Patreon Blog - 7/22/23 (Patreon)

It's been a chaotic week to see the SAG-AFTRA Strike in full bloom and how both actors and writers have joined forces to fight against Hollywood and corporate greed. Of course, as I said in my podcast, I stand in solidarity with the strikers to ensure that they win this battle and they get the compensation they deserve. However, there is a part of me that wonders how this may affect me both as an actor and YouTuber, especially with some rules that they have established. While I continued my work and some personal matters, I pursuit to answer some questions that I need answered to know how the future of my channel is going to be while the strike is still on. With that said, here's the story of my week.

- Released my Tier List video of Every Major Animation Studio: As I am still starting to create Tier List videos, I am still experimenting with the format and see what I can do with it. After the great reception from the Muppets Who Say F*** list, I've received many requests to try something a bit more traditional with the usual S-F tier. As luck may have it, I actually had the perfect subject in mind to try out for that occasion with ranking major studios and distributors in animation. Of course, with something like this, I had to put up that disclaimer at the start so that people don't take this over-seriously and rage about any disagreements, but like before, this is mainly an experiment to see of people enjoy me making this kind of content and if it's a good idea to try out more in the near future. So far, I see comments are having fun with it and sharing their thoughts for their own list, so it's off to a pretty good start. In fact, this is encouragement to try out my next Tier List idea pretty soon.

- Writing the next History Video: Honestly, the subject that I've picked for this turned out to be bigger than I anticipated. The story that I am working on requires a whole lot of research and pinpoint significant moments that need to be mentioned in the video. In fact, there may be a chance that I'll bring on board an extra researcher to make sure I got everything in check with what I will be talking about, especially with all the controversies that surround my subject. As you're reading this, I'm not done with the script and I'm sure there will be some revisions needed to make sure everything checks out before I move on to the recording. However, I will say that I did write the majority of the first draft, so it is shaping up pretty well. It's just with how much I wrote so far, I wonder how long will the video itself be and how much more work will I face when the script is done.

- How the SAG-AFTRA Strike may affect my videos: Earlier this week, SAG-AFTRA announced some rules for social media influencers and they will bar those who want to join that did some promo work for the studios during the strike. As both an Influencer and an actor that wants to join the union, this puts me in a uniquely concerning spot, since some of the stuff I do like my reviews and podcast can debatably be considered promotions for the studios. If I'm not careful, this could ruin future opportunities that I want to pursuit. I contacted but the union I'm in, ACTRA, and SAG-AFTRA directly about my situation. A representative of the strike told me to not promote the works of companies associated with the AMPTP, but then I found this article from Variety that states both movie reviews and entertainment journalism are okay to do during the strike. For now, I'll say that I'm about 90-95% sure that what I do with my videos and my podcast is safe and that I'm not crossing any lines with SAG-AFTRA. I may still ask them more questions to sure, but for as long as the strike is up, what I do with my videos shouldn't be harmful to the actors and writers' mission.

So that was my week of writing and making sure my acting and YouTube businesses don't conflict with each other. There is a part of me that does hope that the strike will end soon so that I don't have to worry about the possibility of sabotaging myself, but I also wish them the best of luck to keep on fighting until their livelihoods are fully secured. So, until next time...

See ya later, dudes!