{"id":14775,"date":"2020-05-13T08:47:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T08:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/?p=14775"},"modified":"2025-05-13T08:48:20","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T08:48:20","slug":"patreon-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/2020\/05\/13\/patreon-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"patreon 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>This doc is just to save a copy of what my Patreon page was like before I updated it in early 2022.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hi, I&#8217;m <a href=\"https:\/\/www.twitter.com\/visakanv\">@visakanv<\/a>! I&#8217;m a blogger, author (I&#8217;ve published two ebooks so far, <a href=\"http:\/\/gum.co\/FANbook\">\u200bFriendly Ambitious Nerd<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/gum.co\/introspect\">\u200bIntrospect<\/a><strong>)<\/strong> , <a href=\"http:\/\/youtube.com\/visakanv\">\u200byoutuber<\/a> (&#8220;secular sermons for FANs&#8221;), informal community organizer, marketing consultant and more. I&#8217;m currently a feral free agent, spending most of my time writing and tweeting. Here&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.notion.so\/the-best-of-visakanv-s-twitter-threads-38d25b3ec82544b6991014e39c11be4e\">a list of most of my best threads<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>My mission: I want to teach people how to make friends online, and to create lasting, nourishing communities around the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the most devastating ironies about these modern times is how we are both more connected and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2019\/oct\/08\/millennials-social-media-loneliness-epidemic\">more lonely than ever<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I believe that this is a solvable problem. I believe that I have personally solved this for myself. I was a lonely child, and I was always desperate for connection, for kinship. I have spent years of my life doing all sorts of trial and error in that pursuit. And there was absolutely a lot of error in that process. I spent years feeling empty, listless, disconnected, frustrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, I have hundreds of people around the world who I care about deeply, who I believe care about me in turn. I&#8217;ve had friends across the planet host me in their homes, take me to dinner and share their most intimate thoughts with me. It&#8217;s an immensely nourishing, humbling experience, and I believe that it&#8217;s my duty to share my learnings with anybody else who might need it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Margaret Mead once said, &#8220;Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it&#8217;s the only thing that ever has.&#8221; I agree. And I&#8217;m here to help incubate small groups of thoughtful, committed citizens \u2013 to help good people find each other, and then find the others.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/visakanv\/status\/1125171903751004161\">Event in SF<\/a> [May 2019]<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cahouser\/status\/1194705213090869250\">Meetup in Austin, TX<\/a> [Nov 2019]<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Planned meetups in NYC \u2013 postponed due to COVID \ud83d\ude41<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Delhi \u2013 postponed due to COVID \ud83d\ude41<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Kind words that set me on this path<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People have described my tweets as &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/njokingumi\/status\/1061648763150913536\">a bright shining light of insight<\/a>&#8220;, a &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/acbetekhtin\/status\/1066613844766806016\">fusion of logic\/emotion\/unexpected combinations of ideas<\/a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/chanamuu\/status\/1061714459519897600\">some of the most interesting, thought-provoking stuff I\u2019ve seen on Twitter<\/a>&#8220;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They&#8217;ve also said some pretty wild things like &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/narayani_basu\/status\/1063851586714140672\">I learn something from every cascading thought-thread he does<\/a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tweepul\/status\/1060584749226385408\">Easily the Twitter find of the year for me<\/a>&#8220;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>About me: startup marketer with literary ambitions<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I spent 5.5 years working in tech as a startup marketer. I was really good at it! I loved my team, I loved my job. But&#8230; it&#8217;s not what made my soul sing. I&#8217;ve always known that my true calling is to be a writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I don&#8217;t care if Patreon doesn&#8217;t work out, or if my book sales are underwhelming, whatever the outcome is. I love books, I love words, and I&#8217;m committed to spending the rest of my life writing feverishly until I die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Libraries, books, artists and storytellers saved me, made my life worth living. Everything I&#8217;m doing in life, honestly, is just scaffolding to allow me to return the favor and pass it on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why Patreon: building a scaffolding of audience support into guide my transition to becoming a full-time author<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I look back on my writing career so far, it&#8217;s incredible how there have been these few specific moments where the faith, support and trust of friends and strangers pushed me to grow as a creator:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>When I was a teenager, I used to write a LiveJournal. Several commenters told me that I ought to write more publicly, and I did.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>My friends bought me a Starbucks card for my birthday, to encourage me to write more.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I started blogging about my local community in Singapore, and my posts did really well. (At a local protest, I was described as the speaker who &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo.php?fbid=10151499495483915&amp;set=a.10150429702803915&amp;type=3&amp;theater\">probably delivered the most sensible and thoughtful address.<\/a>&#8220;)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When Quora became a thing, I started posting there \u2013 and they honored me \u2013 thrice \u2013 with the award of &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.quora.com\/visakan-veerasamy\">Quora Top Writer<\/a>&#8220;. It made me believe that an international audience was interested in my writing.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When I started doing Twitter threads, multiple people <a href=\"https:\/\/aaronzlewis.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/01\/spreading-threading\">recognized that they were an exceptional use of the platform<\/a> \u2013 and I gained 14,000+ followers in about 2 years.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s not really about the money. It&#8217;s not really about the awards. Ultimately, these are something more precious than that \u2013 they&#8217;re <strong><em>signs<\/em><\/strong><em>.<\/em> They&#8217;re signs that I&#8217;m working on the right thing, growing in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I <em>will<\/em> be writing for the rest of my life, whether or not people pay me for it. The complication is this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When do I know if I&#8217;m ready to drop everything else and give it all I&#8217;ve got?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I&#8217;m not looking to bullshit myself (and my cherished audience) that I&#8217;m ready before I am!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve done the reading. I believe that a creator has to get good at what he does before he can seriously transition from a hobbyist to a professional. And I do believe that I&#8217;m ready to go pro.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What I&#8217;m currently working on:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>I tweet every day. I&#8217;m constantly updating my past threads, and regularly writing new ones.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I&#8217;m working on a project to write 1,000,000 words called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.twitter.com\/1000wordvomits\">@1000wordvomits<\/a>. I&#8217;m 80.7% done with it.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I have published my first ebook, titled <a href=\"https:\/\/gum.co\/friendlynerdbook\">FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD<\/a> \u2013 about what it means to be one, and how to find the others.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I&#8217;m writing an ebook called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.twitter.com\/introspectvv\">INTROSPECT<\/a>, on becoming who you are.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I&#8217;m also writing a book of essays called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo.php?fbid=10156036506753915\">NAUGHTY BOY<\/a>, about my experiences and learnings growing up as a Singaporean + digital native.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>People ask me all the time about my <a href=\"http:\/\/visakanv.com\/memex\">MEMEX<\/a>, which is a collection of directives I&#8217;ve put together over years of reflection. They help to guide my decisions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What I plan on working on next:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Currently, I think the most important thing I could be doing is organizing IRL events in major cities around the world. $ is the bottleneck here. I intend to do a trip to NYC in April\/May 2020. I also plan to do subsequent meetups in London, Sydney, Bangalore, Delhi, Berlin, Lagos, Tokyo and other major cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Writing:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have a draft of a novel called <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/visakanv\/status\/925559503793221632\">MAKE SOME NOISE<\/a>, which is about teenage Singaporean misfit musicians finding each other, and the struggles and pain they face along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve set up a Twitter account called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.twitter.com\/vvmahabharat\">@VVmahabharat<\/a>, where I&#8217;d like to do a live reading of the Mahabharata. Judging by the responses to my past book threads, I think I&#8217;ll be able to put together a web thread-of-threads that would be interesting and useful to the modern reader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the long run, I plan to write stories and novels set in a South Asian context \u2013 possibly some futuristic cyberpunk stuff, possibly some high fantasy. I&#8217;m still doing the research and reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have many, many other ideas for projects, books, essays and so on that I will be happy to share and discuss with my Patrons. \ud83e\udd13 Thank you for your support!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This doc is just to save a copy of what my Patreon page was like before I updated it in early 2022. Hi, I&#8217;m @visakanv! I&#8217;m a blogger, author (I&#8217;ve published two ebooks so far, \u200bFriendly Ambitious Nerd and \u200bIntrospect) , \u200byoutuber (&#8220;secular sermons for FANs&#8221;), informal community organizer, marketing&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5gxNz-3Qj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14775"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14776,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14775\/revisions\/14776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}