Doughnations

Believe it or not, we’ve actually had people write in and ask us if they could give us money. You guys must really like the show…but isn’t everything on the Internet supposed to be free?

Shut it, dummy, they’re trying to give you money! Just take it! Take it and run for the border!

It does seem like whenever people see green, they develop split personalities.

[inhales cash]

But it’s a valid question: should we run for Mexico?

Yes! Yes, run! Run for the border!

In addition to all the people offering us a handout, The Lady, a member of our secret society, wrote in and asked us how to support independent media without spending money. I mean, should you pay or donate for things you see online? Sure, we did a little corporate schmoozing with Netflix, and we joked about it in ( “The Kid Who Does the Videos” and “Vote With Your Feet,” but we don’t even have a way for you to donate.

I’m workin’ on it!

Maybe we steered away from it because we’ve encouraged you, and even taught you, to be cheap. And asking for donations always has one of those guilt-laden, PBS-pledge-week feels to it.

Quality programming like this depends upon the support of viewers like you. Send the money.

There’re basically three ways to support your favorite indie artist: watch, recruit, and donate.

And donate!

Yeah, while donations seem the most crucial, in the long run, the first two are just as important. You only have a limited amount of time to watch TV or the Internet (unless you’re, like, a total couch potato), and while you may pay for a service like cable or satellite, you typically don’t pay per show.

So who pays for it? You do….wait a minute, I just said they don’t. Yes, you DON’T pay for it…but you do. You’re paying with your time; it’s through advertisements that TV stations get paid. But they only get paid if you’re watching. The value’s in your time and attention. The minute the stats say people are watching something else, all that ad money will start going to the indie productions you ARE watching.

Besides watching it yourself, getting others to do it is helpful for the same reason. As you recruit viewers, ad dollars will shift away from traditional media towards independent media. Word-of-mouth has enormous power; word-of-email has even more power, not to mention word-of-blog power, word-of-social-networking power…you have a lot of power.

And money! Money and power!

As I said before, the obvious and preferred option is to show me the money. Donations are best because 100% goes back to the source. But buying T-shirts and other merchandise is good too – they turn you into a little walking, talking billboard.

Donate donate donate donate donate donate donate!

So why aren’t we taking donations? ’cause Google Checkout won’t let us. But we came up with something even better, and you can check it out on our website.

The bottom line is, you don’t have to donate to support independent media. You can support it by recruiting, and by watching. But there is a downside – the more popular a show becomes, the more likely it is to pick up corporate sponsors and become just like other mainstream media. And the bigger the audience, the less direct human interaction you can have with the people who make it. So if you want to keep your favorite indie show indie, you should definitely be donating regularly, and you should avoid telling anyone about it. But if you want to see it get big, and you’re short on funds but not on friends, then spread the word to everyone you know. Either way, you’re helping the cause. Oh! And if you don’t really care what happens to the show, then just sit there. Kinda like you’re doing right now.

Every little bit helps, and it’s your donations that make it possible to bring you wonderful programs just like this one.

Transcribed by: Danielle G.

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