Patreon, Carl Benjamin and the New Puritanism

Can you imagine how scary it would be to live in a world where your livelihood depended on having the ‘correct’ politics? It’s the sort of thing you might expect of totalitarian regimes: Ba’athist Iraq under Saddam Hussein; everywhere that has ever tried communism; increasingly, Xi Jinping’s panopticon China — but definitely not of any liberal democracy in the 21st century.

That dystopian future, though, may be much closer than you think. I only properly appreciated this recently when the podcast I’ve been doing for the past few years was mysteriously dropped by my regular employer, forcing me to seek funding sources from elsewhere.

If I were impeccably ‘progressive’, this would be a doddle. I could monetise my content through ads on YouTube, I could crowdfund donations through Patreon, I could promote my work with regular appearances on Sky and the BBC. But if you’re snarky and irreverent and you won’t play the virtue-signalling game your options are more limited.