Alt Shift X 2020 (Patreon)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AoGFyMRxwY 

TL;DR: Watchmen and Pink Letter videos coming soon. More ASOIAF, Westworld, new series in 2020.

In 2019, Game of Thrones ended. Game of Thrones is why Alt Shift X took off in the first place – in 2014, our first Thrones video explored R+L=J, the granddaddy of Thrones theories. That video came out after Game of Thrones Season 4 – arguably the high point of the series – and rode off Thrones’ popularity to start an audience for Alt Shift X. In 2015, we started this Patreon, which makes it possible to make more videos, without sacrificing quality – Alt Shift X is about deep research, clear explanations, and nice visuals, with no clickbait, and no bullshit. With your support over the last 5 years, we developed a style, hit one million subscribers, and made a hundred videos – we covered Westworld, The Expanse, Game of Bones… But mostly Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire – Cersei, Rhaegar, Bloodraven, Stark mysteries, and videos on every Thrones episode since Season 6.

Now that Thrones is over, Alt Shift X will keep evolving. We’ll make more videos on the Game of Thrones books, and we’ll cover more new series. And this is only possible with the support of our Patrons, so we held a Patron survey to decide which series to cover. Patrons want more videos about the Game of Thrones books – so of course, we’ll make lots more ASOIAF videos, like the recent Dayne video and the upcoming Pink Letter video. We’ll hold more votes on Patreon to choose future topics like Euron’s eldritch apocalypse, the Dorne plot, Hardhome, the Blackfyres – there’s lots more lore, theories and analysis to cover. There’s also the possibility that the long-awaited Winds of Winter will come. George Martin suggested that Winds will be out by July 2020, for what that’s worth. When and if Winds comes, we’ll cover it with recap videos, livestreams, breakdowns – it’ll be nuts. There are also GOT prequel shows coming, but they’re pretty far off, and in the meantime, there are other cool shows to cover.

The second most popular series in the survey is Westworld. Westworld is ambitious and messy and lavish and smart and dumb and a joy to watch. Westworld Season 3 seems to focus on Dolores, Bernard and Jesse Pinkman, and will apparently be more focussed than the bombastic Season 2. So we’ll cover Season 3, probably with weekly videos. If you’re interested, Patreon supporters can watch the uncensored version of the Alt Schwift X Westworld Rant video that’s blocked on YouTube.

The third most popular series in the survey is Lord of the Rings – Amazon is spending a bajillion dollars on an upcoming LOTR TV show, and it might be worth making videos about, if it’s complex, and draws from the books, and is… good. But either way, it’ll be an excuse to talk about the original story that defined modern fantasy.

The fourth most popular series is Watchmen – our Watchmen 2019 video will be out very soon. And we can totally do more Watchmen videos – like maybe one on the visual storytelling and symbolism of the original comic. Also popular in the survey was Witcher, The Expanse, Dune, His Dark Materials, and real-world sciency history stuff. Witcher we haven’t watched yet, but it might be worth some videos before Season 2. We can definitely do more Expanse, maybe a video about the protomolecule or something before Season 5. Dune has a movie coming out in 2020, so now’s a great time to talk about spice and sand worms. For His Dark Materials, we could do a video about Dust and the story’s big ideas in Book 1 / Season 1. As for science / history / edu stuff, we’ve got ideas for some cool videos about the real world – Alt Shift X began with videos about science and philosophy, a long time ago.

So that’s the rough plan for Alt Shift X in 2020 – more ASOIAF, more Westworld, probably Expanse Dune His Dark Materials edu, Lord of the Rings when it’s done, and whatever other cool stories come up – comment below if you’ve got more ideas. We can’t do everything – but we’ll hold votes on Patreon, see which shows are good, and make some kickass videos. For votes, updates, livestreams, and Patron-only content, join the Patreon at patreon.com/AltShiftX. There are Patron-only videos about symbolism in Watchmen, and His Dark Materials, and the uncensored Westworld Rant, and more.

So thank you for watching, and thanks to the Patrons for your support. Thank you for the last five years, for sticking with Alt Shift X through the highs and the lows of Game of Thrones. Here’s to five years more.

ASX

PS: And we’ll do that Alt Shift Podcast one day, promise!

PPS: We've tweaked the Patreon reward tiers – but if you're an existing Patron, this doesn't affect you, because the old tiers are grandfathered in 🙂