RND// To consider the ideology of Patreon, whose founding story (ie. ‘something entirely made up’) is neatly, mythologically presented as somehow remotely natural, clean, friendly and inherently benevolent:

3398 x 3195 .jpg, Patreon screenshot

“It cost over $10,000 to make that video.”

– Poor old millionaire Jack Conte on ‘not being paid for his art’ and therefore deciding to found Patreon.. conveniently forgetting that (unlike him and his Stanford graduate buddies) if I had $10,000 fucking dollars to begin with, I wouldn’t need Patreon, would I? Gwat.

1920 x 8725 .jpg, screenshot edited in Gimp:

To realize, acknowledge and understand the set of distinctly synthetic social circumstances and mis-relations which brought about Patreon, which (unlike Athena arising complete from the forehead of Zeus) appears a completely artificial state of affairs, AKA “I dislike and mistrust Jack Conte’s smug hipster beard.” No wonder these parasitic, Silicon start up middle-men types are always smiling. Luckily it’s all about the artists tho, right?

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Example Reference Links

• Art Work
• Tech Crunch: The founding story of Patreon [Check out the vids, try not to be slightly sick in your mouth from all the bro-enthusiasm on display -Rob]
• Counter Punch: The Commodification of Art and the Illusions of Capitalism
• Burlington Contemporary: Art’s hidden abode of production
• Polygon: Please pay attention to my Patreon career
• The Outline: No One Makes A Living On Patreon
• Jacobin: The Myth of the Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaire
• Bloomsbury: Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism