lindsayellis posts

Bada Bingstream - Sopranos Season 1

Here is the private link for the stream, will go live at 6 (...ish) PT, but feel free to hang out in the mean time 🦆

2022-08-05 00:30:51 +0000 UTC View Post

Bada Bingstream schedule update

The first Sopranos club stream will (probably) be held this Thursday at 6 PT/9ET, and will publish the link an hour beforehand here on Patreon. I will be joined this week by Sopranos first timer (I was surprised too) Dan Olson aka Foldable Human, and probably some other Sopranos superfans. See you then!

2022-08-02 23:22:10 +0000 UTC View Post

Introducing: Bada Bingstream - Sopranos TV club

One piece of media I've never really touched on (besides a passing mention in one of the Game of Thrones episodes) is the Sopranos, in part because I didn't have much thesis-wise to say about it but mostly because there are approximately 45,000 video essays on YouTube with some variation on titles like "the Genius of James Gandolfini" and "the Genius Psychopathy of Tony Soprano." It's a hard show to describe - somehow "mob boss has panic attacks and starts to go to therapy, hijinks ensue" doesn't really do it justice as a pitch. But several years after watching it for the first time and nearly 25 years since it first aired, it's still a show that sticks with me more than most. In thinking over things I could actually handle doing for Patreon while caring for a newborn full time, seeing people celebrate the work of actor Tony Sirrico on the Sopranos after his recent death had some friends and I thinking, hey, we should do a rewatch, or for some even watch for the first time. Maybe engaging with the Sopranos as a piece of media with a video essay is overdone, but something more impromptu and interactive like a TV club-style biweekly livestream for all six* seasons of The Sopranos might be more fitting. Not only is it an opportunity for people who've seen it to see it again with fresh eyes, it's also an opportunity for people who haven't gotten around to it to engage with it with a community.

The way it works is, we're going to give roughly two weeks for everyone to watch each season, as each season is roughly 13 episodes long (so, about one episode per day). Every two weeks we'll have a patrons-only livestream discussing each season, with the first stream taking place ~Aug 3rd, subject to change (because those damn babies amirite). If you're on the fence, give the pilot a shot and see if you're interested in continuing - people going into the show expecting just another variation on a mob movie might be surprised, and there is a LOT to unpack with regard to The Sopranos. So for those of you looking to get Made, see you in a couple weeks.

*Season six is split into two halves that are each almost a season long in themselves, so we may or may not split season 6 into two streams.

2022-07-21 23:28:07 +0000 UTC View Post

What I've been working on for the last year or so

Greetings from 7:00 AM-ish this morning, another day always tired #nofilter.

So I got scooped by NBC news, not that they ran the story sooner than they said they would, and I did give my blessing to mention the baby, but I no longer have a concept of "time." That said they DID have the worst headline in history which is of course a war crime that should be tried at the Hague (I really should know better than to give interviews by now, especially after that horrible New Yorker podcast). I don’t blame the author for the headline but it was basically “cancel culture thing #9,852” so it is what it is.

I naively did intend to start seriously posting Patreon exclusive content that Angie and I had been slowly chipping away at for the last few months, but the pregnancy itself was difficult, to put it mildly, and anyone who's had a baby can tell you that even though they do sleep quite a lot, it's very challenging to accomplish any task more complex than bottle washing when you do get a moment to yourself.

So my secret’s out. I wanted to give her a cool, unique Influencer Baby™ name inspired by a city with great musical significance, so I call her after the place where I first saw Live Never Dies live on stage. From our family and little Costa Mesa, we hope you are … surviving, if not thriving. Here's a few gratuitous baby pics:

2022-07-08 04:11:30 +0000 UTC View Post

Ma- June (???) update

Time flies with the world is on fire I guess? I know I keep frustratingly alluding to "health issues", and I really did intend to start producing regular-ish content in May, but obviously that did not happen. Without getting into details I did have a major surgery in May that was... maybe not a "surprise" but certainly was not planned (and no, it was not cosmetic... quite the opposite in fact.) But the long and short is that I very naively thought I could push some of our half-done smaller projects over the finish line last month despite all... that, but that hasn't happened. I haven't even sat at my work computer all month, and when I open my laptop I basically only have the energy for a quick doomscroll followed by maybe 20 minutes of YouTube (I'm just grateful that channels like Baumgartner Restoration, Disaster Breakdown and Fascinating Horror upload regularly, and yes I do find them all equally relaxing.) Aside from VidCon, June should be calmer, so hoping to produce some Patreon-only content this month, which is the only thing I can see myself producing for the foreseeable future.

Well, except for one, and that is publishing - I have seen some people speculate on whether I'll keep writing, and yes things have been slow, but not on my end believe it or not - the first draft of the third Noumena book has been done since October, but it's only recently that the publisher is starting to get a schedule together. We're tentatively looking at a release in mid to late 2023, and Truth of the Divine in paperback this fall. After that, who knows?

Thank you all for your patience,

Lindsay

2022-06-07 03:22:23 +0000 UTC View Post

May updates

Hey guys,

As a few of you have surmised I’ve spent the last couple months dealing with stuff that has nothing to do with the Internet or career, for better or worse. I will say this – being out of the public eye has honestly been a pretty good call. I do keep an eye on things, and just looking at the culture, especially on places like Twitter and even YouTube, it just keeps getting worse and worse. Respect to people who keep trying to keep that hell space going in some good faith, but for my own sanity I have to keep well away from it, except possibly for promo reasons (and even then I sure don't have to do it right now). That said I and several of my colleagues will be at VidCon in June (medical issues permitting in my case), so if you’re in the SoCal area head on by. This will likely be my last VidCon.

The plan was to finish up some stuff we'd backburnered over the years as it didn't fit on YouTube for #algorithm reasons, but I've been dealing with some medical issues that have left me barely able to get out of bed most days so we are behind on that, but I'll definitely start putting up some stuff with fair regularity starting this month. It won’t be essay style things, because I am burned out to the point where I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do that again, but we will be feeling it out in the next couple of months to see what works content-wise (writing, streaming, docs, etc). Anything I release in the foreseeable future will be exclusive to Patreon.

Thank you all for your generosity,

Lindsay

2022-05-01 20:56:44 +0000 UTC View Post

Ancient Pre-YouTube content

We've decided to add my ancient #problematic content as a Patreon perk in one place since there were so many unauthorized reuploads on YT we’ve been having to remove. They’re bad and you shouldn’t watch them, but they are available to all $2+ patrons for the time being.

2008
Pocahontas: https://youtu.be/Vp8Gp8nd4fM
Teen Witch: https://youtu.be/Ed2RHDS5feI
Anastasia: https://youtu.be/N_fDpWaT6ME
She-Ra: https://youtu.be/iqJNk8Qulpw
Hocus Pocus: https://youtu.be/HJWHJWMQrqA
Nostalgic Villainesses: https://youtu.be/wQDJ4yAnwbs
Spice World: https://youtu.be/xNwvkDHpmdo
Top 10 Disturbing Christmas Songs: https://youtu.be/jX2mSJ-VcFk

2009
Labyrinth: https://youtu.be/lPS5FPFC8QU
Thumbelinia: https://youtu.be/Q9AxIovzQ_4
Babysitters Club: https://youtu.be/EExmaP9_9SQ
Top 11 Embarrassing Dance Crazes: https://youtu.be/sMvM3rPuysw
Xanadu: https://youtu.be/v3j8cqcu4XY
Transformers: https://youtu.be/eihTZrvHbvs
Armageddon Part 1: https://youtu.be/gbEsFOQ2i_0
Armadeddon Part 2: https://youtu.be/0oeQ1ZJnOU8
Bratz: https://youtu.be/2iAnkbKSg8I
Earth Girls are Easy: https://youtu.be/O1t8LXoq7J8
Disney Princesses: https://youtu.be/0kId0UKA2vI
Beauty and the Beast The Enchanted Christmas: https://youtu.be/fbHmlgGdnIg

2010
Dragonheart: https://youtu.be/5S4ZstlZ4dA
The Smurfette Principle: https://youtu.be/AN-F1N52vVw
Titanic: https://youtu.be/9j4g4Mnd7tk
My Little Pony: https://youtu.be/BaT2D1ERIao
Nella's Pony Epic: https://youtu.be/93soyRiBcjk
Showgirls Part 1: https://youtu.be/U7k8dxj7X4s
Showgirls Part 2: https://youtu.be/46qDhIxEero
Blond Pop Stars: https://youtu.be/3Y9I1o5qkHI
Ever After: https://youtu.be/Eg29z9-M3Mc
Grease: https://youtu.be/UPqlk6HQzy0
My BFF Nella: https://youtu.be/YkOOMZHauh8
Hercules: https://youtu.be/KXYaJSyoFhI
Playing God: https://youtu.be/VQ6ytpYbDNE
Man in the Iron Mask: https://youtu.be/T0vsJZ8uDiI
Dreamworks vs Disney Part 1: https://youtu.be/mCyV-OYyZuM
Dreamworks vs Disney Part 2: https://youtu.be/hzhm_H0pf_s

2012
Least Awful Disney Sequels: https://youtu.be/lwRmnIZ7R-o
Betty Boop in Minnie the Moocher: https://youtu.be/LVPzHiKecTM
What Women Want: https://youtu.be/XqTUdphBGXY
Top 10 Hottest Animated Guys: https://youtu.be/5c8x4aOWR5A
Song of the South: https://youtu.be/NV6uFlIipAo
Adventures of Milo and Otis: https://youtu.be/L2K7Uxl1krQ
The Lorax: https://youtu.be/3vu-X2G5x3U
Sister Act: https://youtu.be/kHZtmwKX8Bw
Der Fuehrer's Face: https://youtu.be/5kHyOKF8Gc4
Nostalgic Baby Dolls: https://youtu.be/iLGJkX1W8pc
Top 10 Guilty Pleasure Movies: https://youtu.be/XqYWm9w22aw
Men in Black: https://youtu.be/jQVXtmQt69s
Wild Wild West: https://youtu.be/Ceu1OQAnu0M
Will Smith Was a Rapper, Once: https://youtu.be/4WhQEWWipl4
Fresh Prince of Bel Air: https://youtu.be/eVWtvZzSxsI
Top 10 90s Boybands: https://youtu.be/2kOQ9_V5NeQ
Top 11 Favorite Movies: https://youtu.be/oXr9Rg_soxc
All Dogs Go to Heaven: https://youtu.be/SFqCyaQxvX4
Ender's Game: https://youtu.be/hJy3eo9BDLk
Supergirl: https://youtu.be/a58_KNJ4LUk
Cool Runnings: https://youtu.be/k-KrL2iYYsY
Female Superheroes: https://youtu.be/L4jdCZsOZrA
Red Hot Riding Hood: https://youtu.be/h-CwCcQFhrk
Cutthroat Island: https://youtu.be/__o-dNdbdSM
Top 10 Viral Videos: https://youtu.be/ASKMmtu2n3g
Reality Bites: https://youtu.be/yxlSAuG_5os
Sleepy Hollow: https://youtu.be/sBMfProcCQ8
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs: https://youtu.be/SO2-Rdlvv9w

2013
Return to Me: https://youtu.be/7JnLnDyKH3c
Disney Needs More Gay: https://youtu.be/4FEUAQkaVaw
Top 10 90s Music Videos: https://youtu.be/UXlsuLBex6M
The Addams Family: https://youtu.be/k9pfoxJz6zI
The Mortal Instruments: https://youtu.be/ZE8JTPnCW9c
Addams Family Values: https://youtu.be/4Kq71UTFRy0
The Host: https://youtu.be/T3cIfWgFugA

2014
Dante's Peak vs Volcano: https://youtu.be/l2u5C4BknEk
Divergent: https://youtu.be/VUUYs-NEEpw
The Day After Tomorrow: https://youtu.be/2ApZDu4_KME
True Lies: https://youtu.be/gZ1oLsHl5lU

2022-02-28 21:27:00 +0000 UTC View Post

failed update

I keep trying to write an update that will give some illusion that I have some kind of a path forward in mind, but every time I start it just all comes out rage and bile. I’m just so fucking angry I can’t function, let alone make coherent business decisions.

In some ways I regret the tone of the last post, not because of how it inflamed my agitators (well, not only that), but because of how much it upset people. In a way it was selfish, being so naked about how hurt and angry I was/am, because it doesn’t really help anything. Doesn’t help me, only upsets people who supported me or liked my work, sends my detractors into a rage for insinuating that their actions might cause hurt (even to people who they think deserve to be abused), and all in all just plays into the “cancel culture” narrative of reactionaries and diet nazis. Truly, a lose-lose. I should not have framed it the way I did, but then again, I genuinely did not think it would get much attention outside of Patreon.

So I was going to write this long post about monthly cost breakdown and how a company with multiple employees earning thousands of dollars per month is in no way near the same as an individual earning the same, but then I realized, why bother? These people don't care. Long and short - businesses are tedious, boring and expensive to run, comments still need moderating, and the PBS contract isn't done. But it will be soon (hopefully by the end of this month) and after that, I just don't know. I didn't have a plan to jump to, I only knew that I couldn't do YouTube anymore, or any kind of opinion based "content creation" when having a milquetoast banal observation on a goddamn Disney movie is what napalmed my life in the first place. I don't even know how I can keep writing, because my name is attached to my books, and my name is the thing that's most toxic.

So the only thing I’ll say now is that this abbreviated post is all I have while I figure out how to add value to this Patreon account in ways that don’t involve me being on camera. This nightmare never ends.

2022-01-04 20:56:23 +0000 UTC View Post

Walking away from Omelas

This was going to be a YouTube video, but I just don’t have it in me to invite that kind of scrutiny, to be the last in the sick, sad line of YouTubers who get all weepy on camera and cry about how they just can’t do this anymore, boo hoo hoo. I had planned to move video content to Nebula, but I realize now that doing that is just keeping wounds wide open. My life ended nine months ago - what has been taking up bandwidth ever since then has been a ghost. It’s almost funny, how many people will insist that I have "lost nothing" (you know, because subscriber count is the only metric for success and cancel culture doesn't exist). One YouTube channel chugging along on algorithmic inertia is not success - it’s just an engine driving on fumes.

Many will say this is being melodramatic, that my life isn’t *over*, that there was absolutely nothing stopping me from brushing myself off, building back up goodwill and shutting up and playing the game. And I tried that; in a way I suppose it’s good that I did, because I needed to learn the hard way that that was never going to work. There is no un-fucking this. You can’t find the energy if there is nothing left to convert to it. You can’t be a better person if you are nothing but the hollow shell of one.

2021 has been the worst year of my life. I am traumatized by it. To this day I still have people scolding me by how I handled it, that I should have handled it differently, that I should have “controlled” my “stans”, as if I had the capability to know what any of these people were even saying to strangers on Twitter while I was shitting blood for weeks on end. The worst thing about this whole year is that I can’t even admit this trauma because of all the rhetorical devices people have already come up with to dismiss it. That centering my own pain is evidence of me “not listening” (does it occur to these people that you can listen, and disagree with other people’s conclusions?) That I’m weaponizing my “fragile white womanhood” or whatever to point out that having thousands upon thousands of people who you have never met hate you and say whatever will get them the most updoots about is, in fact, traumatizing. That people I used to know would flagrantly lie about me on Twitter dot com to the tune of thousands of retweets and tens of thousands of likes, and I just had to sit there and take it. My favorite are the people who dismiss any potential harm I might have incurred as justified because I am a “wealthy, white woman” (I am not wealthy), while these same people’s hearts positively *bleed* for Britney Spears.

These people don’t see how similar these talking points are to the same Boomer, bootstrap parenting style that I thought most of us had agreed was abusive - that you need to toughen up, accept your punishment, accept that even if the reaction was outsized that you did SOMETHING wrong, because where there’s smoke there’s fire. Grow a thicker skin. These same people who always crow about “believing victims” telling victims of public dogpiles that they do not deserve to claim their trauma, let alone to process it, because they deserved it. There is no such thing as cancel culture. There is no incentive/reward structure in places like Twitter to call people out. There are no updoots/favs/follows/retweets for hotting a take on whomever is trending.

I reread the 2015 essay “Hot Allostatic Load” for the first time in years last night, and I could not stop crying. Even reading some of these passages now, I can’t stop crying. This was written from the perspective of a trans femme and discusses some rhetorical devices used to demonize trans women specifically, which obviously does not apply to me, but some of it is spot on:

One of the most common tools of exclusion is through mobbing, which is rarely talked about because unlike rape, murder, etc, it’s not easy to pin it on a single person (or scapegoat). Mobbing is emotional abuse practiced by a group of people, usually peers, over a period of time, through methods such as gaslighting, rumor-mongering, and ostracism. It’s most documented in workplace or academic environments (i.e. key points of capitalist tension) but is thoroughly institutionalized into feminist, queer, and radical spaces as well. Here is why it is horrible:

1) It has an unusually strong power to damage the victim’s relationship to society, because it can’t be written off as an outlier, as some singular monster. It reveals a fundamental truth about people that makes it difficult to trust ever again. People become like aliens, like a pack of animals that can turn on you as soon as some mysterious pheromone shift marks you for death.

2) The insidious nature of emotional abuse: How do you fight ostracism and rumors? They leave no bruises, they just starve you.

3) Mobbing typically occurs in places where the victim is trapped by some need or obligation: work, school, circles of friends. This can prolong exposure to damaging extremes.

For these reasons, PTSD is an almost inevitable outcome of any protracted mobbing case.

The Isabel Fall case is almost a textbook example about how online mobbing harms people, and how the people who participate in these mobs never engage in any self-reflection — when some people read Fall’s “Helicopter Story” and questioned the trans bonafides of the author in early 2020, Twitter did what Twitter does and ruined Fall’s life, death by a million cuts, no one single person even beginning to question whether they did anything wrong by jumping to the worst possible faith interpretation of both the text and the author. After a profile written by Emily VanDerWerff was published late in 2021, were lessons learned about the way we use Internet mobs to tear down people we don’t know because of situations we don’t understand? No — one of Fall’s detractors, Neon Yang, became the new scapegoat du jour, using some of the exact same tactics used the prior year to attack Fall.

I’m not going to touch on Yang’s original comments about Fall or the pushback to them, but what was downright charming in its lack of self-awareness about that whole situation was the way people used Fall’s trauma to hurt Yang, the way they invoked Fall being checked into the hospital while Yang said whatever about Fall and “Helicopter Story”, all while having absolutely no idea what was going on in Yang’s private life. What’s particularly galling is how many people accused Yang of “Sending a trans person to the hospital with PTSD” while apparently being completely oblivious to the fact that they could be very well doing the same thing to Yang, a nonbinary trans person. There was no lesson learned on the nature of mindless dogpiling, just Twitter doing what Twitter does - failing to examine systems of abuse while continuing to perpetuate them by laying into a new scapegoat.

Again, a quote from Hot Allostatic Load:

Feminist/queer spaces are more willing to criticize people than abusive systems because they want to reserve the right to use those systems for their own purposes. At least attacking people can be politically viable, especially in a token system where you benefit directly by their absence, or where your status as a good feminist is dependent on constantly rooting out evil.

When the bounty system calls for the ears of evil people, well, most people have a fucking ear.

Something else that was also inevitable - I was going to quit YouTube. I knew I couldn’t do it forever, that I was running out of steam, that I was sick of the increasing dehumanization inherent, that I just didn’t have anything to say about movies anymore. The plan was always to end with Love Never Dies, since it seemed like the best place to end, with some semblance of energy rather than keeping on until I've withered away to nothing. What happened to me in March and April hastened it, but this was always inevitable.

My initial plan was to leave YouTube for Nebula, but I realize now that this is only entrenching myself in a more intimate form of harm rather than the broad, buckshot kind that YouTube invites. I won’t go into detail (not right now, anyway), but I can’t do video content for them either. I can’t make content period. I just can’t do this anymore. There is no healing as long as there is attachment to the thing that makes you suffer, and the thing in this case is being in the public eye at all.

What I wanted was to quietly disappear, but since this is a platform where people are paying me to make content, I feel like I have to make a statement. If it were just me by myself I would just sign off and say goodbye and that would be it, but I have a team who depends on my company for health insurance, and including dependents I supply full benefits for eight people, and here in the US employer-based insurance is often the only feasible option. Saying to everyone “sorry about your children, but they can’t have insurance anymore because Twitter makes me sad” just doesn’t seem like a fair deal (none of them incidentally know I’m posting this).

So the only thing I can do for now is keep this page active with the loose promise that someday I’ll figure out something in the future to make up for this, while asking you please stop messaging me apologizing for not being able to subscribe anymore. You don’t owe me anything. This Patreon is, like my own life and career, just running on fumes.

But all I know now is that being in the public eye at all is a losing game, and I regret all of it. I regret every time I’ve ever stood up for anyone - it always backfires. I regret every time I pushed back against something unjust - it was always just used to hurt me. I regret every time I ever stood up for myself - I never did it “correctly.” I regret every time I showed any vulnerability - just more ammunition to be used against me later. I regret every time I ever tried to play the game with peers and colleagues - they will drop you the second you aren't popular on Twitter anymore. It’s all hollow and brittle, and if there is one thing I have learned this year it is how eminently expendable I am. The good, progressive cis, straight, wealthy white men keep on trucking and coming out on top because deep down, they know that the systems they profess to stand against ultimately exist to benefit them.

And to all the people telling me I need to grow a thicker skin or remove myself from the conversation altogether - you are right. I don’t have it in me to do the former, so I shall do the latter.

Hope your new year is better than this.

2021-12-28 01:47:21 +0000 UTC View Post

Love Never Dies: Magnificent Trash

It's time.

2021-10-21 18:37:53 +0000 UTC View Post

Discontinuing the $10/#passion/name-in-credits tier

Hey guys,

At the end of October we will be discontinuing the $10 tier, meaning this upcoming video (slated for release a week from today) will be the last one to feature names of Patrons in the credits of the video. Going forward patrons can still give as much or as little as they want, but there will only be one tier for everyone, and we will discontinue patron names in credits. This isn’t a reflection on anything patrons have done but is a completely internal decision; we will discuss why and what is changing in coming months.

We want to thank everyone at the $10 level and higher who has supported us throughout the years, and trust that those videos with patreon credits will live into eternity, or at least as long as those streaming platforms still stream.

With glorious anus,

Lindsay

2021-10-12 20:13:50 +0000 UTC View Post

Last chance - Patreon-exclusive personalized bookmarks for Truth of the Divine pre-order

Only a few more days to preorder TRUTH OF THE DIVINE and to claim your personalized bookmark! The entry window closes on 10/11/21 - to enter, follow the link below and upload proof of purchase, and ... eventually, they'll send you a bookmark that I scribbled upon.

URL: https://read.macmillan.com/promo/totdpatreonpreorder/

2021-10-07 19:55:11 +0000 UTC View Post

Narcissism in the MCU

Hoppin' into that always reasonable Loki discourse

Patron exclusive signed bookmark promo: (https://read.macmillan.com/promo/totdpatreonpreorder/)

2021-09-02 01:04:01 +0000 UTC View Post

Patreon exclusives - Signed bookmarks, paperback contest & much more!(?)

To make this extra confusing, I’m just putting this all in one post.

First, the Truth of the Divine pre-order bookmark is NOT a giveaway - simply go to this online portal (https://read.macmillan.com/promo/totdpatreonpreorder/) provide proof of pre-order, and in a couple months you’ll get a PERSONALIZED (by me, so we’re clear) bookmark in the mail. This is available to patrons of all levels. Personalized within reason (no, I will not be transcribing portions of Moby Dick for you), so I can make it out to you, or to Josh Gad, or whatever.

This is only for Patrons, so while there will be one for the general public, that one doesn’t have personalized/signed bookmarks, so if you want in on this, make sure you use the correct link. (US/Canada only, sry :/)

Second: SMP gave me way more paperbacks of Axiom’s End than I know what to do with (and a few hardcovers to boot), so I’m going to give away about 20 personalized signed copies of those too. Because of Patreon’s TOS I can’t make it a raffle, so it has to be a “contest” of sorts. Soooo… uh… leave a comment below by August 25th explaining what is the best pop song about aliens. Why does “ET” by Katy Perry exist? Why are you like that, Kanye, and why am I still kind of into it? Have we figured out what "bathe my ape" means? I’ll pick 20 of you based on MERIT because that’s how Patreon makes us do it. (Also US/Canada only... sry :/)

Finally, for those of you who remember my “leave a comment to get killed in Truth of the Divine” campaign from a few months ago, I needed a lot more random, one-off names than I realized so I ended up using about 30 of your names, only about 8 of which “die” so don’t be surprised if your name randomly pops up as “dead CIA agent” or “member of hate group” (fwiw most of you are journalists).

2021-08-17 22:33:22 +0000 UTC View Post

Reevaluating The Little Mermaid before Disney horks up another live action remake

I'm still quite tired tbh

2021-06-15 19:33:12 +0000 UTC View Post

Patron credits announcement

Hi all! This is Elisa, Lindsay's assistant. I'm the one who moderates all the YouTube comments, screens all her emails and the DMs you send her, and also the one who does the Patreon credits that appear at the end of her videos, amongst many other things.

If you want your name to appear in the credits at the end of Lindsay's videos and you are pledging $10, make sure you are pledged specifically to the #passion tier. Going forward, no one pledging exactly $10 who's not pledged to the #passion tier will be included in the credits. This will give people the opportunity to support Lindsay without their names being included if that is what they wish. Everyone who is pledging MORE than $10 will still be included in the credits, even though you are not technically in the #passion tier. If you wish to pledge MORE than $10 and NOT have your name included in the credits, the only thing you can do is alter your display name on Patreon to a pseudonym, and that will be included instead. Unfortunately, due to the way Patreon's spreadsheets work, this is the only way I can go about this matter, given the sheer quantity of Lindsay's patrons.

Speaking of which, thank you all SO much for supporting our team! Your money doesn't just go to Lindsay, it pays the full-time salaries of 5 people AS WELL AS full health care insurance for all of us AND our families. My two little children have health insurance thanks to you all. It's a big job and a lot of work managing a YouTube account the size of Lindsay's, especially considering the controversial topics we address, and having her cover my whole family's health insurance makes me able to commit my time and energy to keeping her comments section free of harassment and bigotry without having to get a "real" job on the side just for the sake of insurance because the American healthcare system is truly evil.

So again, thank you for all of your support and generosity. Lindsay's inbox here has been absolutely flooded with messages, along with her email over the last few days, and as I'm the one who screens all those messages for her, I know exactly how amazing you all are. Please check your patron status/tier/name to make sure you're where you want to be wrt the credits, and have a great day!

Elisa

PS. Some of you like to choose amusing "names" (sometimes full sentences) for your Patreon display name so that they appear that way in the credits for all to see. Just know that the longer your display "name" is, the smaller I have to make the font, and the less likely anyone will be able to read it. The shorter you keep your name, the better it will be seen in the credits.

2021-04-17 15:44:27 +0000 UTC View Post

"breaking my silence"

So you may notice this does not have Patreon credits, and when you get to the end of it I think you’ll see why. While some people will be glad I went this way, I know this will make some people very upset and they would’t want their name on it. Anyone who was a member at the $10 level starting in March we’ll make sure to have their name in the credits in the next video. In the meantime we’ll do… something for the $10 patrons in the next few weeks to make up for this. I don’t know what. I don’t know. I’m tired. Leave suggestions below.

2021-04-15 16:06:18 +0000 UTC View Post

Soooo the Twitter thing

I'm posting this here because I feel like if I owe anyone an explanation it's you guys, so with regard to the Twitter thing - needless to say there is a lot of projection and assumption of why I did decide to delete it, but at the end of the day I took this whole debacle as a sign that I really need to rethink my "career," such as it were, because clearly this is not working.

Twitter and social media in general have become such an incredible source of toxicity, for culture in general and for me in particular. It was making me so unhappy, which is part of why I had been getting increasingly snippy and defensive in ways that were unnecessary and unprofessional. The people who are saying that this is the result of carelessness are right--I was careless.

As for the question of "why now", it wasn't that this controversy was the worst ever, it honestly was just the last straw, and not just for Twitter. I'm not sure what I'm going to do, how I should engage with content or if I should continue making it at all. So I'm taking some time away from Internet, try to detox from it, and then we'll see what the state of things will be going forward.

As for an actual statement, I'm not making one now. I'm going to take some time to consider how to respond, because I think it will take some time to figure out what I want to say and how to say it.

For the people who've sent messages of support I appreciate it, and I do apologize for any hurt or stress this may have caused. I don't feel awesome about it.

2021-03-28 05:46:07 +0000 UTC View Post

Tracing the Roots of Pop Culture Transphobia

There's a lot of anger in this one lol

2021-02-22 00:24:24 +0000 UTC View Post

Borat in 2020

This is delayed because it's the rare sponsored video, and I'm still negotiating with Audible, so here is the Audible-free version, a Patreon exclusive for... however long it takes Audible to give me the go-ahead. Very nice.

Also I know that in the UK he's called "Baron Cohen" instead of just "Cohen" but I didn't want to rerecord all that, so oh well. Sorry SBC.

2020-12-03 00:32:41 +0000 UTC View Post

Omegaverse Part 2

Edit: Reminder, Patron's get 20% off all this hot merch! https://store.dftba.com/collections/lindsay-ellis-patreon-pricing

2020-10-23 13:00:36 +0000 UTC View Post

Who wants me to kill them (in a book)??? [CONTEST]

So I’ve come up on the writer problem of needing names for very minor characters, most of whom die, and I’m running out of film school colleagues to name them after. So, it made sense to bring it to Patreon! Do you wanna die in Truth of the Divine? Well now is your chance!

Because Patreon‘s terms of service says I can’t do anything that resembles a raffle, it has to be based on merit (and I have to choose, can’t be random). So basically, leave a comment below giving me your name (DO NOT DM ME, Elisa will delete any messages related to this post unread), or a made up name that represents you (NOT any other real person, living or dead, not anyone you know and yes we will be vetting names) as well as a short backstory. It can be your real life story or not, just a sentence or two. Don’t overdo it. And remember, Truth of the Divine is set in 2008. Also there’s a good chance that you will be a bad guy (and, spoilers, most of the bad guys in TotD are kind of in a fashy Proud Boys vein, so it's not the "fun" kinds of villain.) You won't be an alien. If you don’t want your name attached to this type of bad guy, let us know. There is also a very small possibility you might be a character that does not die. Wow!

Other things I Googled:

“No Purchase Necessary”

“Void where prohibited”

I reserve the right to take as many or as few names as I feel appropriate, but I will be in touch with the folks I select. While we're here, level of Patronage will not play into my decisions, so $2 or $100, it’s all the same.

The deadline for submission is 6 PM PST on Monday, because my deadline for the second draft is on Wednesday, and I should probably have all my names in there by then.

Also, needless to say, not reading the instructions is an instant disqualification. Have fun, you crazy kids.

2020-09-27 03:01:07 +0000 UTC View Post

Welp, I'm out of Patreon jail

So as some of you may have noticed, the post on the Omegaverse video links not to the correct video but to a Bane fanvid (for a couple weeks anyway). Well, SOMEONE sent a DMCA takedown to Patreon, and for reasons discussed in the Omegaverse video, Patreon had to honor the damn thing or they were legally liable. Thing is, all that meant was just that I had to unlink the alleged "infringing" content, I didn't even have to delete the post. Anyway, she sent the DMCA notice, I sent a counter-claim, she had ten days to sue me, she didn't (as far as I know, there may be a court clerk rushing to my house, papers in hand as I type this), so my account is back in compliance, hooray.

So you may be wondering, if she went for Patreon, whyyyy in god's name did she not go for YouTube or Nebula, where the content is actually hosted? Well as to the latter, I'm not sure (super weird since two versions are hosted there and it's one of their top viewed videos), but as to the former, well, we shall talk about that... next time.

And to any, er, invested parties that threw me a dollar to get behind the paywall, a) thanks and b) I really, truly did not intend to ever talk about this story again. It was meant to be a one and done, but SOMEONE had to go and make me part of the story.

She-Wolf, coming to Netflix 2025.

ANYWAY here's the uncensored version of the video. Yum. password is hi_karen

https://vimeo.com/460786696

2020-09-23 03:41:39 +0000 UTC View Post