Visit Puerto Rico - Honest Government Advert (Patreon)

Hola, patrons! Here’s the latest Honest Government Ad – VISIT PUERTO RICO – made possible entirely by your generous support!

I uploaded the video last night and it’s already passed 1 Million views + 50,000 shares on Facebook – and it’s not even been up for 24 hours yet. Yikes! 

https://www.facebook.com/thejuicemedia/videos/10156320430188452/

(Here's the youtube link for those who prefer it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-GYqakwHdg)

I’m really stoked to have made this one, as it’s my first HGA made in response to audience demand :-)

That’s right – after I published the Visit Hawai’i video back in March, I found huge numbers of Puerto Ricans in my inbox asking me to make an Honest Government Ad about the situation on their island. I’ve never had so many requests for a topic. 

And not just any requests… passionate requests - which really inspired me to try and capture the sense of massive injustice of it all (honestly, Puerto Rico has to be one of the most infuriating cases of neoliberal capitalist bullshit I’ve ever heard of).

Over the past couple of months I conversed with many of those Puerto Ricans via Facebook messages – men and women of various ages who provided generous input as well as feedback on a preview of the video, which I shared with them last week.

Whilst they held different views on the question of US Statehood vs independence, they are all agreed on one thing: that Puerto Rico is a classic example of a colony, a US colony, and that this has to change. 

Which is why I framed the video from this perspective, rather than weighing in on the question of Puerto Rico’s political status – which is really one for Puerto Ricans to decide on.

Anyway, all that background info might help you understand why this video took a bit longer to create. To research it properly I felt I needed to get input and feedback from the locals themselves, rather than just comment as an outsider, and I think this ‘consultation’ with Boricuas really helped to produce a better video.

So thank you for giving me the extra time in June to do all that by switching over to monthly payments (yeah in case you missed the memo, this is now a thing – please check my previous post for deets!)

I hope you like how it turned out! 

For me, even more awesome than the big views and shares is the fact that it’s getting a hugely positive response from many Puerto Ricans – many of whom have expressed huge gratitude for this video. (Very much like the Visit Hawai’i video)

I want you to know that when people write to thank me, I take that to mean ALL of us. It might sound like just empty rhetoric, but I genuinely hope you recognize the vital role you play in collectively being a patron of the Juice Media. 

You guys make this whole thing possible; I mean, I honestly wouldn’t have been able to respond to Puerto Ricans’ requests for this video if I had to rely on other sources of funding. 

Speaking of funding...

pretty soon I need to find a way to increase my Patreon income as I’m currently making a fairly significant loss (just to give you an idea: once I subtract expenses for making the videos, I barely make enough to cover half my rent! Which is not something I can sustain for much longer). 

I’m not sure why I’m telling YOU this, as you ALREADY support my work! But I thought hey, since we’re in this together, you might like to know the current challenge I’m facing and share any ideas you might have to how we might be able to make sure I can keep making videos sustainably. 

So I would welcome any suggestions you might have. 

My strategy has always just been to create great content. And the videos are getting heaps of views – but only a tiny fraction is being converted into people signing up on Patreon. So I’m not sure what else to do. 

What do you think? Is it because of the nature of the videos – always on different topics? Do I need to focus more on a specific subject? Am I not making it clear enough that Juice Media is funded by patrons?

I’m thinking I should probably also make a Patreon video where I explain what the Juice Media is/does, and that it’s entirely funded by legends on Patreon. 

Damn, this is a really long post. If you made it this far, here’s a special hug from me <3

Giordano