actually license every song. The music companies get a pail of free money proportional to the scope and reach of my video, and I can actually bring the specific visions I have for each of my video ideas to fruition. This is not something I wish to change. I don't wish to compromise my videos for the sake of pursuing a little ad revenue, and seeing the incredible responses from all of you, I figure you don't want that either.

With that being said, I am ultimately still in the same boat as many youtubers. These videos are time-consuming and are only becoming more so as I try to improve their quality. If I want to continue being able to make these without an entire year passing by and loss-of-interest taking hold, I need to be able to support it with something. This is what I want to do. Making videos is what I want to do. It's one of the few places where I can really put all my skills to work and actually grow them to become better. That's not something I want to stop.

So... patreon. Now of course I'm not taking out a figurative gun and demanding your wallet, that is the last thing I want to do, and this certainly does not mean my channel's content is getting thrusted behind a paywall. However, I'm also not going to prance around and say "oh it's fine, I don't ACTUALLY need this, I'm just throwing it out there", because that would be a lie, and you all deserve to know what the actual situation is like. So if you do end up deciding to donate, thank you immensely, and if you don't, I understand. In this day and age I'm sure we can all use whatever pocket change we find in the sofa. At the very least, thank you for taking the time to read whatever the hell this 500 word thing that I just wrote is, because that means a lot too.