its been funny to see the youtuber payola thing happen under the guise of like "paying cultural workers"... i think in a way that rhetoric does just loop back around to libertarian microtransaction hell if it's not coupled to any sense of wanting to liberate things from the economy, of the economic itself as a condition of deficit and loss... feels like a weird side effect of austerity that all this hustle is aimed at rebuilding a sort of ghost image of 20th century professional life as if that were itself the unalienated ideal and not just a different form of degrading bullshit that eventually morphed into the kind we're living in right now
i made a very firm point of refusing to let myself care about ad revenue or accept any sponsors, and to push hard for Patreon membership as my primary income because it's the only way to escape the hustle grindset bullshit, except that of course it isn't, it's just a different way of stacking the same baby blocks. I'm still working for someone, still caring about perception more than expression. i have clawed my way up the king's tablecloth, i dangle high above the rats who couldn't reach the tassels, but it only gets me closer to his crumbs.
i would dearly love to ever make something without worrying about whether it'll loose me subscriber, but in the end i am no different than anyone else playing this game: pairs of eyes are a commodity i deal in. i can spin it however i want, but I can't opt out of the nightmare any more than the rest of us. the least i can do is recognize the specific way that I've sold myself. it may be relatively novel, but it just shifts us both to new spots on the same butchers block.