Reasons I Don't Like Patreon, Part Three

[rynling]

There's no way to filter content on Patreon.

Probably the less said about this the better, but let's just say. For example.

Let's just say, for example, that there's someone who's into a certain fetish that many people might not be comfortable with, like explicit age gaps, and that they make repeated requests to the artists they're supporting on Patreon to draw content of their fetish. I'm a hardcore believer in "don't like, don't read," and I stand behind the idea that everyone's fantasies involving fictional characters are valid, but I also don't particularly want to see, for example, impish ten-year-olds happily being molested by forty-year-olds if I can help it, nor do I want to see "soft" versions of the same concept while knowing why that specific person requested it.

I also feel bad for people who rely on Patreon for financial support, like, how comfortable would they be turning down a request for fetish porn if it meant possibly losing a longterm supporter?

Comments

[runicmagitek]

I also feel bad for people who rely on Patreon for financial support, like, how comfortable would they be turning down a request for fetish porn if it meant possibly losing a longterm supporter?

I was literally thinking about exactly this about two weeks ago by accident. I was flipping through some fandom on AO3 and found a rape fic, which... you know, whatever, let people write what they want to write, but in the summary, I noticed the author mentioned "commission for so and so." That piqued my interest. I then checked out this person's AO3 profile and realized it was nothing but smut all done for commission. Hundreds of smut. Legit this was what this person did. I also noticed that more than half of said fics were rape/non-con fics. Further poking around led me to some site where people could ask this writer questions and one of them was, "Do you actually like writing the stories you're commissioned to write?" and I can't remember the answer word for word, but the writer more or less said they don't enjoy the rape aspects they have to write and definitely don't condone it, but hey, they're getting paid to do it, so they kind of blank out during those parts and just... keep writing.

And it hit me that A) holy shit, there's actually a market for people who will throw money at you to write random as hell smut of their faves and B) I don't think I could stomach writing that much of something that squicked me out for the sake of money. But then just imagine being that person and going, "Yeah no, I'm not going to take rape requests anymore." There goes, quite literally, half of your fucking fanbase and commissions.

Yeah. It's definitely a lot to unpack. Patreon always made me feel weird with fandom stuff. I've only used it to help support a podcast I follow and that's it. I much prefer ko-fi, where it's more of a tip jar like, hey you, I like the thing you did. Keep being awesome and have some money for doing the awesome thing. But at the same time, yeesh, I am not made of money and can't support the 200+ artists I love and follow.