Real talk. Creating content costs money.
That is a whole fact.
Dead ass and dead ass that costs the money part was the part that you left out when we embarked on this journey to.
Begin with dead ass, I might have changed my mind.
Hey, I'm Kadeen and I'm Devoured and we're the Ellis's.
You may know us from posting funny videos with our.
Voice and reading each other publicly as.
A form of therapy.
Wait, I make you need therapy most days. Wow.
Oh, and one more important thing to mention, we're married.
Yes, sir, we are.
We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of li's most taboo topics.
Things most folks don't want to talk about.
Through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass is a term that we say every day. So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts one hundred the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We about to take Philo talk to a whole new level.
Dead ads starts right now.
I'm gonna take y'all all the way back over decade twenty twelve.
This is a story I've never told before.
Really. Okay, So we were what ten years in.
Yes, we were ten years in.
We had just moved back from Michigan in two thousand and nine. We were starting to get rolling with the gym and stuff.
Jackson was born twenty eleven. Yes, okay, so there we.
Are, and.
We had started married to the gym. Remember married to the gym?
Oh yeah.
So the reason why I started marrying to the gym was because Kay had just had Jackson.
She was trying to get her body back.
So I started filming training her and then we had a bunch of other moms from the football program who we're also training as well. Apparently some producers saw it came to me and Kadeena were just like, hey, we think you guys are great on camera. We would love to help you guys create a show. So I was like, cool, what's the show going to be about? They were like, well, what's at stake? What's his steak for you guys? And I was like, what do you mean. We just got married,
we have a son. We told me I have a training program for kids. So they got excited about the training program. I'm like, oh my, got the training program? How many parents? So I told them how many kids? How many parents? Like any single moms. Many of the moms got beef, and then I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, how did we get here?
How did we get to beef?
The name of the show was called Married to the Gym, Like, that's the segment is Married to the Gym. I thought we were going to discuss, you know, what we can do with love and work together and build together. Again, there's not much his steak there, so I said, Okay, well, if that's not the direction you want to go, then we don't want to talk about the kids and their parents. Their parents come to train with us, like their personal
lives are not on the table here. But I also had another friend at the time who played in the NFL, and we developed the show called d and Bow Tackle the off season, and we filmed and they enjoyed it. But at the time, my boy Bow was in the middle of his football careers, Like, I can't commit to doing a reality TV show.
Forgot about.
Season.
Yeah, we had to dig up that trailer. It was actually really good.
It actually was really good to go and it was it was ultimately about Bow and I being remember the.
Show Robin Big.
It was like Robing Big, you know, Bo was six five, two hundred and eighty pounds. I'm a smaller guy compared to him, and we both met our wives in college. We were building families at the time. They had three kids. They had lost their son, Skylar, yes, and we had one child. So it was just about college roommates who were embarking on this different life. During the off season, I had transitioned to not no longer doing NFL football, but I was working as a broadcaster. So they loved
that idea. But Bo didn't want to do it. So they were like, Oh, we'll figure something else out. You know, you guys don't have any star power. That's pretty much what it was. You guys don't have any star.
Par We don't have any drama or drama star.
Power and drama. Yes.
So at that time I started to realize that there was a trend because every year a different producer and the more we started to gain popularity on social media. For example, the TIM shoot happened in twenty and thirteen, I believe, And after the Tim shoot happened, we started to get a little bit popular.
Another producer came.
This producer was much larger than the first two producers and already had a show on television, and this producer wanted to do a show with Kadeen and I. But also the same thing, they didn't see the positive aspect. Now remember we're going back to two thousand and twelve, thirteen.
They saw the positive, they just wanted negative with the no.
No, not that they couldn't see the positive, they couldn't see the positive being a sellable trait for viewership.
That's what I meant when I said they couldn't see the positive.
They couldn't see the positive being something that people wanted to see. And I'm gonna be honest, I could tell. I mean, I understand where they were coming from because about sales at the end of the day, and you have to sell to an audience that's going to watch your TV show. So after those failed attempts at Kadeen and I being on our own reality show, we started to get phone calls from producers up until last year that current shows who have ensemble casts want us on their.
TV show and we just don't want to do it. No thanks, we just don't want to do it. And over the.
Last that was twenty twelve, eleven years, eleven years, Kadeen and I finally sat down and said, you know what, We're gonna do this shit ourselves.
We're gonna do it our way. So birth Patreon. All right, karaoke time.
Do you have a karaoke song?
Because you said you have one, We do have one today, and I feel like it's rather fitting because it can apply in this circumstance. As we speak to you guys today, we're thinking of ways to make it better. Right, We're trying to make it better for y'all who have been supporting and listening and watching us for so many years. We're trying to make it better for de Valini, for our team. So I'm a movement by myself, but I'm a forge.
Maybe Wait how bad I go again by myself? You make me better, You make me, You make me better. Shout out to Neil, Shout out to Neil. Y'all make us better.
That's a fact, because shoot, all the content y'all be requesting, we're trying trying to find ways to get it to y'all. We're trying to find ways to get it to you.
So we're going to take a quick break and then when we get back, we are actually going to dive into the business aspect of why we are creating our own content and why it's important for us to own our own content.
Absolutely, why Patreon up next? Stick around?
Y'all?
All right?
Baby plus me it equal better math? Now the song's coming back.
Now, the songe's coming back in it. But you were that's that forty y'alls.
Yeah, I didn't have caffeine this morning, so I'm going to the chiropractor later and they told me that I'm having a reassessment and I should avoid caffeine before coming in.
So if I'm talking in slow motion, it might be that's why.
Right, cool, Let's go back to twenty twelve.
So I always had an idea for a sitcom or reality show. Now, if you go back to twenty twelve, that was during the time when those reality shows that were hitting were.
Flavor of Love.
Yes, yeah, that was that time.
There wasn't a lot of scripted content that was on television during that time in twenty twelve, and sitcoms and dromedis weren't really a thing. So when I was pitching the Elysis, people are like, I don't see.
It because we grew up in our generation on sitcom right, And that was huge for us. We think of the Martins of the world, the Cosby Shows, the Family Matters, you know what was it on Friday Nights TJ. Yeah, all the sitcom So to us it just kind of made sense. Who were like, you know, a sitcom just sounds like something the world needs right now.
Absolutely.
So I looked at my beautiful wife and it was partly because it's something I wanted, but I knew it was also something that she wanted. We wanted to be able to showcase our abilities, but do it our own way. Now, I know everyone here has heard the statement people sold their soul.
Right, let's discuss what that means.
People often believe when they say you sold your soul, that you actually had a meeting with someone who purchased your soul, gave you money, and now you have to just do exactly what they want you to do.
That's not really what the statement means.
What the statement means is that you, as a creator, had an idea. Your idea was good, but someone came along and said I can make your idea better, gave you money, and said, now your idea is my idea, but I need you to play out my idea because I gave you the.
Money right the way I see fit. And a lot of times they don't necessarily even have the vision per se. They may just have the resources to be able to bring that to fruition for you.
And in their defense, they're coming with the resources and the investment, and most of the time they already have the audience. Yes, So what they're saying to you is, I'm willing to put you in front of my audience, but you have to do what my audience wants, because I know what my audience likes. Yes, And Kadeen and I said, no, absolutely, that's not what we want to do. There was one time in particular, this is when we started doing brand partnerships.
If you guys have noticed, we don't do as.
Much brand partnerships anymore. This is why this was in two thousand and seventeen, No. Twenty eighteen, the Graham had blew up for us.
We had a meeting with a group.
I don't like to out people or say certain things, because it could be a person in that.
Groups in that moment, in that moment who said something, so it doesn't represent the group.
But I had a meeting with a group about a brand partnership and they wanted us to do something for I think it was Black History Month. We're a black family. Have a meeting with them. And this is before Donora, because if we were with Donora, Donora would have absolutely obliterated them.
Would have been like laptops.
Yes, So this had to be twenty and eighteen.
It had to be February twenty eighteen, after we had done Clawox, we had done Durasel.
Yes.
I remember group comes to U and sayd hey, we want to do a Black History Month thing. We have an idea. They told me the idea. I said, okay, this is cool, it's easy. Me and my family can do this.
Can you?
Is there a way you can blacken it up? And I said, what do you like? What do you what do you mean?
Check this out? This is this is the this is a real statement. Kadeen.
I know Kadeen has a long, stringy hair. Is she willing to put on like a like a wig, like an afro wig?
Yeah?
I said what, like a what? And they were dead serious.
And the fact that they felt like our family could be blackified, like it's Black History Month, we need to wear kin cloth and afro wigs or flat tops to be considered black. Our blackness in itself in Brooklyn in an apartment was not black enough.
We didn't look like your quote unquote as they said, typical black family.
So then they questioned me, so is Kadeen is?
Is she black? I'm like, I'm like, are we really having this conversation? And it was moments because that wasn't the only moment. It was moments like that where they wanted our black is to be a trope of blackness, not just black because and I tried to explain a couple of times black people are not monolithic, We sound, we act differently, and they were.
Like, okay, well, well you know what, We'll circle back.
So when I'm getting the circle backs and I'm realizing, well, there's a reason why.
They're not.
Willing to work in synergy with us, right, So I started to ask questions and this is the answer as to why we started Patreon. A large part of the people in this country who watch shows like us shows that what people to look like us don't look like us. Middle American white people pretty much dominate the television industry as far as who watches, especially if it's family content. So what they want to do is either make us
whitewashed or make us a trope of blackness. This is what I realized after going to all of these meetings
with producers and brands. They see us as a commodity, but only in the way they view us, which means we would either have to be the black family that wears the polka dots with the ties and the suspenders and be the whitewashed version of what blackness is, or we have to be baggy clothes yo yo fro afrocentric, like they only see tropes and tropes of not only blackness, tropes of whiteness and tropes of blackness because they feel like, hey, we got the audience.
We know what our audience wants to see.
And Kadein and I made a decision that, well, we know our audience and we want to make content.
For our audience, not for your audience.
We want to make content for the audience that has supported us since we started. And I'm not talking about starting in twenty seventeen. I'm talking about twenty twelve. Because we had a Facebook page that was doing really well with Married to the Gym, and we were getting a hunt of thousands of views in twenty twelve, before Instagram even became a thing. The first video ever did that when viral was a video of k pushing the sled and me pushing the sled behind it and me slapping
on it. But and it got like one hundred and thirty thousand views on Facebook at the time, which was like unheard of. But people just loved to see me supporting my wife, my wife working hard, and then a little baby running on.
The field while we were doing what we were doing.
And it reminded me of The Fresh Prince and The Cosby Show because at the time The Cosby Show and The Fresh Prince wasn't the version of blackness they were used to seeing. Think about the seventies, the greatest show coming out the seventies was Good Times, right, and then it was Georgia Waisey's The Jeffersonsons, and it was just about struggle.
It was like black people struggle. All black people do is struggle.
I wasn't a Good Times god, but I know the father on Good Times struggled keeping a job, you know, and I think the mom was the one always work and she was always tired. But the show did really well. So when the Cosby Show came out. He's a doctor, the wife is a lawyer. They got five kids. The kids don't really get in the type of trouble that you expect black kids living in Brooklyn to get into.
At first, it was just like, I don't know how real it is, but it became a phenomenon because that version of what black looks like wasn't just black.
It related to everything everybody.
The first ontional too, I think, I mean, I remember your dad saying that he didn't like The Cosby Show for that reason.
He's like, it's not real. It was a show, Like really, my dad said that, and.
He said that as a black man. So I guess it really depends on the audience that you're trying to cater to. But just start to circle back with the brand deals and stuff like that. You know, even just the brand partnerships that I had gotten or you had gotten through other companies were far and few in between, because we also in creating content and just in promoting other brands, we were really, really and we still are very very adamant about only partnering with people who we
believe in and people who support us. Because what we also found was that some brands when they came along, they come to you because they enjoy your content. They enjoy the fact that you do have an audience who is tried and trusted, but also in them wanting you to produce content. They would sometimes circle back now with feedback about how you can alter your content to then make it in their mind, more digestible or more appetizing
to the viewer. And I'm just like, you came to me for a reason, then clearly I know what I'm doing when it comes to my content and my audience. Why won't you just let me do what you're paying me to do? Essentially, But I'd say that to say, that's another avenue as to why Devaleni decided, like, we're just really only going to do what we want to do in this.
Social media space.
So if you see something come out on our page, if we pose something, you know that it's coming directly from Devalini and not from any other source who has coursed us in doing it.
That also takes me to another part when it comes to our I don't like saying following, but our supporters. I had a producer say, you have great numbers, but your supporters don't add monetary value. Pretty much was telling me black people won't spend money on stuff.
That's pretty much what he was saying.
Little does he know that our audience isn't only black, right, Our audience is a rainbow of colors.
Ages, genders.
And the truth is they look at us and just assume, oh, that's a young black couple. They got young black people. So when we create content, they think they're teaching us how to create content for just that demographic, when we're actually creating content for a multi generational audience that has a bunch of different races and genders. So when Kadeina and I start to sit down and think, you know what, why don't we just do high quality content ourselves, Like
we don't really need them. Okay, it's gonna cast some cameras, it's going to do Okay, fine.
We'll make the investment.
So we made the investment. And once we made the investment, we realize like, wow, like this this is expensive, Like isn't it isn't easy? You know, you put people on salary. We have producer on salary, we have camera operator on salary, we have error on salary. We you know, you guys know Josh and Matt and Treble. They work with us directly practically every single day. I think it is every single day, right, Josh, Josh. We're on the phone like
every single day, every single day to sure create content. Now, when you're doing this type of work, to create content, you're creating any economy, not only for yourself, but for the people who work with you. We like to say people work with us because we don't see it as an employee.
We see everyone that we work with as partners, team members.
Now, typically you would put out content hope that a producer or a production company or network will come to you and say, here's a budget create the content. Patreon allows us to use the budget that we've been able to amass through memberships to create our own content the same way. That's why when you're looking at the content now you're saying this looks like a reality show.
To pay people.
We have the same cameras.
We have, the mics, they invest the time. We're able to do everything the way we want to. But here's the most important part. We can feel comfortable with the people we love and we know around our children. Because since we do family content, it is difficult to ask your eleven at the time six five and one year old to get in front of the camera and be themselves with people they don't don't and that was another issue for us. I was like, I'm not going to
have people I don't know around my kids. Oh well, we don't have to do with the house. We can do it at a location that's not.
Authentic to who we are exactly.
People want to see who we want to share who we are and how we go about doing it the most authentic way possible with the people our children trust as well.
And it's crazy that you say the most authentic way with the people we trust and you say all that.
It makes me think of.
A message I got from someone. Every now and again, I may see a DM it's hard because I get so many. But this one person kept messaging about Patreon and essentially said in her message, I can't believe you and Deval have gotten so Hollywood that now y'all are requiring people to sign up to see y'all's videos when y'all been doing this for free. Yeah, man, listen the fumes that came out of my ears. Yeah, she was pissed' She was pissed because I'm like, first of all, don't
throw in the whole. You and Deval have gotten so Hollywood bullshit, Like stop. I feel like if anybody who really knows us know the people who support us, the people who work with us, Devaleni are the same old as Valenkadeen since we lived on New York Avenue, and a.
Lot of times we get in trouble for it, from DeNora, from our manager, from venues, They're like, you can't just walk in and be like like, you can't just do things like that right exactly.
You need to have this, you need to have security, you need to have call ahead, you need to have that. And we just kind of just like say, well, I mean we literally are moving like the same people. Of course when we have the kids and stuff, they're different, you know, and depending on the spaces that we're in, I get it, But I say that to say like, I feel like, if anything, Deval and I are even more grounded and who we are and who we want to be and who we portray ourselves to be because
we are who we are. So the fact that this person is spewing this whole y'all became so Hollywood now, y'all making us pay.
Have you not been getting content for free for the past seven.
Years and they still get content?
And you still get content for free because de VAL's still doing this hole in his phone up getting videos. I'm still posting content on my end. I'm still posting stories every day. There's a ton of free content that's there and it's readily available. There's YouTube, there's Facebook, there's so many different platforms.
Can you explain or would you like me to explain the difference in the content that we are creating on social media and on Patreon?
Now, go ahead, I mean Deval take the reins on this because he is really the mastermind behind how we roll out our content, and I just be like where you want me to be because when.
To say action what I got to post today?
But you can go ahead and break it down just so it's digestible for people listening, because we thought this episode was important for people to understand why we decided to even do something that was subscription based.
Right.
So the biggest thing is there are different types of content. When I picked my phone up, and yes, everybody's phone got four K and stuff like that, I do pick it up and I put that content on social media.
But one thing Josh and I realized, because Josh and I had started talking about doing higher quality content I believe in twenty and nineteen when we first moved to California, was that when I was doing the vlogs on YouTube, right like twenty five minute vlogs, someone on forty five minute blogs, the average viewership was less than six minutes,
you see. So it was like, I'm creating content and I'm putting hours into it and it's not being watched because people who watch on YouTube are not going to YouTube for long form content. They go to YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter for short form content little bytes.
Remember Quibi quick bites.
People go to those platforms for quick bites because they want to watch something and move on. So for me, I was like, dang, I want to produce longer form content, but it's not being consumed in its totality. Then we partner with Patreon because Patreon is when someone makes a decision, they say, you know what I'm going to spend, And
for us, we made the price extremely low. The price is five dollars a month, and the reason why it's five dollars a month is because it's less than a quarter of a day.
I never wanted to charge people.
You actually donor was honest for a while about Patreon.
Months and I was like no, no to charge.
I was like, no, I don't want to charge people because we've been giving them content for free. But then I actually started to think about the economy I could create using the resources.
I'm always on.
Dead Ass podcast talking about group economics.
How can we support each other?
How can we support our friends if we all pool our resources? Right, Patreon is just another form of group economics.
Right.
I wanted Josh and I wanted Matt to be here full time. How can I ask them to quit doing what they're doing if I'm not going to replace that salary to be able to work with us, I can't ask for favors. No, you get to a point in your life where asking people for favors and to sacrifice for their family so you can gain or you can provide some of the other people, it is just not fair.
It's not okay. So for me, it was like, you know what, let me utilize this.
Way to create an economy so that I can create the type of content I want to create, long form high quality content, but also allow my friends to provide for their families as well. Like, that's really what this whole Patreon thing is about.
It's us taking away the network.
You don't got to go to TBS to watch US. You don't got to go to ABC, you don't got to go to Hulu or Netflix or HBO. No, you pay a subscription to those networks to watch long form content.
And half the time you paid a subscription and you're like, I don't even.
Even watch it.
I literally just last night went into my Apple settings and I was just like, what subscriptions do I even have right now? Because I was looking at the American Express because since I'm so phisically responsible now, y'all, I was looking at all these different things coming out, and I'm just like, I don't even know I still had this. I don't even know I still had this membership because you just sign up for stuff and then you just kind of don't watch, or you watch maybe for one show.
And I was going to say something to piggyback off of what you said about Patreon and stuff, But for us, I think the most important part, at least for me, is that we're able to now remove the outside noise. We're able to remove any network, any other outside influence, and literally we do what we want. I think the freedom and the autonomy that we have over Patreon is what excites us the most because now I feel like we're all invested, like the entire team is really sold
on this idea because we're enjoying creating this content. It doesn't feel like work. It doesn't when Matt pops up on a random Wednesday and catches just something that happens to happen in the house that was funny. That's that's essentially what we wanted and how we foresaw a reality show or even a sitcom rolling out with us, just watching us in our natural setting and the funny things that happen on a daily basis.
And you know the even better part about it, y'all, Patreon is optional.
Nobody is holding the gun to your head to say you have to sign up for it five dollars a month.
You don't have to.
You don't have to.
But if you don't, and we don't feel a way, if you don't want to work, if you can't, and some people can't afford the five thousand a month, I undergand that and not really understand that. And the people who do subscribe and rock with us, we love y'all for that. We're looking to do even more things, doing some different lives. You're getting exclusive access first DIBs to live shows that we have coming up. So there's so
many perks involved with being Patreon members. But again, it's the option to do it, and no one's forcing anyone to do anything.
Yes, but I did feel it was important to talk to because we have so many people who are also creators or are also actors or artists who are who asked, like, dout, how do I get started? And for me, Patreon is a way to see who really truly supports you. Yeah, yeah, you know, like if you really think about it, five dollars a month, less than a quarter a day. There are some people who say to me, Hey, Deville, how
can I support you guys? You know, like that really DMS be like, yo, I love what you guys do. How could I support you guys? Yeah, I'm like, join Patreon, man, just just join Patreon. Be a part of the Patreon. The biggest thing with Patreon. Also, please comment and interact so we can know how you guys feel.
About the content for.
Sure, because this is still kind of new to us. We're still kind of fair very new.
Josh has been running the Patreon. He goes on the Patreon ever, he's addicted to Patreon, Like, he goes on to make sure because because you guys who pay the five dollars a month, your opinions about what we post and what we do matter matter. Like Josh and DeNora came to us two weeks ago and was just like, I think you guys should do some lives And I was like, yeah, I know, we could do lives and it was like, yeah, you can do lives that you
can be more interactive with your audience. So if you post a piece of content, you can then have a formal discussion on the Patreon live about the content.
I'm like, Yo, that's dope.
So we could actually do a show, do an after show, and then have an audience reacting after show when it comes out. Like, to me, that's the most fireway to build an audience, to understand what your audience wants to see.
And I don't know if y'all notice, but I don't reply in comments.
That don't mean I don't read comments because I want to learn what did they like about this? What did they not like about this? Now, just because you leave a comment, don't mean I'm going to follow you. I get thousands of comments every day. One person says I wish I would put more longer content on YouTube. It's not going to make me put longer content on YouTube because the analytics show me that the vast majority of people who watch on YouTube watch short form content.
So, yes, I do read the comments.
I do appreciate you, guy, I just don't respond because I don't want anyone else to feel like their comment is not important. Because once I start replying, then I don't reply to someone. It's like, oh, he only replies to these type of people. It's like, no, that's not the case. I only have a couple of seconds to reply because I'm making content, all right, So it's important for people to understand and how we decide what content we're going to create.
Right.
So, for example, on Patreon, we say long form content. Anything over seven minutes is considered long form content. Right, So our Patreon videos are typically anywhere between nine to fifteen minutes.
Right.
We try to keep it shorter than fifteen minutes, mainly because even on Patreon. When you see how much people watch, most people don't watch Patreon for thirty to forty minutes. They watch it for fifteen minutes. But that's considered long form content.
And how many times are we dropping a week?
Okay, so y'all want to laugh? Right once again?
This is.
Kadeen and I and our team over delivering. When we did our partnership with Patreon, they said we were required to drop two pieces of content per month.
Two pieces of content.
Per month at Patreon game. How much y'all been ghee?
Well, I can tell you this already.
We do the podcast every week, right, forty five minutes to an hour, right, and the after show. So that's eight pieces of content right there. We got DEVOSMANK twelve pieces of content. We got All Day K sixteen pieces of content.
Ever say, yeah, I've been all day? Can in it?
You have?
Okay?
Right?
For the record, we're not complaining because we actually enjoy making this content, Like it feels good to get ready for school in the morning and watch my kids do it.
And there's a camera somewhere and no one knows where the camera is, so the kids are acting by themselves.
But then when we look at the camp.
When we look at the content, we can say that looks like a traditional American family getting ready for school in the morning. They're having fun, the kids are disciplined, they're working hard than afterwards mom and dad is going off and doing whatever they do.
I think that's the realest sitcom slash reality version of a show or of the ellises that you're going to get is definitely going to be on our Patreon page. And just so you know, like content creators in general, I know it's become a very convoluted market because everyone's an influencer, everyone's doing content. There's TikTok now, which is even shorter content that people are just really really buying into for sake of for the sake of sounding like
a big, aged, hardbacked old lady. I'm still trying to figure out TikTok my damn self. But let's look at some facts and stats when it comes to creators, because we literally are like full time creators and with the strike happening now and Deval and I not doing any work, no auditions coming in, it really is given us time to focus on Patreon and doing this content creating. So it kind of you know, God works in mysterious ways, and this has definitely helped us when it came to listen.
To these facts that K is about to tell you, because for all you people who are listening, who are aspiring creators, are creating, budding creators, listen to these stats so you can understand about staying ahead of the curve, which is another a podcast we're going to talk about staying ahead of the curves for sure.
Full time creators use an average of three point four channels for audience engagements.
So that's like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Patreon, YouTube. That's that's six right there that I can already think of, but there's so many, so.
Many more exactly.
AD revenue for creators has declined by thirty three percent since COVID, pushing creators to do more brand collaborations, join other platforms, and create more revenue outside of their regular streams, which now is down even more brand collaborations.
Ad revenue before they used to run ads through your content and they had to pay people. Now, I know everyone's been been looking at or listening to singers or rappers saying, hey, I don't own my publishing and then told me I.
Was supposed to get paid through Xyz.
I'm not getting paid as much as I should because now with streaming, you have to have something like a million streams to make a dollar.
It's insane.
It's insane.
They now up the anties like so much.
It's the same thing for video creators, Like in order for you to make money off of your streams or quote unquote off of your views, you have to have like hundreds of thousands of views just to get a dollar. That's it, which is making it more difficult for people to make money.
To add a lot of money, yep.
And then brand partnerships, a lot of these brands are like, we don't even have the budget to be able to engage you in a partnership or be able to give you what you are worth or what you demand or require to engage. So brand partnerships are also down. I can say that for myself. Even just as of this year, sixty three percent of the audience have tipped their favorite creators at least once.
I didn't even know you could tip your creator on TikTok.
It's a thing where you can put tips on.
Oh really when people go live, Because if you think about it right, And if you just think about creators, you go to your phone to be entertained.
Right, If you walk by.
In a subway and someone's playing the drums or someone to you know, tap dance, and you tip them like, oh, you entertained me. You know what I'm saying, thank you for entertaining, right. Creators just are the same ways they're entertainers. They're just a different form of entertainment because as technology advances, there's different ways and mediums. I guess there weren't always TVs. There weren't always movie things, you know, there's always ways to Uh.
Yeah, I think that's dope because I do sometimes see people just like, oh, you know, creators always expect for you to pay for this or subscribe for that, And I'm just like, guys, how like this is people taking their time out of their day to engage you.
Why not? So I think that's a cool idea.
Twenty four million estimated monthly payouts on Patreon, that's cool.
We ain't get twenty four.
Million dollars, so y'all know that's not for us, but it's good to know that that's what Patreon is doing for folks. The average Patreon user makes forty one percent of their income. On Patreon, fifteen percent of consumers are subscribed to a creator's membership website. So like, is that like but Instagram like people have subscriptions now or just random things like that.
I mean, well, there's so many different memberships, Like you can have a membership to Instagram, but people also have their own website.
Oh you know coadean dot com member.
Yeah, that's true.
And ninety seven point five percent of YouTubers do not make enough to reach the US poverty line.
You heard that.
Ninety seven point five percent don't even make that much.
And I think that's important because when I look at creators or influencers, people typically look at the top one percent.
They say everybody.
Same thing with athletes, right, everybody's not making with Lebron James makes. Everybody doesn't make with Lionel Messi makes. Everybody doesn't make with Tom Hanks makes. As an actor, you know, like there are tiers to everything, and ninety percent of the people that you watch on television doing the things they do don't make enough money to just do that solely.
Most actors have another job, the job, right. Most athletes who play basketball overseas still do something else because they don't make enough money just playing basketball.
Same thing with people playing football leagues.
So I think it's important for people to understand when you look at entertainers, don't just look at your favorite entertainers at the highest and think that all entertainers make millions. Entertainers are hustling just like everyone else, you know. So we just wanted to make sure that you guys understood that this isn't a money grab, especially from us like the elisis. This is not a money grab. I will be honest and tell you I have four or five
streams of revenue. I don't rely on Patreon. I also don't rely on acting, I don't rely on real estate.
We really don't rely on.
You know, and that's just part of it. It's just in a different stream of revenue.
So we can create an economy not for ourselves only, but also for our friends who are also creator so we can do something and build together. Because I watched one of the greatest entrepreneurs and entertainers do that, and that was Tyler Perryler. You can say what you want to say about Tyler Floyd Mayweather a jay Z because people there's always detractors, but these are men who did it their way, built within their audience, were told no so many times and to their so who they are
and their audience, and now look at them. So those those are the guys that I look up to and I say, you know, I want to create and own my own.
And another one is easter Ray.
Like Easter Ray, like she's killing she started owning her own, starting on YouTube, creating her own content. She went a different way because Patreon didn't exist, but she got that early bag from HBO and she's been creating ever since. Like these are the people that I'm looking up to be able to create and do it on my terms.
For sure, And it's just that much sweeter when you're able to do it and grow and rise and reach another level with the people who have been with you down at the bottom.
Right.
So like you guys know, Josh and Matt, we've known for over decade now, Like these are people who we were just like, you know, we're going to build and grow and do this together. And we really hope that this episode just brought some clarity to anybody who might have been on the fence about you know, joining.
Patreon, or wondering why Patreon.
Was a thing, or thinking like, oh my god, the Ellis has given us so much content already, what makes Patreon different or why is it a value to us and our family and our team. We hope that this provided some clarity for you guys, and then I hope you join because we'd love to see you on that side and continue to deliver great content, high quality and more of the Ellis's.
And we plan on evolving and as life changes and things can happen, we still want to have access to the people who've helped us build. Like I know for a fact, you know speaking to Tyler that he still has the emails from the people that started when he was just doing place. Remember when he was doing the quote unquote Chitlin Circuit. Yes, and it became no one would go into his shows. He was doing shows, no
one was showing up, but he kept doing them. And now his audience is millions of people that he writes directly. So I want to continue to evolve the Lass and us create contents specifically for for our people.
Yes, for you. All right, y'all, We're going to take a quick break and pay some bills We'll get back into listener letters after this break, so stick around. All right, y'all, we're back. Let's jump into this first listener letter. Hey, I really enjoyed listening to y'all's podcasts and really admire you guys as a marriage. I love that I can listen to a podcast and that I can get a male and female perspective.
Love that we.
Hope that that we continue to do it for you guys. Yes, I just turned twenty one this year. My boyfriend and I were very toxic in our relationship for a while. We both did some things and said some things that we should never done or said. He came from a household where being toxic wasn't normal and it shouldn't be. But I came from a household where my family was very toxic and a lot of that toxicity was embedded
into me. I didn't realize how toxic I was, or how toxic I have made the relationship and him until this year, when I distanced myself from my family. Our relationship has gotten better. When I've distanced myself from my family. How can I balance not trying to be toxic with having such a toxic family? And what are some things that I can do that will help me leave that toxic mindset where it's at and really help our relationship bounce back from our toxic past. It's a lot of
toxic girl. I guess she must have been really, really toxic.
Well.
I think the first thing is you've acknowledged, yeah, the source of this. You acknowledge the source of it. You're taking accountability for the fact that you are toxic and
you have been within your relationship. I think that's normal, not normal per se, but just having continued conversation with your boyfriend to find out the things that maybe you've done in the past, unpacking those toxic traits, unpacking what transpired within your relationship in terms of arguments or discussions or things that you guys have been through, the things that you said that you never should have said, or
did that you never did. If you'll unpack those things and just know that you can't do them again, I think that's part of the first steps in making sure that you're kind of healing from this, and then maybe seeing what caused the toxicity within your family. You know, therapy is one way to really unpack your past, the way you grew up, the things that are triggers for you. That might be a good way to start.
I agree.
I think therapy is very important. First of all, I think you've covered everything. The fact that she acknowledged it makes the most sense. You know, she knows what it is. The only thing I think that you might have missed is learn your family history, you know, before you go to therapy. I think it's important for you to speak to your mom and your dad, or your mom, if it's just your mom or your dad, speak to your grandparents.
I started to understand my family and I no longer say my family's toxic, because I think that that's just a word that people use now because they don't know how to say. You have to understand what triggers your family have, right, and what traumas your family have. Triggers and trauma don't always necessarily mean that you're toxic. It just means you don't know how to respond any other
way other than what you saw. Yeah, right, And once you can acknowledge that, you know what my grandmother did this because that was her past, and she taught my mom, and then my mom saw XYZ. So now oh she married my dad. Oh well, my dad's mom and dad. That's why they respond, oh, now.
I get it, man.
And then you learn not to judge your family right, because your family doesn't need judgment. Your family needs healing. Right, you learn not to judge your family. And when you stop judging your family, you go to therapy, you learn not to judge yourself. Only way I know you can learn not to judge yourself is really to go to therapy. You need someone else to show you what they see, because everything you see from yourself is going to be negative.
That's a human nature. We pick apart all our imperfections. Go to therapy, like Canneen said, and then from there try to help your partner do the same thing.
For sure.
I mean, the unpacking is so so so important, Like I've even seen it recently in my interactions with Deval where I'm just like, oh my god, I am acting this way because my parents did XYZ. Or I can see that my sister, my brother and I share this particular trait or we deal with in a certain kind of way because that's the way we were accustomed to
seeing things in our household when we were children. So then Deval now has a little bit more grace and empathy for me as I unpacked that and work through it, because he's just like, Okay, I understand where it comes from. You're not just acting this way because you just feel to do it. Yes, it's just what you were accustomed to. And I'm still learning and unlearning that at my big age, So there's still time for you, baby, you're only twenty one.
I love that you've acknowledged this early on in your life and you can really take a turn for the better just as an individual, as an individual first, and then it'll impact, of course, your relationship once you work on unpacking those things.
So good luck to you.
I think you're off to a great start because you're wrote in about it and you're aware of it, and now it's just time to do the work.
Absolutely.
I used to get extremely defensive when Kadeen didn't do certain things for me, okay, like as a wife, Like I'm like, You're like, why wouldn't you do that? And I had to learn my family history, right, so I started to ask my mom like why she wouldn't do certain things for my dad? And I realized that remember that triggered me, like watching my dad bus his ass to do certain things and my mom was more like independent,
focused on herself. It kind of made me trigger and I said, I wouldn't want to marry a woman like that because it looks very one sided. Then I started to ask my mom why she was like that, and she was like, when you not grow up with your grand your grandmother, your grandfather was in and out, wasn't around. So my grandmother taught my mom to focus on herself because you never want to be beholding to someone who is not going to honor you the right way.
So she instilled in my mom a certain way.
To be right and very independent, very head strong.
Like even your mom now when it comes to just your encouraging her to retire and leave her job or take some time.
Off, she's going to do it just like no, I'm.
Not going to do it. Yep, your mom is very head strong in that.
And it's not with malice. She wasn't not doing for my dad because she didn't love my dad. She thought she was being the best version of herself, the best wife she could be, because that's what her mom taught her. And I found out that my grandmother had her first child when she was sixteen, so she was young, right, and it's so it's like, I'm not blaming my grandmother. I'm not blaming my grandfather. I'm not judging my grandfather. My grandfather had his first child when he was seventeen.
He was a baby, so it's like there were two young people who had a child. Things weren't the best. My mom watched these things. My mom learning took the best she could from both of her parents, and then my dad met my mom and I watched it and
I was just like, this don't seem fair. So I had certain triggers towards women in general based on what I saw, and I was able to, over these past I think five years, learn more about my family and learn why I got so triggered with things that I saw because of what I watched growing up as but then I learned about it from watching my grandparents. So that's when we say learned about your family history. I want you to be very deliberate about what you're learning.
Don't learn where they're from, parents from Virginia, no, yeah, understand their upbringing.
Yeah, and if you can have those conversations, yeah, you know. I've had some difficult conversations recently with various family members but it just gave me so much clarity on what makes me tick as a person.
And then I felt badly.
I think when a couple of days ago even I was like in the bathroom, like almost in tears, and Deval was just like, what's the matter with you? And I was like, I can't believe you've dealt with me like this was so because it was so frustrating just having this conversation with another family member and I'm just like, oh my god, this person did exactly what Deval says I do when we have conversations, and I'm just like the correlation and seeing where I get.
This stuff from. I'm just like, Okay, yeah, something's got to change.
And that's the whole point, right You want to be able to change and do better and be better for your person. So good luck to your sis. I guess that's almost all the time we have that. We got a little long winded, but that's okay.
Feel like we be breaking down the past is important because sometimes you say learn about your history and like, I know where my family's from, I know the culture, and I'm like, I'm not talking about the culture. I'm talking about your family dynamics and why your grandparents moved the way they did, and how that affected your parents, and how it's affecting you.
The circumstances under which they made moves. It's very important. All right, y'all, thank you for listening today, and thank you for always continuing to write in and giving us always an amazing portion of the show listener letters, which is my favorite. So keep writing into us. Triples always going to pick some great, great great letters at dead ass Advice at gmail dot com.
That's d E A D A S S A d V I C E at gmail dot com.
All right, moment of truth time, it's simple for me. Sign up for Patreon, y'all, sign up for Patreon. And I mean, in all seriousness, if you're looking for ways to continue to support people who you enjoy watching their content. Creators out there who are taking their time and taking their resources and giving you a seat into their lives
and you enjoy that. The best way that you can support them is to looking into areas where they're offering things like subscriptions or even shows like you guys have been amazing about showing up our shows. Our Patreon members, you guys have gotten exclusive access. I know the front row seats was almost all the way so loud after
we opened it on Patreon. But we try to make sure we give you guys little perks and stuff too, just for being a subscriber and to thank you for always supporting and encouraging our families.
So we really do appreciate.
That, yes, ma'am, and my moment of truth is very simple. On your stuff. That is the only way you can walk through life and feel comfortable with your image being portrayed the way you want it to is if you own it.
That's it, right.
We executive produced, we produce, we create, we edit. We do everything as a team in here. There's no brand, there's no network, there's no one telling us it has to be a certain way. So when you see the Elyssis, know you're seeing the Elyssis exactly how the Elysses want.
To be seen.
The only person that tells you is going to be a certain kind of way is the vow. That is the boss.
And I'm just a mere employee, asked Josh, who's the boss, y'all?
Yeah, it's the boss in my phone. In my phone, her name is the boss.
I'm your boss.
Okay, But when it comes to this content, stufs the val be the boss, y'all.
All right, it's the right though, I'll own it.
But I'll tell you like this though, being a boss me knowing when to take advice. We sit down in that group and I'll ask Matt will sit there for hours. I'll ask them what you think about this. Josh will sit down and Josh will tell me, O, this may look the best, but this ain't gonna work trible every time. How does that sound, triuble? What does rundown look like like? It's it's really a team in the area, not enough to shout out my team and I love y'all.
They come here every month.
Yes, we stay up late, we smoke weed, we drink, we party, and we do podcasts.
We have a good time. We have a good time while we do it. And deval be ordering McDonald's that the wee hours of good morning. Come on, come on, come on, come on man.
I've seen the video. Come on all right, y'all, So, uh here goes theatro.
Be sure to find us on Patreon Hello for more exclusive exclusive dead Ass content and Ellis Family content. And you can find us on social media at dead Ass the Podcast.
My page is could I am and.
I am devout And if you're listening on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate, review, and subscribe. And also don't forget it's the end of the year. Get your copy of Wee Over Me, the counterintuitive approach. You're getting everything you want from your relationship.
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Dead Ass is a production of iHeartMedia podcast Network and it's produced by Donor Opinya and Triple. Follow the podcast on social media at dead Ass the Podcast and never miss a Thing