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hypocrisyofandrewdobson · 3 years

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Dobson's Patreon: An Addendum to His Monument of Sins

(The following is a submission from @soyouareandrewdobson, meant to be an addendum to the multi-post submission @ripsinfest made a while back. Ironically, this one also had issues when being submitted, so I’ll be copypasting it here with all the images and links originally intended.)

In 2018, user @ripsinfest wrote a multipart series of posts for THOAD, recounting Dobson’s attempt to establish a patreon in 2015 and how it resulted in failure on a massive scale, to the point that his patreon is arguably “a monument to all his sins”.

Personally I think the post series is extremely well researched, rather “neutral” in terms of tone (letting the posts provided as evidence speak more for themselves than the opinion of the writer) and gives a detailed but quick rundown on what went wrong. Primarily that Dobson overestimated his own “value” as an artist and did NOT attempt to give his few supporters what they wanted through his artwork posted around the time.

I do however want to use the opportunity to also point out at certain obvious things that in my opinion (and likely the opinions of others) added to the failure of the patreon account, that were not accounted for in detail and are primarily related to how the internet perceives popularity and Dobson’s inability to understand, how to “sell” and make himself look good to the public.

To begin with, let’s just point out a certain truth about making money via Patreon: To do so, depends a lot on your popularity as a content creator online. That is simply because the more popular you are, the bigger your fanbase is and as such the more likely a certain percentage of people may be willing to donate money to you and your work in hopes they get something out of it, even if it is just the altruistic feeling of having helped someone they “like”. It doesn’t take a genius to see, how e.g. internet reviewers such as Linkara or moviebob (around 2800 and 4400$ earnings via patreon each month respectively) can make quite some money, while other, more obscure content creator or artists barely make money to go by, earning essentially pocket money at best.

In addition, popularity is fleeting. A few years ago e.g. internet personality Noah Antweiler aka The SpoonyOne managed to earn 5000$ a month via patreon, just shortly after establishing his account. But his lack of content over the years AND his toxic behavior online resulted in a decline of popularity and with it people jumping off his Patreon. As such, Antweiler only earns nowadays around 290$ a month via Patreon and most of that money is likely form people who have forgotten they donate to him in the first place anyway.

And Noah is not the only one who over the course of the last couple of years lost earnings. Brianna Wu makes barely more than he does, despite having once been the “darling” of the internet when the Gamergate controversy was at its peak. Many Bronies who once made more than 2k via video reviews on a show about little horses at the peak of its popularity (2013-15) earn less than 300-800 on average nowadays because interest on the show as well as people talking about it has declined.

Heck, in preparation of writing this piece I found out, that one of the highest grossing patreons nowadays is “The last podcast on the left”, a podcast that earns more than 67k a month by making recordings on obscure and macabre subjects on a regular basis.

So there you have it folks: As the interests of the internet users change, so does the popularity of certain people online and -in case they have a patreon account or similar plattforms- their chances of making money via their content.

Which now brings us back to Dobson, who was not popular at all at that particular time and managed to become even less popular as the months and years passed by.

Sure, Dobson had his fans via deviantart, people knew who he was. But the later was more because of “infamy” than popularity and the number of fans he had accumulated online were representing people interested in him at least since 2005 and did not quite represent his actual present day numbers of supporters at the time.

And mind you, the number of supporters was less than 100k, most of them likely underaged deviantart users. And if my research indicates something, then that most content creators with a halfway decent patreon earning need at least 100k+ followers in total. Because of those fans, only around 1-3% will on average then spend money on you, if you actually create content they enjoy and on a regular basis.

Which brings up the next major problem: Dobson did not create content people enjoyed and that in more than one meaning of the word.

On one hand, as pointed out by ripsinfest, he barely released any content at all over 2015 after a few initial months, despite the fact that he was obviously active online a lot, as shown by his presence on twitter. On the other hand, the few things he did create were not the stuff people wanted.

As an example: If you go to a restaurant and pay for a pizza, you expect the cook to give you a pizza. If however for some reason he just gives you a soda, you get ripped off and never come back. In Dobson’s case, the thing people wanted was not pizza but comic pages. But what he delivered was mostly bland fanart, such as of Disney and Marvel characters crossing over or KorraSami. Sure, a few strips of “So…you are a cartoonist” were still released at the time, but not really many.

To give an overview: Taking the release dates on Dobson’s official SYAC site into account, he released around 16 strips of it between March and August of 2015, the last two being “No Leia” being titled “Zip line”

Afterwards, the next official strip released was “Anything at all” in October of 2016.

Now to be fair, there was at least one more strip at the time Dobson released via patreon, that is also save to see on kiwifarms and other plattforms, which has not been uploaded to his official SYAC page. Likely because he simply forgot about it.

But I think that in itself should tell you something about Dobson’s work ethics when it comes to his webcomics. He promoted his patreon in his own video as a way to ensure he can make comics in a timely fashion again for others to enjoy, but in an environment where certain artists are capable to create multiple strips per week at minimum, Dobson could overall not manage to produce more than 16 over a course of six months, which means an average production of 3 strips per month.

For comparison, Tatsuya Ishida of the infamous sinfest webcomic (a garbage fire of epic proportions from a TERF who I think should be put on a watch list) has produced on average 4 strips per week, including full page Sunday strips, for years and nowadays even releases stuff on a daily basis to pass the covid crisis. So a mad man who wants to see trnas people die, has better work ethics than Dobson.

In other words, people expected Dobson to actually get back into creating comics (with some even expecting a return of Alex ze Pirate), but he got in fact even lazier than before, releasing only SYAC strips and random fanart as a product. Which he then also tried to justify as his choice to make because a) he had mental health issues and b) no one can tell him what to do.

And sure, people do not need to tell you what to do. But when people pay/donate money to you expecting to get a certain product in return, they should get the product. Linkara e.g. by all means doesn’t NEED to review comics to have a fullfilling life, but he got famous for his reviews, people want to see his reviews and they pay him for those reviews. So obviously, he will continue those things.

Then there is also the fact that despite Dobson’s claims how he wants to create comics for everone to enjoy and that he aims to keep his artwork online for free so anyone can view it…(his exact words in his promotional video AND text on his patreon once upon a time)

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…the reality was, that he wanted to use patreon as a paywall. Something I actually kinda pointed out at on my own account (shameless self promotion) once, but want now to elaborate a bit. Basically at the time Dobson opened up his patreon, he also was on the verge of leaving deviantart as a platform people could look at his work behind. Which he eventually did.

Meaning that the only major platforms for people to watch any “new” stuff by him were his patreon or art sites such as the SYAC homepage or andysartwork. Which granted, he did EVENTUALLY put his stuff on.

But unlike other content creators who would put “patreon exclusive” new content up on more public plattforms often within a few days, weeks or a month after making them “patreon only” at first, Dobson waited longer and did barely anything to promote his sites as places to look his stuff up for a public audience. In doing so creating a “bubble” for himself that hurt him more than it helped, as Dobson made himself essentially come off as a snob.

A snob who did not create content for everybody to enjoy, but ONLY for those willing to pay him at least one dollar per month. As evident e.g. by the fact that as time went by, certain content was never released outside of his patreon at all, such as a SYAC strip involving Dobbear screaming at the computer because he saw a piece of art that featured tumblr nose.

Lastly, there is the issue of his patreon perks and stretch goals.

See, his perks were essentially non existent. Aside of the beggars reward of “my eternal thank you if you donate 1 dollar”, two other perks that come to my mind were the following: If you donated up to 5$ at minimum, you got your name thrown into a lottery to potentially win buttons and postcards of his artwork. Unsold cheap merch from years prior he failed to sell at conventions basically. There was just a problem with that thing: That lottery thing, which he also was only going to initiate when he reached a stretch goal of 150 dollar a month? It was illegal!

Patreon itself has in their user agreement a rule that forbids people from offering perks that essentially boil down to “earning” something via gambling, which this lottery by Dobson was.

(THOAD chiming in here to add that, in addition to all this, he fully admitted he would be excluding Patrons that he “knew were clearly trolls” from the lottery. Which made the already illegal lottery also fixed, so...yeah.)

The next thing coming to mind was his “discount” on previous books of his he offered online, if you donated at least 10 bucks per month to him. Or to translate it: You would get a bare minimum discount at pdf files of books such as Alex ze Pirate and Formera (you know, the permanently cancelled Dobson comics) if you paid up 50-75% of their original price on Patreon already. And considering the quality of his early works, he should have given you at least a book per month for free if you dared to donate him that much.

As for the stretch goals… lets go through them, shall we:

100$: A wallpaper per month. Something he did provide with eventually, but barely. And after less than five of those he stopped to make them overall

150$: Monthly Gift basket Lottery, which as I stated, was illegal and almost got him into serious trouble with his account. Also not an initial stretch goal he made up but instead came up with a few months into his accounts existence. Finally it got temporarily replaced by Dobson playing with the idea to use 150$ per month to open up a server and art site where people could upload stuff for free similar to deviantart, but under his administration. Promising a “safe space” for other artists. Which considering Dobson’s ego and inability to accept criticism or delegate responsibilities would have likely ended like this:

175$: Establishing a Minecraft server for him and his fans to play on. Meaning Dobson would have just wasted time he could spend on creating comics to endulge in his Minecraft obsession.

200$: Writing a Skyrim children book. Aside of the legal nightmare that this could have been (I doubt Valve would have been happy of someone else profiting of their property) I have to ask, who was even interested in Skyrim by 2015 anymore? Sure, Skyrim was a popular game and it had its qualities, but it was also a trend that had passed by that time. So in other words, there was not a market to cater towards here.

300$: A strip per week guaranteed.

… are you fucking kidding me? 75$ per strip essentially? Something people expect you to produce anyway if you want to be considered a “prolific” creator worth supporting online? Imagine if certain internet reviewers would do that, telling you that if they do not earn at least a certain amount of money, they will not produce anything, period, or less than usual. And Dobson had already proven that he can release more than just one comic within a few days, if he is motivated by enough spite.

600$: Starting a podcast with his friends to talk about nerd culture. In my opinion could only work under the assumption that people even like the idea of listening to Dobson and his opinions. Which considering how very little people like talking to him sounds doubtful. Also, considering how Dobson tends to be late to the party when it comes to nerd culture, likely tending to be out of date faster than he could upload. Finally... what friends?

700$: Returning the love, as he says it, by donating some of the money patreon users gave him to other content creators. This in my opinion is the most self defeating cause possible. On one hand sure, being generous and all that. But essentially Dobson admits here he would blow the money people give him to support HIS art on others, essentially defeating the purpose of HIS own account. He also does not clarify how much of that money he would donate, meaning there was a high chance that he would spend less than 10% of it on other creators, only creating the illusion of support while putting the actual earnings/donations into his own pocket.

2000$: A massive jump ahead. 2000$ per month would result in him getting better equipment (as in a new computer e.g.) and as such “potentially” make more comics. Mind you, only potentially.

This goal in my opinion is also the most fucked up one. Primarily for the following reasons:

Lets say Dobson would have achieved the goal and actually earned over 2000$ per month for at least a year. His annual earning would have been 24k, minus whatever he had to pay as taxes and payment for using the patreon service. And what would he do with this money? Get himself a better computer and equipment by paying a minor fraction of it once. Then he could use that computer for years to come while still having over 10k in his account, plus his monthly earnings. And he may still just produce 3-4 comics a month of a series that has as much depth to it than Peppa Pig if not less.

Sure, many patreon users have 2k+ as a stretch goal on their accounts to signify that if they could make that much monthly, they could have the necessary financial security to focus their time primarily on their content instead of a regular job. And if the content they create is actually well made, many people would support that or be okay with it.

But 2000 dollars to buy ONE computer and not account for how this money will add up over time? And that in light of such profits people may actually expect you to create more than you barely do already? That is either a case of narcissism, plain stupidity because you can't look further than 5 feet or just shows how Dobson did not understand at all the tool he had at his disposal.

Bottom line: Dobson, like many times before, fucked it up. He overestimated the potential support and resulting profits he could make, he expected that his name alone would be enough to assure gainings instead of creating content to justify support and he was unwilling to really give his supporters anything worthwhile back.

And while I am sure that there were also many other factors guaranteeing his failure, those at least to me, were his "common" mistakes most other people familiar even with the basics of internet popularity would ahve avoided.

#long post #patreon #syac #submission #very long post #andrew dobson #adobsonartworks #tom preston #adobsonart #soyouareandrewdobson #ripsinfest

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insanityclause · 4 years

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When coronavirus closed the theaters on March 12, there were still 16 shows left to open in the Broadway season. Audiences will get to see some of them later, others probably not — but what of the more than 20 plays, musicals and miscellaneous offerings that had already faced the press? It seemed unfair not to celebrate them, so on Friday, just after it was announced that the Tony Awards will not go on as usual this year, we sat down (in cyberspace) to devise a Tonys of our own. Naturally, we made our own rules.

BEN BRANTLEY Well, Jesse, even in a season that’s 16 plays short, there’s still a fat if imbalanced roster of intriguing shows. Have we ever before had such a preponderance of jukebox musicals that might qualify for Best Musical? The good news is that some enterprising minds managed to inventively retool the genre you once described as the “cockroach” of Broadway.

JESSE GREEN The cockroach has evolved! “Jagged Little Pill,” “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,” “Girl From the North Country,” “Moulin Rouge!” and — since we’re playing by our own rules here — even “American Utopia,” the David Byrne show that was deemed ineligible for the real Tonys, are all jukeboxes, all worthy and all eligible for ours. Maybe not quite all worthy.

BRANTLEY Perhaps it’s appropriate then that the last show to open on Broadway was the most unorthodox of the “jukebox” shows. I use quotation marks here because that label seems too confining for “Girl From the North Country,” the Irish playwright and director Conor McPherson’s work that uses the songs of Bob Dylan to imagine life during the Great Depression in Duluth, Minn. The more I think about “Girl,” the more innovative and haunting it seems to me.

GREEN For me it took some time, and the show’s move from the Public Theater to Broadway, to appreciate how McPherson was deploying the music in this musical. The songs do not function the way songs normally do; they never address the situation at hand, and sometimes even contradict it. Yet in that gap, poetry grew.

BRANTLEY For me, “Girl” deals with the ineffable and unsayable through song in a way that makes it the most religious, or at least spiritual, show on Broadway. I have found this aspect of the show stays with me, as an oddly comforting reminder of the hunger for communion in this time of isolation. But moving on to matters closer to profane than sacred, what about another mold-breaker in a very different sense: “Moulin Rouge!,” based on the Baz Luhrmann movie about la vie bohème in gaslight-era Paris.

GREEN Here was a case where the gap between the story, such as it is, and the musical materials — found pop from Offenbach to Rihanna — did not produce poetry. For me it produced a headache.

BRANTLEY Ah, I had a swell time at “Moulin Rouge,” and I thought the far-reaching songbook became a kind of commentary on how such songs form the wallpaper of our minds. And then there was “Tina,” which was more business-as-usual bio-musical fare, although illuminated by a radiant, cliché-transcending performance by Adrienne Warren as Turner.

GREEN The creators of musicals really offered a sampler of ways to respond to the jukebox problem. “Jagged Little Pill,” built on the Alanis Morissette catalog, made the smart choice of abjuring biography and instead attaching her songs to a new plot (by Diablo Cody) that grew out of the same concerns and vocabulary. Or perhaps I should say “new plots,” because it is not shy with them. There are at least eight story lines.

BRANTLEY To be honest, this was the show that gave me a headache, because it was so insistently earnest in its topicality and, even when it was trying to be funny, humorless. So, of the new musicals (and we haven’t touched on “The Lightning Thief,” your personal favorite) what would you give the premature Tony to?

GREEN The one that wouldn’t be eligible: “American Utopia.” Joy and sadness bound to each other through David Byrne’s music and Annie-B Parson’s movement: What else do you want from a musical, even if it’s just a concert?

BRANTLEY I loved “American Utopia.” I think, though, I’d have to go with “Girl From the North Country,” but I wouldn’t have predicted that after seeing it in London two years ago. I find more in it every time I revisit it.

GREEN Despite all the Best Musical possibilities this truncated season, only one, “The Lightning Thief,” had a new score. Yet most of the offerings sounded new anyway, the result of terrific arrangements and orchestrations. I’m thinking especially of Justin Levine’s magpie-on-Ecstasy song collages for “Moulin Rouge!,” Tom Kitt’s theatricalization of post-grunge pop for “Jagged Little Pill” and Simon Hale’s excavation of the deeply layered Americana in Dylan’s catalog for “Girl.”

BRANTLEY Here, I’d have to say it’s a tie between “Girl” and “Moulin Rouge!,” each a remarkable accomplishment in a very different way. As for best revival, the undisputed winner is Ivo van Hove’s divisive revival of “West Side Story,” but that’s because it is, remarkably, the only musical revival so far.

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GREEN I liked “West Side Story” better than you did, Ben, perhaps because I wasn’t reviewing it. I lapped up the new things it wanted to show me (while also hunting for the old things it wanted to hide from me) and didn’t worry about the elements that laid an egg. (“Gee, Officer Krupke.”) Its evocation of innocence and hopelessness felt more like real life now than I’ve experienced in previous revivals.

BRANTLEY I concede the point intellectually. But the acid test for me with theater — and musicals in particular — is how much it makes you feel. And to borrow a lyric from “A Chorus Line,” for the most part “I felt nothing.”

GREEN I admit it was odd that there were no obvious breakout performances in “West Side Story” — which brings us to our first lightning round. Who wins our Tonys for leading actor and actress in a musical?

BRANTLEY Best Actress: Adrienne Warren, for “Tina” (though Karen Olivo in “Moulin Rouge!” is pretty fab, too). Best Actor: Jay O. Sanders in, perversely, a non-singing role in “Girl From the North Country.” You?

GREEN Same. I think we are having a socially distanced mindmeld. Will that also be the case with the nine new plays and four revivals that opened before March 12? With one exception, the revivals were not as thrilling as the full slate promised to be.

BRANTLEY For me, the winner is Jamie Lloyd’s spartan, merciless revival of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal,” which brought harsh clarity to the work’s emotional ambiguity.

GREEN And ambiguity to the play’s harsh formality — its semi-backward construction. It was certainly the best “Betrayal” I’ve seen, yet I hold out some love for the revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune,” which in retrospect turned out to be a farewell to Terrence McNally, its author, who died last week. I felt that Michael Shannon and Audra McDonald did it, and him, justice.

BRANTLEY It was certainly a reminder of his shrewdness and compassion. I was perhaps a little too conscious of the Acting, with a capital A. But it was a welcome addition to the season. For Best Play, we have a far more varied field, no? I suspect we’ll agree on the winner here, the season’s great iconoclast.

GREEN Yes, “Slave Play,” by Jeremy O. Harris, wins on sheer disruptive energy, even before considering its intelligence as playwriting, its knockout production (directed by Robert O’Hara) and its fearsome challenge to renegotiate race in America.

BRANTLEY But for all its shock value, what made it a wonderful play — as opposed to just a bracing exploration of dangerous ground — was its heart. By the end, you felt so completely the pain of its characters, all trying to navigate the perhaps insuperable hurdles of interracial relationships.

GREEN I think “The Inheritance” wanted to be that kind of play, too: a story of intimate relationships yet also a gay manifesto with the multipart heft of “Angels in America.” It got the heft, anyway; “Slave Play” ran 120 minutes; “The Inheritance,” 385.

BRANTLEY “The Inheritance” certainly gets points for ambition — and for the fluidity of Stephen Daldry’s production. And might I put in a word for the prickly comic abrasiveness of Tracy Letts’s “Linda Vista,” a lacerating anatomy of toxic masculinity disguised as brooding charm?

GREEN I liked what “Linda Vista” wanted to do but found it flabby. Perhaps straitened times demand slender plays. Certainly, the other new drama I greatly admired was whippetlike: Adam Rapp’s “The Sound Inside,” an existential mystery wrapped in a literary one, or vice versa. Among other things, it allowed Mary-Louise Parker, as a Yale writing instructor, to deliver a Tony-worthy performance. And now that “How I Learned to Drive,” the other play in which she was set to star this season, has been postponed, she doesn’t have to compete against herself. Is she our winner?

BRANTLEY I am going to declare a tie between her and Laura Linney, who gave a very subtle, and emotionally transparent, performance as the title character of “My Name Is Lucy Barton,” adapted by Rona Munro from Elizabeth Strout’s novel.

GREEN I buy that. But let’s not forget Joaquina Kalukango in “Slave Play,” Eileen Atkins in “The Height of the Storm,” Zawe Ashton in “Betrayal” and Jane Alexander in “Grand Horizons.” It was a very strong semi-season for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

BRANTLEY And for Best Actor?

GREEN The real Tonys decreed that Paul Alexander Nolan was eligible for his “supporting” role in “Slave Play,” but in my Tonys he’s a strong candidate for “leading.” Still, I’ll go with Tom Hiddleston, in “Betrayal.” Or at least he wins in my newly invented category of Best Use of the Lack of a Tissue. His facial leakage was Vesuvian.

BRANTLEY He was superb — and a reminder of the cathartic value of the tears of others in theater. Of course, there’s so much to cry about now in terms of opportunities lost this season. But I’m not writing an elegy for, or even a definitive summary of, this season yet. It will be fascinating to see how it reincarnates itself, won’t it?

#tom hiddleston #zawe ashton #betrayal #tonys #postponed

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