quantifica may

Hey team.

Lotta new faces here, so lemme get you up to speed: quantifica is my monthly update where I crunch numbers/data for my various ridiculous, patron-exclusive projects. You can check out the last year-and-change of updates with the quantifica tag. This year's projects were outlined in this video, which is where I first discussed the debt problems here on Patreon. Obviously things have, ah... evolved... since then. I'll walk youse through it gently today!

PROGRESS REPORT

I am now, officially, on sabbatical, so the progress reports won't be very substantive save for the updated number on the Adventure Game Tier List. So let's take this opportunity to talk about the sabbatical and what I've decided it entails.

With the overwhelming outpouring of support in response to my indefinite hiatus video, I am now making more than enough on Patreon to survive without accruing debt and the GoFundMe was large enough to pay off my outstanding debts with a considerable amount left over. I have said thank you many times in many places and it's just gonna keep happening I'm afraid: thank you all so, so, so incredibly much for this! I cannot believe this is real.

A lot of folks have been very insistent that these donations and pledges do not mean they expect me to start making videos again. Which, again: thank you. And I'm taking that to heart. I had accepted when I made that video that I simply might not be a YouTuber anymore, and finally let myself feel the full weight of how much burnout and exhaustion I had been carrying. There wasn't room for it. I came into this year excited about finishing The Alt-Right Playbook and thinking of all the different kinds of videos I might make; I had to lay all the burnout on ARP, that I wasn't exhausted from the hustle and the financial precarity, I was just burnt out on that one project. And, having now let it in, I can't exactly wring it back out of myself.

But it's not as if the enthusiasm for the John Wick and Disco Elysium and Adventure Game Tier List videos has disappeared! The odd thing about this kind of job is you can feel rejuvenated and absolutely sick of your job at the same time. So, what I said in the video still holds: I am not committing to being a YouTuber or to quitting. For the the length of this break, I am entertaining the idea: what if I wasn't a YouTuber? I cannot tell, at this moment, the line between "just need to rest" and "ready to move on." Only thing to do is give myself the rest I need and see where we stand.

So the terms of my sabbatical are as follows: for the summer of 2025, it is not my job to make videos. This does not necessarily mean I won't make videos (though don't hold your breath), merely that it is not my job to. I will rest, I will probably work a part-time W2 job, and I will explore projects I haven't had room for with the channel. And I will spend time with my family, put my new home in order, maybe start riding my bike again, get into baking. I dunno.

In September, I'm going to visit a friend of mine. They live in Japan, and I've wanted to take an extended trip to see them for ages but haven't had the money for it. They live very cheaply in Japan, and it's likely I can actually break even on expenses provided we cook most of our meals together, it's just a matter of having the up-front airfare costs, which, thanks to you, I have! And, while I'm seeing my friend, we're gonna make a project. We haven't decided what the project is, just that we want to make something together. And, whatever it is, it will end up here for all of you.

I will be back in the States some time in October, and, by then, I will have decided whether or not I'm still a YouTuber.

No matter what, I'm still an artfuck who likes making things, so whatever I do during my break will still end up here. And I'll still be updating the Adventure Game Tier List, still be doing these monthly quantifica posts, and probably I'll be interacting with y'all a bit more than before. (There's a bunch of audience participation stuff I promised this year that I'd say it's time for!) You will not be starved of art and engagement, I just don't promise any of it will be video essays.

If that sounds good to you, stick around! We'll take this journey together.

BINGO CARD

So a bunch of money-related squares on the bingo card got filled all at once when I expected them to be year-spanning projects. (I'ma say it again: thank you!) I have paid off a debt (two, in fact), gotten the Patreon back to (and well beyond) pre-pandemic levels, and I achieved my 2024 financial target and then some in a single weekend. Y'all are a little bit throwing off the program here, but I'm not complaining!

As long as we're talking about the debt, let me give you an update: the first debts I settled up were the loans from loved ones. They are the simplest to deal with, as they don't involve any paperwork. The IRS keeps me on hold for 80-140 minutes every time I call and usually all that comes of it is "the forms you mailed us still aren't in the system." I can't make a payment until everything is on-file, but I've gotten the relevant addresses to send money to and gotten digital copies of all the forms (printed, signed, and rescanned because they don't accept digital signatures!) so I can fax them next time they tell me the snail-mail hasn't arrived. The credit debt in collections is still up in the air - I think I have located the correct contact info for the collections agency that has it currently, so I have some fun-times phone calls to make.

Meantime, the money sits in a savings account til I get it where it needs to go.

(For anyone concerned: GoFundMe donations are, legally speaking, classified as "gifts," not "income," so I do not have to pay taxes on the donations.)

MINIMIX

Tonnes. As ever, if you are not logged into Spotify, the app will pepper this with extra songs not of my choosing. Don't blame me if it gives you poppycock.

Masa
-guitar riffs and incomprehensible vocoding-

Medusa
"Just wanna be sedated like my name is Joe Ramone."

Suggestion*
"Suffer your interpretation of what it is to be a man."

Gangsta
"Bang bang bang, oi!"

This is the Dream of Win & Regine
"Montreal might eat its young."

The Island
"Forty-winking in the belfry."

*this marks the beginning of my Fugazi deep-dive; at press time, I have listened to everything up to End Hits and watched the documentary, Instrument.

FILM RANDOMIZER

Reviews for Mars Express, Instrument, and Things Will Be Different.

READING LOG

Finished Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, which was a quintessential Goodreads book: eminently readable but not as substantive as it wants to be. Also started Tom Bissell's Apostle, which is so far very interesting!

GAME CABINET

Finished (well, "finished") Hades, though I still haven't written my review. I'm having trouble articulating a take on it. For such a heavily-discoursed game which I quite liked, I am finding very little to say about it! Will post when I've got something. I've also made progress in Tell Me Why but I'm still only about halfway through.

Meantime, you may peruse my review of Old Skies, which, in Wadjet Eye tradition, is not very good until it's suddenly great.

-I