Introduction to AD Robles on YouTube and Patreon

Supporting the Channel Through Patreon

Hi, my name is Adam Robles, and I thought I'd make a new video to introduce people to my content and also to my Patreon page. I did a video like this probably a little over a year ago, I would say, and some of the information is out of date, and so I thought I'd record a new one.

And so here's the thing. So if you're new to my content, my content is primarily about the social justice movement in evangelicalism, but also the culture at large. And so I try to bring biblical principles and biblical teachings to bear on the aberrations that we're seeing from social justice advocates everywhere.

I focus on the sins of partiality, and that's how that's important. I focus on the law of God and how it gives us a standard for what justice actually is compared to what we're being told it is. I try to apply it to everyday situations.

I try to apply it to economics, culture in general, politics, all of that kind of stuff. That's what I use my YouTube channel for. And over the last 18 months or so, the channel has grown modestly. It seems that people do get some good value out of the content that I produce, and I'm very grateful for that.

Every time somebody reaches out to me to say that they like the channel or whatever, I always, I'm so grateful that they find it helpful. And I think that I've got a bit of a knack for really cutting through the arguments behind the arguments, the nonsense, the flashy stuff on the top that makes something sound good, but when you get to the root and the core of it, it really isn't good at all.

I think I do have a knack for that, and I hope that you find it helpful as you check out my channel. Now, the reason I wanted to produce this video is that I really only have so much time that I can dedicate to my YouTube channel.

Because I have another job, and I do work for myself, I'm a self-employed person. Just a one-man show. Every now and then I'll hire a consultant to help me out with a few things, but very modest kind of thing, but that's how I feed my family.

That's how I make my living. I don't make my living on YouTube. So far I haven't monetized my channel. I'm not sure if it actually could be monetized given the nature of the content, but I haven't monetized my channel.

I do have a Patreon page, and on the Patreon page I have roughly about 30 patrons, and people will support me anywhere from $1 a month to $100 a month. I'm so grateful for each and every person that does support the channel in that way.

I have a small budget for the channel. I don't really pay for too much. I pay for the music that I use in my content. I pay for a couple of things. I'm actually building a website. That's something that I'm going to be premiering very soon, things like that.

I also pay for editing software and small things like that, camera, microphone, things like that. I also buy books to review, but also books just to keep me informed on this kind of stuff. So that's the kind of thing that I have in my budget.

But the biggest expense for me by far is my time, and I do have an opportunity cost. Every hour that I spend doing content and researching content for my YouTube channel is an hour I cannot spend doing my normal job, which is how I make my money.

So the opportunity cost is fairly high for me to do this channel. I'd like to dedicate more time to this channel to hopefully have it grow. Over the last few months it's grown a pretty modest amount, but more so than it had in previous months, and I'm so grateful for that.

I'm so grateful people find this helpful and they find my content helpful. And so what I'm hoping to do is to sort of increase potentially the revenue that I can generate through Patreon. That would be amazing because it would make the opportunity cost of not spending as much time doing my normal job a lot smaller.

I'm not trying to match the income that I would make from my normal job. I don't think that that's necessarily realistic, but I would like to make that opportunity cost a little bit less painful and thus dedicate a little more time into the YouTube channel, hopefully producing more content, better quality content, and more consistent content.

So that's my hope. And so if you do benefit from my channel and you see value in it, please consider supporting me on Patreon. What I'm going to do actually is I'm going to set up some tiers of support.

So like I said, people will support me at all different levels. And what I'm going to do is hopefully get some benefits in line for people that support of a certain dollar amount. They can get certain benefits and certain things like that.

I do a Patreon Q &A for everybody. That's something that everyone who supports me can participate in. But I'm thinking about adding some things to that as well. And more details are going to be coming out on that over the next few days.

So keep an eye out on my Patreon page for that. But anyway, again, thank you so much for supporting me. And of course, if you have questions or if I can help you in any way, please don't hesitate to reach out to me.

I do this YouTube channel because people do seem to find it helpful and all of that kind of thing. And I'm trying to do stuff that is not only helpful, but also somewhat entertaining. So my content is a mixture of humor, entertainment, storytelling.

But also I try to bring the Bible to bear on these issues in a serious way. So anyway, if you do find it helpful, I'm going to ask that you consider joining me in this adventure and helping produce the content that you enjoy by supporting me on Patreon.

And so thank you so much for even considering. For those of you that do support, just know that it goes a long way for my family. No question about it. I think that this is a mission that I really want to see through to the end and stay faithful and stay true to God and use the talents that he's given me to talk about these things.

But at the same time, I also have to be responsible for my own family. And so I always want to put more time into the channel, but the opportunity cost is just a little bit too high right now. So hopefully we can do something about that together.

And so I thank you again for watching. Thank you for commenting. Even if you can't support me on Patreon, that's okay. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me and let me know that you're listening, what you'd like to see, stuff like that.

I can't promise that I'll do everything that people ask me to do, but I certainly will look into it. Also, another way you can help the channel is just to subscribe to it, hit the notifications bell, like the videos that you like, a little thumbs up thing, that helps the channel quite a bit as well.

And also share this content. If you enjoy it, share it with people that you know would also enjoy it. That would help tremendously, even if you cannot give financially. And so thanks again for considering and for watching.

The Value of the Channel and the Cost of Doing It

I hope you find this helpful. God bless. Over the last 18 months or so with me doing this YouTube channel, a lot of you have reached out to me and said some really nice things. And I just want you to know, I tell you in the email and I tell you in the comment section and stuff, but when you do that, it means a lot to me.

It really does. I'm glad you find it helpful and it keeps me going because there are some downsides to doing YouTube and to having the opinions that I have as well. I'm sure you can imagine the kinds of anger that I get.

I even played some of the voicemails that I've received on YouTube videos. Just really angry people. People have tried to ruin my life in a variety of different ways. And so there's some downsides to this as well.

And at the end of the day, I hope you understand, I don't get off on criticizing people that I've looked to as heroes before. When I came to faith, Tim Keller, Matt Chandler, a lot of these guys, these are the people that I read.

These are the people that I watched their videos. I got so much benefit from them. And so it's not fun to have to criticize something that I think is extremely dangerous in their teaching. That's not my idea of fun.

And so this kind of thing can wear on you. So many of you have reached out and said so many nice things, but one of the nicest things that somebody said, he's one of my supporters on Patreon. He said that, you know, he supports me and he thinks that probably others support me as well because they feel like I have a knack for sort of, again, cutting up the nonsense.

So, you know, taking an issue that's very complex and trying to break it down into chunks that are easily understandable and really cut to the quick about what is the problem here? What's the issue here?

Because, you know, on the surface, it seems very complex. Let's break it down. And so he said that, you know, one of the reasons he supports me is because it's helpful for him to have that available in a way that exercises, you know, restraint and reasonableness and discernment.

And, you know, that means a lot to me. And I hope that you find my stuff helpful in that way as well. You know, also, you know, and here's the thing, guys. If you use my videos like that just to kind of break things down that might be a little bit complicated, great, I'm glad that you do.

You know, maybe you use my videos by sharing them with people because you don't feel like you have the words yourself. Go ahead and use that that way as well. That's totally fine. Maybe you use it just to have a laugh, you know, because some of these issues are so serious and I agree that they are very serious.

But I try to bring an element of humor, a little bit of lightheartedness to it. And I'm doing that intentionally and it takes a lot of work because, you know, a lot of times I'll record a video and it's just too ranty for me.

And I do rant from time to time, but I'd like to bring a little bit of lightheartedness to this as well because this can really weigh on you. I've said many times, this is a battle. This is a war, an ideological worldview kind of a war.

And it's tough. It's tough, especially considering the people that are players in this. And so you want, maybe you use my channel to laugh at it a little bit or maybe you use it because you disagree with me but you want to hear what the other side is saying and you want to use it for whatever you want.

I'm grateful that you find it helpful in any way. And so, you know, that's the bottom line. But here's the thing, guys, like, you know, not everybody has to be on YouTube. Not everybody has to have a podcast.

Not everybody has to have a blog. Not everybody has to be able to talk eloquently or even, excuse me, even if it's not eloquent, but in a direct, you know, kind of straightforward way. Not everybody has to make jokes or do videos like I do.

The body of Christ has just different people that provide different things. Some people go out and are street preachers. Some people are doing blogs. Some people are doing, you know, you know, just kind of normal kind of everyday things, living their lives and all of that.

And that's totally fine because the body of Christ has many members and these members have been given different gifts. Now you may disagree about the level of the gifts that I've been given. I can totally understand that.

But if you do find this helpful, you know, join me in this, you know, even if you're not going to be on the camera and all that kind of stuff, your support would go a long way and I appreciate it. Anyway, thanks so much for the kind words that so many of you have said.

Hope this is helpful. God bless.