9.21.2026

Tl;dr ~T H E A L G O R I T H M~ is mad at me and I'm about to throw a bunch of stuff at the wall to try to placate the monster. Help me come up with some malicious compliance!

Unfortunately, I do not say any purchasable proper nouns on this channel.

When the automated transcript of the spoken words out of a human meat-popsicle revenue-generating asset (you and I call them creators) just include words like Great Value or Gucci, even if its as slang and the person is in no way sponsored by them or trying to sell you anything, the mere mention of branded words is suspected to be more algorithmically favored.

Because if in the same browsing session that you watch an anti-capitalist creator's brutal take-down of Shein, you then open another tab half an hour later to buy a tank top from a different brand, youtube still sees that you engaged in commerce and can enjoy a nice little browser cookie treat.

I make videos about fungus and rocks. There is literally no organic reason I would ever even incidentally say the brand name of anything. And even if there were, way back in my early tiktok days when I made art videos, I would cover up the logo on my sewing machine and microphone with a piece of blue painter's tape that said "no free ads" and "bRanD".

So, since on the back end of Youtube "shoppable videos" are being pushed so hard, it would seem I now need to find my own little prickly pear way of playing along. To be completely transparent, don't get me wrong: I would love to earn more money! Being disabled is grossly expensive! But the operative word is earn. I am repulsed by business models that trick people out of their money.

Sidebar: if you've recently felt pain from that sort of thing and need catharsis I cannot recommend the indie movie Thelma (2024) enough. A 90 year old granny falls for a phone scam and goes on a cross-town adventure to get her money back, its fantastic.

So here are my ideas so far and naturally this is where you come in. Please reject the ideas that are bad! Please toss in any good ideas that come to mind. Don't like, stress over it its not your job. But y'know, if you think of something...don't hold back!

#1. If you go on Shorts you've probably seen those stickers pop up on top of videos that are a little PNG of what the person is holding that you can click on to buy it.

I first saw this on a makeup review video that was--what else--a brutal take-down. Its an auto-tagging feature that back end of Youtube pesters us to turn on over and over. And it kinda feels like if you don't, maybe... "oh what a shame it'd be if nobody saw this video ya worked so hard on?"

So I want to try this a few times, but with increasingly absurd things for a person to impulse buy in this format, like more and more niche scientific equipment I can find in their product database until I'm up to something insane like a scanning electron microscope.

#2. I'm very close to finishing having a little storefront for selling stickers of the amazing animal illustrations Angie makes for the channel. We already have the stickers and packaging, the hard part is order and shipping management. If you've bought a zine from me you know this is my weak point right now. Its nearly ironed out! I think.

#3. I had a sponsor on the the astronauts video and am seriously considering one more before the end of the year. I would be immensely grateful for any feedback on how you feel about these two afterword. Both on the sponsors themselves and how I do the segments. I have only had ONE sponsorship before this week on this channel. ever. I'm extremely selective and have rejected so so so much ethically dubious money (to my bank account's great chagrin). You can view my sponsorship criteria flowchart here.

#4. If you haven't heard it before, October-December is the big money time of year for youtube advertising what with Christmas gift shopping frenzy.

As someone who relates to Chidi from the Good Place more than almost any other fictional character and that is not something to brag about, this is very challenging for me. I generally don't do mid-roll ads unless I'm splitting revenue with another channel collaborating. I might make a video late in the year long enough to justify an intermission, i.e. a mid-roll ad. But it'd need to be like over 40 minutes and unsponsored for that to feel okay. We are just so inundated with advertising I cannot bear to part of the onslaught of ads more frequent than my turn takes in Catan. I am a nightmare to play with lmao.

#5. The hardest thing to do up front but the absolutely best thing in the long run: the artisan goods I already make! I've tried off and on over the years to sell various things I make like my watercolor or oil paintings, applique patchwork garments, or right now I'm super into botanical textile dyeing. And the problem is always the need to build up a big enough inventory up front for there to be an actual selection as opposed to like 3 things at a time. If I had one mega-hit monetized video, or secured a single illusive $5k sponsor read everyone's always telling me other Tubers my size get, or was selected for one of the small business grants I apply to, I would be able to launch this. I'd be able to get business insurance, pay the license fees to start selling at local art markets again, have a proper online store with secure checkout, and of course buy the materials in economical bulk.

Because each time I've done my little art ventures they've been moderately successful! I make sales! But never quite enough to be self-sustaining because I can't make that up-front investment to scale up. And I have to hit pause.

Anyway that kinda has nothing to do with y'all but I would of course show off #5 on the channel if it worked out. Partly because foraging for dyes would make a sick video but also it would relieve the pressure to make the channel itself economically self-sustaining for the time it takes to create. Also I'd make bonus videos about it because botanical dyeing is straight up anthropology it is so unbelievably academic and fascinating!

Youtubery is still such a new profession I'm fine with wrestling over how to make it viable in a way I find ethical. I know there's not really a set path. All I hope is that all you dope people I've met along the way who like what I make are willing to come along for the ride as I sort out how to keep this train a-movin'.