Tuesday, March 24, 2026

A Rational Self-Sorting Model

I created my Patreon page, I think, in May of 2015. Patreon wasn't "new," but it wasn't widespread either and I was certainly ahead of the game there. In all honesty, I'd been released from my job in January of that year and I needed the money.

These last 18 years of running this blog (the anniversary is coming up in May) has not hidden from the world that I have a sharp tongue, a low tolerance for foolishness and a visible willingness to publicly swat stupidity. That would logically produce resentment, and it has. I've toned it down somewhat these last five years and I notice that the hate rhetoric on boards and reddit has subsided out of existence. I've been here long enough to have people simply tolerate me.

Still, I'm not especially nice. I'm a hard case, I won't easily change my opinion, I'll wade in swinging if I'm challenged... and in a space like a chat room I'm especially vicious. I write faster than most people, and I think at the pace that I write, so often I'm dredging out five hundred words of argument in the time it takes a lot of people to work out what they want to say in thirty. Its not unusual for me to find that I'm answering them with a breaknet three to five minutes with a deluge, while they're getting back to me fifteen to twenty years later.

Like the character Ramsey Michel (played by Oliver Platt) says in 2014's Chef, "You started a flame war with me... are you kidding me? I buy ink by the barrel, buddy."

Yeah. I write a lot. And in an online text fight, it shows.

I received word today that Patreon has created a new page for it's site. It's a "refund page," where patrons can go and manage all the refunds for their creator page in one place.  Here's a screenshot of mine:



I don't think this is evidence of my value.

I think this is evidence of a self-selection process my readers have, because logically the only kind of support I should be getting is from those who aren't easily offended, aren't easily influenced, aren't wilting flowers, aren't here to feel better about "supporting an artist" and definitely don't do it from pity.

This says boatloads more about my readers that it says about me.

For whatever reason — I prefer the theory that you're all damaged in some way — you all feel that you're getting value from what I'm doing. Your reasons are probably best left for your therapists to puzzle out. I'm contented that, despite my shortcomings over the years, despite my projects that don't pan out, despite the decimation of the game con culture that covid left, obliterating my plans there, the ledger of my work is in the black and not the red. That matters a lot to me.

I haven't posted much this last two months. February was a shit-show that poured into March and then, when everything cleared up, I found myself more or less thinking, "fuck it. I need a vacation." Which is what I've been taking. I have one commitment at present that I won't shirk, and that's the online campaign. I wish everyone could all come and play, but that would get a little complicated. I am kicking at the wiki a bit, which I haven't in quite a while, and building some content specifically for the campaign here and here. No doubt, there's going to be more of that. I'll keep you posted.

The game players have asked me to create a private discord channel for them and for me to keep off it, which I've done; so far as I know, however, this other channel is still open to anyone who wants to poke about and ask a question, until 6 p.m. EST this upcoming Friday... as then we'll be playing our game on it for four hours.

https://discord.gg/jtte95JY

Don't abuse it please.

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