Hi! It's Annika here, and I am a DIY youtuber. On my youtube channel, I teach people how
to sew and how make clothes for themselves.
Most of the time.
"Hmm. What have I made? [laughs]"
"I mean, it's fine if I don't lift my arms
at all, but if I do - yeah."
Anyway – I’m making this video because I am launching a Patreon campaign!
Patreon is an amazing platform where you can support your favourite content creators. Your
donation can be as little as a dollar, or as much as you’d like, and it really helps
content creators like me have some sort of stable income for the content that they’re
producing!
Now while I think that it's really important to support any content creator if you really
like their stuff, I want to be totally honest about what your support would mean to me on
a personal level.
So I struggle with a pretty severe chronic illness called Takayasu's Arteritis (which
you can read more about on this instagram post that I made about it here).
Living with a disability, as I do, is not only tough on a daily basis, but it also makes
the future really uncertain. Finding stable fulltime work is pretty much a nightmare for
anybody who lives with an illness that affects them a lot in their day to day lives – for
example, without going into too much details, I live with quite a lot of exhaustion and
pain and fatigue, and a lot of uncertainty about my health, constant doctors appointments...
which would honestly make me a total nightmare employee in the eyes of any employer – which
is also going to make it really, really, really hard for me to find any kinds of stable, 9-5
sort of job.
But with youtube, I have the freedom to work really hard when I'm feeling my best, and
to let my body rest when I'm not! By doing this youtube thing, I can make my own hours,
be my own boss and set my own schedule. Which would be just an amazing, indescribable thing
for me, and would give me some kind of certainty about the future.
Of course, I don't want you to just see me as a charity case. I want you to donate because
you see some kind of value in what I do. Just know that your donation will also be helping
me out in this HUGE WAY.
Now there is this perception of youtubers that we’re all super rich because you know,
a couple of thousand or hundreds of thousands of people do watch the videos that we create.
But that’s REALLY not true. I’m going to share this article from Fusion,
and also a recent video from Youtuber Wengie, for a more realistic view of what we do actually
make each time click someone clicks on our videos. And anyway – I want to stress – my
goal in having a youtube channel is NOT to make money! That has never been the main goal
of my youtube channel. My main aim is to build up this lovely community of people who love
to sew and craft, and to make people smile, and to teach people how to sew their own clothes,
and chatting and interacting with all you guys gives me so much satisfaction in itself!
But, I also have to pay the rent, and afford this new studio space that I have so that
I can create all these videos for you guys, and the materials that I need to make DIYs,
and the equipment that I need to film these!
Another reason that I am doing this is that I don't want to have to work with brands or
companies that aren’t ethical or that I'm not 100% passionate about, or join an agency
or youtube network, or spam you guys with ads just to get by. So your support will help
to keep my content 100% independent and what I want it to be!
Aside from a deep sense of satisfaction, to say thank you to the people who support me
on Patreon I will be releasing exclusive vlogs, sneak-peeks of tutorials that I'm working
on, google hangouts, Patreon-only giveaways of things that I've made, early access to
my videos so that you can see them before anyone else does – and more!
But, I do want to stress that all of my the current content and all of my future videos
that you know and love – Make Thrift Buy, Get Thready with me, The Style Pile, etc – will
remain totally free and accessible to everybody. If you can't be a supporter at this time,
and I totally understand that not everybody can, then that is fine.
So if you want to support me on Patreon, click on over to Patreon.com/annikavictoria, and
you can donate whatever amount you like per DIY video that I make. Donate whatever makes
sense to you. And you can also set a monthly limit, that you can donate on a more monthly-basis,
if that suits you better. But seriously, even $1 per month if that’s all you can donate
would be amazing.
Anyway, thank you so much for watching, and thank you so much for all of the types of
support that you guys have given me over the years. I really, really appreciate it. You're
all wonderful, and I hope you're all having a really beautiful day. Bye!