00:00:00.000Hi! Impressive carrying skills, right? I got some Bud Lights for us.
00:00:04.900So, I kept hearing about this thing called March Madness,
00:00:08.460and I thought we were all just having a hectic month, but it turns out it has something to do
00:00:13.140with sports. And I'm not sure exactly which sport, but either way, it's a cause to celebrate.
00:00:20.920This month, I celebrated my Day 365 of Womanhood, and Bud Lights sent me possibly the best gift
00:00:27.120ever, a can with my face on it. Check out my Instagram story to see how you can enjoy March
00:00:32.600Madness with Bud Light and maybe win some money too. Love ya! Cheers! Go team! Whatever team you
00:00:40.540love, I love too. Okay. Love ya. Hello, hello, and welcome back to A Bit Fruity. Happy holidays
00:00:52.760and Happy New Year, my friends. Today, it is just me. It's a bit of a special episode
00:01:00.660about something that I'm sure you've heard about at some point over the last year,
00:01:06.120but from a point of view that is also deeply personal in ways which will become clearer
00:01:12.420as the episode goes on. I was going to ask Dylan Mulvaney to join me today for this episode,
00:01:18.680and she is coming on this podcast. We've spoken about it. She's a friend of mine,
00:01:23.620but not for today, not for this episode, for a couple reasons. First of all, I would imagine
00:01:29.820that there is no one more tired of discussing the Bud Light boycott than Dylan Mulvaney, and
00:01:34.780I wouldn't really want to waste an hour talking to her with talking about something that she
00:01:39.360doesn't really want to talk about anymore. Secondly, this is ultimately not a story about
00:01:45.380Dylan. She is a key player, and she becomes the symbolic main character at the center of all of
00:01:52.120this, and her face will forever be connected to the way that people remember it. But ultimately,
00:01:58.780it's not about her. It's a story about corporate greed, about the manufacturing of political
00:02:05.400villains to motivate voters, about the influencer economy, and about representation politics.
00:02:11.660I hope you enjoy it. I love you, and I appreciate you, and without further ado.
00:02:18.940Earlier this year, Bud Light's new Vice President of Marketing, Alyssa Heinerscheid, had been
00:02:23.360wanting to take the brand in a more inclusive direction. She felt like Bud Light was increasingly
00:02:29.880falling out of touch with younger, more progressive audiences. Bud Light had also been in the decline
00:02:35.520for a bunch of years now, and she felt like the brand image was too stuck in this, you know,
00:02:40.640frat boy image so on april 1st dylan mulvaney posted a video that she was sponsored by bud
00:02:47.160light to make now quick background i'm sure if you're listening to this you probably know who
00:02:51.560dylan mulvaney is but if you don't she is a tiktok star she gained over 10 million followers
00:02:58.960on tiktok and millions of followers on other platforms over the past couple years while
00:03:03.660documenting her transition she documented that in a very popular series called days of girlhood
00:03:09.720which she's since stopped doing because of the backlash that we're going to get into in this
00:03:14.100episode. But anyway, on April 1st, she posts this Instagram video in partnership with Bud Light.
00:03:20.360It's a minute long. It's promoting this $15,000 giveaway that Bud Light is doing in celebration
00:03:26.860of March Madness, like, you know, the college basketball tournament. I don't know that much
00:03:31.560about it, but it's something to do with basketball. And the tone of the video is extremely innocuous.
00:03:39.720it's extremely apolitical. She kind of has this, you know, satirical attitude about not knowing
00:03:46.680that much about sports or March Madness. And yeah, from the bat, you could interpret this
00:03:52.440as a strange casting choice, right? Why would Bud Light cast Dylan Mulvaney, who self-admittedly
00:03:59.080doesn't know a whole lot about March Madness or basketball, to make this sponsored Instagram video
00:04:05.480about March Madness and about basketball, but you could also find the self-awareness that Dylan has
00:04:11.760in the video, right? She's saying, I don't know, it's sports or something. You could find that
00:04:15.340self-awareness kind of endearing. Dylan isn't pretending to know what March Madness is and
00:04:21.040she's making light of it. She is making light of the strange fact that she's been put into this
00:04:25.220position to market it. In addition to the one minute sponsored Instagram video post that was
00:04:32.020promoted by nobody except Dylan herself. The company didn't promote it. It wasn't pushed
00:04:36.500anywhere. It was just on Dylan's Instagram page. Didn't even make her TikTok. God, guys.
00:04:42.220In addition to the video, Bud Light sent Dylan one can of beer with an illustration of her face
00:04:49.900on it, which was as a congratulation to her for having hit one year since the beginning of her
00:04:55.740transition. Now, the way that this kind of narrative spun out, which I'm going to describe
00:05:01.880in a moment, you would have thought that Bud Light cans with Dylan Mulvaney's face on it were being
00:05:08.160sold everywhere. You would have thought that you could have bought a Dylan Mulvaney beer
00:05:11.920in every vending machine, in every 7-Eleven, that there were no Bud Light cans being produced
00:05:17.660without her face on it. You would have thought that she was on every Bud Light billboard, right?
00:05:21.880every single right-wing media person who goes on to describe this partnership between Dylan Mulvaney
00:05:29.280and Bud Light in total outrage made it sound like Dylan Mulvaney was the face of the brand.
00:05:36.320That was never the case. I need you to have the foundational knowledge that the extent of the
00:05:41.600partnership between Dylan Mulvaney and Bud Light was one sponsored Instagram video that lived on
00:05:47.660Dylan Mulvaney's Instagram page and one singular can of beer. A single can of beer which doesn't
00:05:55.440even exist anymore. Here's Dylan. Funny story I had the can around my house but then I realized
00:06:01.680wait I need to protect this can so I hid it somewhere and now I can't find it because I
00:06:06.540hid it so well but when I do find it I feel like it needs to go in a museum preferably behind
00:06:11.980bulletproof glass. Immediately after Dylan posts this 60-second Instagram video and a story of the
00:06:20.000one beer can, Fox News begins reporting on Dylan Mulvaney and the Bud Light collaboration around
00:06:27.680the clock. Suddenly everything, even beer cans, are celebrating and promoting transgenderism.0.88
00:06:36.040Bud Light has just released a commemorative can celebrating a man who dresses up like a woman.
00:06:39.840sales of Bud Light have dropped even more following its controversial partnership with
00:06:44.760trans activists. Bud Light has yet to really acknowledge what they did. They'll put out
00:06:49.800patriotic ads. They'll try to sweep it under the rug. But until they explicitly address what they
00:06:54.960did, this hemorrhaging is not going to stop. They haven't directly said that this is a problem.
00:07:00.320They had a sponsorship with Dylan Mulvaney in the first place, nor have they apologized to
00:07:04.840their consumer sport. I think that the Bud Light brand for many people out there has become so
00:07:11.280toxic that guys, guys know, right, that if you get a Bud Light right now and you're holding a Bud
00:07:17.240Light, your buddies, let's say you're out golfing, let's say, like I said, you're out at a social
00:07:21.980event, your buddy's going to walk up and be like, oh, you're a big Bud Light guy, huh? And you're
00:07:26.640going to get made fun of a little bit in a way that you wouldn't if you drink Coors Light and
00:07:30.720And Fox News, along with other major players in the conservative media ecosystem, like The Daily Wire, The Daily Caller, Breitbart News, they turn this Instagram sponsorship, which should have never fucking mattered to anyone, into a total frenzy that trickles down to the viewers of that media and everybody starts to go absolutely berserk.
00:07:55.780What beer are we going to drink on 4th of July?
00:12:43.860That's how I feel about where we are with the Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light backlash. I'm like,
00:12:49.920month eight. We're on month eight, everybody. I'm sorry to everyone who usually thinks my
00:12:55.360voice is ASMR suitable. I realize that that probably just woke you up. So what does Bud Light
00:12:59.980do? Well, Anheuser-Busch's CEO, Brendan Whitworth, issued the following statement. He says,
00:13:07.300we never intended to be a part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of
00:13:12.520bringing people together over a beer. My time serving this country taught me the importance
00:13:17.760of accountability and the values upon which America was founded. Freedom, hard work, and
00:13:23.500respect for one another. As CEO of Anheuser-Busch, I'm focused on building and protecting our
00:13:29.580remarkable history and heritage. I care deeply about this country, this company, our values,
00:13:35.800and our partners. I spend much of my time traveling across America, listening to and
00:13:40.940learning from our customers, distributors, and others. Moving forward, I will continue to work
00:13:46.220tirelessly to bring great beers to consumers across our nation. Now, I remember reading this
00:13:53.560statement, and for the first time during this whole thing, feeling absolute rage. Because you
00:14:01.200know what? When you are a regular viewer of these right-wing media outrage cycles, as I have been
00:14:09.260for a few years now as part of my job covering them. There's always something that they're mad
00:14:14.100at. They're mad that Minnie Mouse is wearing a pantsuit. They're mad that the green Eminem
00:14:19.280isn't sexy anymore. They're mad that there's like a they them pronoun character in some obscure
00:14:26.060Nickelodeon show. Like there is always something. And so while I was always angry for Dylan that0.97
00:14:35.420there was so much hate and transphobia coming from Fox News and its viewers towards her throughout
00:14:41.000this whole situation, it didn't surprise me because she was their topic of choice du jour,
00:14:51.040right? However, when the company that hired her, when the company that cashed in not only on her
00:15:00.080audience but her community on our community the queer community did not publicly back her in fact
00:15:06.980publicly abandoned her publicly and privately by the way we'll get to that in a second when they
00:15:12.200said we never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people you know what I'm sure they
00:15:19.300didn't I'm sure they thought as many brand campaigns have done before them that they were
00:15:24.600going to hire some queer people, appeal to the queer audience for 15 minutes, make their check
00:15:30.520and cash out. And frankly, as we've learned, as they've learned, that's not the moment that we're0.80
00:15:38.360living in. And, you know, I resent the fact that the moment we're living in is the one that trans1.00
00:15:47.340people cannot exist in without being inherently political. I think that's wrong. But as we've all
00:15:55.020learned, that is the moment we're living in. And so for you to hire her, for you to put her in the
00:16:00.600line of fire, and then when the fire comes, for you to run the other way as the multi-million
00:16:07.960dollar corporation. Actually, is it a billion dollar corporation? Let me Google that. Billion
00:16:13.040corporation. Anheuser-Busch's annual revenue is $60 billion. For you as the billion-dollar
00:16:21.320corporation to hire a trans person and run the other way when there's backlash and say,
00:16:27.620well, we didn't mean it. Fuck you. That pissed me off. That still pisses me off. And the1.00
00:16:33.700interesting thing about this statement, though, is it didn't just piss me off. It pissed everyone
00:16:38.820off. And in fact, in trying so hard to toe this middle line of like, we don't want to upset anyone
00:16:46.720and we just love America. They made everyone angry on all sides of this issue. There were
00:16:52.560gay bars that started boycotting Bud Light and ceased to serve Bud Light at their bars.
00:16:59.340And the people who were already enraged on the right wing became even more enraged because they
00:17:04.180saw this as a lukewarm statement, which frankly, it was. Amidst this whole thing, Brendan Whitworth,
00:17:11.540the Anheuser-Busch CEO, ends up going on a televised interview with Gayle King and a couple
00:17:17.220others. And I want to play you some clips from that. It's been a challenging few weeks. And I
00:17:24.300think the conversation surrounding Bud Light has moved away from beer. And the conversation has
00:17:29.840become divisive. And Bud Light really doesn't belong there. Bud Light should be all about
00:17:34.300bringing people together. This whole Bud Light doesn't want to belong in a divisive conversation
00:17:40.560thing. Like, are you kidding me? This shouldn't be divisive, but it is. And you did start this
00:17:47.920conversation. And while you sit here and try to make your billion dollar corporation marketable
00:17:54.080to bigots again, queer people, trans people are suffering from the hatred. They're dying from the0.99
00:18:00.240hatred. I know Brendan Whitworth is not an activist. I don't think he should be. But if you're going to
00:18:06.720enter the ring, fucking stand in it. Given the moment we're in, this moment in America with trans0.99
00:18:11.980issues at the top of a Republican social or conservative political agenda, knowing what you
00:18:18.340know now, if you could go back, would you send this can to this one person again? There's a big
00:18:23.620social conversation taking place right now. And big brands are right in the middle of it. And it's
00:18:29.000not just our industry or Bud Light. It's happening in retail. It's happening in fast food. And so for
00:18:35.280us, what we need to understand is deeply understand and appreciate is the consumer and what they want,
00:18:42.060what they care about, and what they expect from big brands. There is a big social conversation
00:18:48.980happening right now. What we need to deeply understand and appreciate is the consumer.
00:18:56.620Well, guess what? The thing that your consumer appreciates, the person that your consumer is,
00:19:03.360is someone who films themselves shooting beer cans because symbolically that's how they show
00:19:09.480themselves hurting trans people in a way that doesn't violate social media guidelines.
00:19:14.020some customer you have and you mr three-piece suit can't even say the word transgender okay
00:19:20.920so you did point out that anheuser-busch has in the past supported the queer community in fact
00:19:25.360you had these cans uh in 2019 that were rainbow bottles that were sold in stores all across the
00:19:31.940country um but the political arm of anheuser-busch has donated to anti-lgbtq plus politicians um so
00:19:39.200where do you stand and where does the company stand on queer rights?
00:19:43.140You know, as from, uh, we support politicians that support our business. And when we say that,
00:19:48.580we talk about things like, uh, things that, that work for the industry, allow us to grow the
00:19:52.700business, allow us to employ more people, uh, and really help drive the economy.
00:19:57.160We support politicians who support our business. You know, I think this is the most honest he's
00:20:04.000been so far. He doesn't care about LGBTQ people or safety or Dylan Mulvaney or anything. He cares
00:20:12.800about the beer company that he's the CEO of. And we knew that. We knew that the whole time. But at
00:20:18.020least now we're saying it. Your sales are dropping. People, you know, we have people firing guns at
00:20:23.980Bud Light cans. I mean, it's just gotten really off the chain crazy. So how have you, how are you
00:20:30.720grappling with that, handling that. I think it's the impact, honestly, on the employees that weighs
00:20:36.100most on me. But again, as I mentioned, seeing the pride and the commitment that they have
00:20:40.820working on behalf of a 165 plus year old American institution is what gives us energy as we look to
00:20:49.780move forward and focus on what we do best. This fucking guy should be a politician.0.99
00:20:54.240Brendan Whitworth, go into politics. You're great at not answering questions. Now, Dylan ultimately1.00
00:21:00.120posted a video to her Instagram a couple months later saying that Bud Light never checked in on
00:21:05.120her, that they ran for the hills. What transpired from that video was more bullying and transphobia
00:21:14.880than I could have ever imagined. And I should have made this video months ago, but I didn't.
00:21:20.320I patiently waited for things to get better, but surprise, they haven't really. And I was waiting
00:21:25.800for the brand to reach out to me, but they never did. And for months now, I've been scared to leave
00:21:31.720my house. I have been ridiculed in public. I've been followed. And I have felt a loneliness that
00:21:38.580I wouldn't wish on anyone. And I'm not telling you this because I want your pity. I am telling
00:21:43.620you this because if this is my experience from a very privileged perspective, know that it is much,
00:21:49.800much worse for other trans people for a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly
00:21:56.460stand by them is worse in my opinion than not hiring a trans person at all because it gives
00:22:02.660customers permission to be as transphobic and hateful as they want and and the hate doesn't
00:22:07.760end with me it has serious and grave consequences for the rest of our community and and you know
00:22:13.720we're customers too i know a lot of trans and queer people who love beer and i have some lesbian
00:22:18.660friends who could drink some of those haters under the table so okay june rolls around it's pride
00:22:25.380season and every year as you the listener may know a large part of the internet including myself
00:22:31.680jokes about the hollowness of corporate pride campaigns memes circulate largely around the
00:22:38.700gay internet joking about how june is the only time where companies remember that queer people
00:22:43.700exist and that they don't actually care about us. And they don't. And so when June came around this0.98
00:22:50.220year and the pride campaigns simply didn't happen, I wasn't the most surprised I've ever been in my
00:22:56.480life. But the swiftness with which all the companies just bowed out was shocking. Now,
00:23:05.740from the creator side of things, I can tell you that many companies which had scheduled pride
00:23:11.720campaigns and influencer pride related partnerships with queer creators this year, they just canceled
00:23:17.940them. They canceled them before they were meant to go live. And some of the queer creators who
00:23:23.080were hired for those campaigns were paid and just told that the work was never going to go out to
00:23:28.420the public. And a lot of them were not. And even more common, many queer creators this past June
00:23:34.840just didn't get hired because the campaigns were canceled before that could even happen.
00:23:39.960I remember texting with my creator friends, you know, political creators like myself, artists, drag queens, and we were all like, are you working this month? And nobody was. The one time of year where most of us make most of our money, it was all gone.
00:23:58.120And any of the brands that did end up publishing their pride campaigns, they were all boycotted too. Target was boycotted for selling LGBTQ pride merch, which it does every single June. Conservatives spread this libel that Target was selling tuck-friendly underwear for children, which they weren't.
00:24:19.180It was tuck-friendly underwear for adults in the adults section, but this myth that Target was selling tucking underwear for children was spread so far and wide by right-wing media that it led to a bunch of bomb threats on different Target locations to the point where Target decided to move their LGBTQ Pride merch displays to the backs of stores.
00:24:42.400The North Face did a pride campaign with the outdoorsy drag queen, Patty Gonia, leading to them being boycotted.
00:24:50.320Starbucks was boycotted for including a trans person in a commercial that they did.0.98
00:24:54.920And then, of course, there was a Disney boycott spearheaded by the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, because Disney got too woke or fucking whatever.0.65
00:25:03.460Now, I hope this is obvious, but I don't blame Dylan for any of this, because none of this ever had anything to do with her.0.76
00:25:12.400She was just the trans person who happened to become incredibly famous in a moment when the right wing was searching for a mascot enemy, someone to make the face of their hate movement so that they could emotionally galvanize their base into springing into action and springing to the polls.
00:25:31.420You know, when Anita Bryant, the famous singer and Florida orange juice spokeswoman from the 1970s, when she became the face of the movement to exclude gay people from non-discrimination ordinances and ban them from being able to teach in public schools, she inversely galvanized the gay movement to fight back.
00:25:50.920A movement needs something to root against just as much as it needs something to root for.
00:25:57.060And when the right-wing media establishment organizations like Fox News and people like Ron DeSantis, when they honed in on Dylan, they had found their person.
00:26:06.720A lot of people have compared what happened with the Bud Light boycott to the 2018 Nike advertisement with Colin Kaepernick.
00:26:16.200So just to recap on that outrage cycle, in 2016, the football player Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the pregame national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice in the United States.
00:26:30.580And subsequently, he became the face of a national controversy, earning him a condemnation from then President Donald Trump.
00:26:38.320in 2018 Nike hired him and they did a campaign an actual campaign not a singular pair of shoes
00:26:47.160where they did a photo shoot with him that turned into billboards and magazine ads and social media
00:26:53.180ads including one kind of iconic image that has Colin Kaepernick's face on it and on top of his
00:26:58.720face it says believe in something even if it means sacrificing everything this led to a widespread
00:27:04.800boycott of Nike. People were burning their shoes. It resembled the Bud Light boycott in a lot of
00:27:11.000ways. Now, when this Nike campaign came out, Nike's stock initially dipped by 3%. It was a
00:27:18.620$4 billion loss in the company's value. But within a month, Nike regained its losses and the stock
00:27:24.900grew 5%, reaching a record high for the company. How do you explain the difference between the
00:27:30.300ultimate success of the Nike campaign and the failure of the Bud Light campaign, which Bud
00:27:35.740Light, you guys, like Bud Light is still trying to scramble to cover their losses. Like I won't
00:27:40.400pretend that this ultimately was successful for them. CNBC published this report in August that
00:27:47.180basically said that people just don't want brands to be political as much as they used to. It found
00:27:52.780that Republicans are less likely than Democrats to think that brands should espouse political
00:27:57.960beliefs or advocate for causes. I don't think Republicans are actually more or less against
00:28:05.180brands taking stands than Democrats are. It's just that when brands do take stands, they're
00:28:10.480usually progressive, which conservatives don't like. On the rare occasion that a brand does
00:28:16.460espouse conservative values or that their CEO espouses conservative values, Republicans love
00:28:22.780that, I think that consumers right now, especially young consumers, feel more than ever the political
00:28:29.980weight of their purchases matter, which is something that we're seeing play out right now
00:28:34.580with great intensity as it relates to Palestine. There is a huge movement on social media among
00:28:41.080young people right now to boycott brands that are passively or actively aiding in Israel's
00:28:47.660massacre of Gazans. And simultaneously, these long threads that people are making of information
00:28:54.080about which brands are supporting Palestine and are supporting a ceasefire. There was this Forbes
00:28:59.340article I read while preparing for this episode that was also discussing this point about how
00:29:03.940the reason the Colin Kaepernick campaign was ultimately successful and the Bud Light one
00:29:08.700wasn't was just because people are dramatically less interested in brands taking political
00:29:13.980positions now, and I just don't think that's true. But speaking of politics and political
00:29:19.880positions, we have to return to this question of, was Dylan Mulvaney's Bud Light video political?
00:29:27.380Check out my Instagram story to see how you can enjoy March Madness with Bud Light and maybe win
00:29:32.360some money too. Love ya! No, the video was not political. There was no political messaging,
00:29:39.200there was no pride messaging, there was no messaging about womanhood or transness or0.99
00:29:43.880literally fucking anything. Categorically, it wasn't an advertisement for children.0.99
00:29:50.240It's a 21 plus ad. So even people who think that queer and trans people are like inherently
00:29:56.560dangerous and should be kept away from children or whatever, like even those people don't have
00:30:02.120a leg to stand on. All Dylan did was exist as a trans person online with a can of beer in her0.98
00:30:10.300hand. And all Bud Light did was hire a trans person. That is what it boils down to. The backlash0.99
00:30:18.120to this wildly innocuous video signified the mainstreaming of just hardcore, straight-up
00:30:26.980transphobia distilled into a message that many queer people have been seeing for a long time now.
00:30:33.540We are not to exist in public. It's not about child safety or whatever other bullshit argument0.99
00:30:40.020they come up with to keep us in the shadows. It is about erasing us from public life by any means0.94
00:30:46.180necessary. And in the tradition of American capitalism, we can only meaningfully exercise
00:30:51.600our beliefs with our dollar. So if your belief is that queer people should not exist anywhere,
00:30:57.480then you will withhold your dollar from any company that gives us a platform. And if enough
00:31:02.360people boycott successfully, the companies will cease to include queer people in any of their
00:31:07.220advertising. And that is exactly what happened. With, by the way, an incredible quickness. Because1.00
00:31:13.160the photoshoot diversity quotas and the pride campaigns were only ever important if they
00:31:19.120served the corporation's bottom line, which was and is and will always ever be profit. Queer people1.00
00:31:26.700and black people and fat people and disabled people were not invited to the corporate initiatives0.98
00:31:33.520because business executives one day suddenly decided to be nice. They did it because they0.96
00:31:38.860remembered that our communities had money to spend. And take our money they did. But when it
00:31:44.940became apparent to them in April of this year that our bodies and voices and image caused more
00:31:50.740trouble than they were worth. We were shut out as quickly as we had been welcomed in.
00:31:58.620Well, we've reached that point in the episode where it's time to make it all about me. Look,
00:32:05.560it's weird to speak candidly about career stuff, but whatever. Let's do it because I
00:32:13.000do not exist in a world outside of this story and this boycott. I think people tend to think that
00:32:20.120at some point, a healthy amount of clicks just magically converts into money. And on most social
00:32:28.340media platforms, that is not true. YouTube pays its creators a good portion of the ad revenue
00:32:35.080generated by the user's videos. So if you are a creator on YouTube who's regularly bringing in
00:32:40.320millions of views, then yeah, you're set. But YouTube is basically the only platform that
00:32:46.300operates that way. Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, you hardly get paid anything, if anything,
00:32:53.600just for being there. For the most part, creators like myself make their money through
00:32:59.100brand partnerships, which is why you as a consumer of online media see them. For the average creator,
00:33:05.020they pay way better than the trickle of pennies you get from ad revenue. So what happens when
00:33:11.780those advertisers stop calling? I've been a creator since I was in the middle of college,
00:33:17.400which was about five years ago. And it took me a year or two to make any sustainable income from
00:33:24.360it. But once I did, as someone who is known primarily as a gay creator, I could depend on
00:33:30.540making about a third of my annual revenue each year just in June. This past year, that simply
00:33:38.040did not happen. In fact, the only brand deal I got last June was for a behind-the-scenes
00:33:45.500consulting session with a brand that wanted to hear my input about how not to fuck up Pride
00:33:51.520campaigns. What the fuck is going on? Well, there's a fire in the apartment, in an apartment on my0.99
00:34:10.540floor. I'm going to open my window. No, I can't open my window because it's too loud. Okay. I'm
00:34:17.000just going to keep going. Make it to the end. One of the things about being a creator online
00:34:20.720is that financially speaking, you're beholden to when brands think you're marketable, which
00:34:27.140for some of us is only in June. And this year, it wasn't even in June. You also just have to be
00:34:33.860constantly wary of how you might be alienating a potential brand partner. And how am I going to
00:34:40.920make money if I alienate all of them? And that's not an impossible thing to do when brands are
00:34:47.400being amenable to progressive causes and to left-wing political creators, but in the current
00:34:54.120political climate where conservatives and the conservative outrage cycle have made it so that
00:35:00.040you cannot breathe as an outspoken queer person without being considered controversial, that's
00:35:06.200basically impossible. And so in this moment, for me to appease advertisers would mean literally
00:35:13.080just not being able to do my job or having to do it in a way that is soulless with a husk of the
00:35:20.540integrity and the passion that got me started to do it in the first place. And if that's how I have
00:35:25.460to do it to get a sponsorship, then like, what's the point? And so forgive my long-windedness,
00:35:32.360but I am starting a Patreon. And I'm doing that for a couple reasons. Patreon, you probably know
00:35:39.320patreon is but if you don't it's a website that allows creators to provide a feed of content that's
00:35:44.760only available to subscribers so you as a subscriber can pay a couple bucks a month
00:35:50.380and you can gain access to the creators content and bonus features it's it's like only fans for
00:35:56.840non-porn creators now i want to be super clear all of my regular content will remain available for
00:36:04.380free for everyone. The bi-weekly podcast, all of the Instagram content, everything is still going
00:36:10.620to be there and remain just as it is. But on Patreon, I'll be offering some bonus content.
00:36:17.380There will be a bonus piece of deep dive content like this one each month available to all
00:36:22.880subscribers. You'll be able to weigh in on upcoming topics for the podcast and for other content.
00:36:29.680There will be a members-only group chat, which I'll be hanging out in.
00:36:33.560And I'll also be doing a monthly live stream that will be scheduled in advance.
00:36:38.340So as a subscriber, you'll have the details and know when to come hang out and how to participate.
00:36:44.020The idea behind Patreon for me is twofold.
00:36:46.780On one hand, I can fund all of the free content without sole dependence on advertisers,
00:36:52.780which will not only be relieving in that I don't have to wait for them to want me,
00:36:57.160but I also, you know, don't have to worry about discussing topics that would alienate potential
00:37:03.120partnerships. So in short, I can be a controversial faggot and it won't matter. And then on the other0.99
00:37:09.420hand, it'll be a more intimate place to make content. As you may have noticed at some point
00:37:15.240or another, my content began reaching a volume of people such that everything I made began leaving
00:37:21.600my little corner of the internet, our little corner of the internet. And I'm extremely grateful
00:37:26.720for that, but also it makes comment sections pretty wild, sometimes for good and sometimes
00:37:33.200not. Patreon will be a place that, at least to me, because we're behind a paywall and the only
00:37:40.120people who are there are people who really intentionally want to be there, feel safer,
00:37:44.520quieter, more still, which I'm really looking forward to. The link to the Patreon will be in
00:37:50.580the description of this episode. I would love, of course, if you joined. There are two tiers,
00:37:56.720The Gay Agenda Evangelist at $5 and The Woke Mob Boss at $10, each of them with slightly different offerings.
00:38:05.520I'm really, really, really excited to have fun over there.
00:38:10.140Now, that said, if for whatever reason you can't or you just don't want to, please, please, please do not feel badly.
00:38:18.640Like I said, all of this will continue to be here.