After about as much debate as I had in my initial consideration of opening such in the first place, I have finally decided to formally close the Official Scarbrough Redbubble Shop after nearly two years of this failed business venture.
It wasn't even just the lack of sales that drove me into making this decision, although that has been a major contributing factor. After all, some fans expressed interest in buying Steve D'Monster merchandise, and since many Content Creators out there sell merch on the side, it seemed like this could be an opportunity for a small, struggling Content Creator such as myself to finally make a little extra money off of the content I create, and services like Redbubble provide such Content Creators with a vehicle by means of doing so. Or so I thought.
Redbubble offered an extensive line of products for Content Creators to apply their artwork and designs to what they could sell: t-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, tanktops, throw pillows, notebooks, journal covers, wall posters, buttons, stickers, coffee mugs, among many, many other products. There was plenty to meet the interests of fans and consumers, so I tried to take advantage of as much as I could with not just Steve D'Monster merch, but also Vampire Girl (especially during the Halloween season) and other Scarbrough IPs. T-shirts and buttons seem to be incredible popular right now, so those were a common item I made available, but I also looked into other products that seemed to be good fits for Scarbrough properties - I even made a Steve D'Monster throw pillow available; a poetic little homage to the fact that the very first Steve D'Monster puppet in 2004 was originally made from an old shaggy purple throw pillow. Fans could even offer suggestions of what sort of products they would like to see and buy; I took such suggestions and made such products available for them for purchase, so additional Vampire Girl items like coffee mugs and posters were made available.
Again, this sounds like a great tool for small-time Content Creators to make a little extra money on the side, and it would have been if Redbubble didn't make sweeping changes to their services. In the nearly two years that the Scarbrough Redbubble Shop has been open, it has only seen one sale, but I never saw one red cent from that sale because I didn't meet Redbubble's payment threshold to actually make any money from the sale. Used to, if you didn't meet the monthly payment threshold, Redbubble would basically keep a running tab of how much (or, more accurately, how little) you earn from your sales, then pay you that total amount after the end of the year . . . not anymore. Now, you have to meet the monthly payment threshold, or you will not be paid anything, even if you do actually sell merchandise. But more than that, Redbubble has decided to downgrade mine from a premium tier account to a standard tier, which not only limits the tools and resources I can use to boost my merchandise, but it now also means even if I were still able to sell any merchandise, I would now have to pay an additional fee to them for each sale. The bottom line is what started out as a side hustle to try to make a little extra money on my content is actually causing me to lose money. It was these reasons and more that I finally decided to close the Official Scarbrough Redbubble Shop.
Is this what prompted Redbubble to downgrade my account? Actually . . . not quite. According to the email I received, Redbubble evidently looked into the artwork and designs I submitted to sell on various and sundry products, and decided that the quality of my designs were allegedly not up to their standards, citing that they were of poor quality, too simplistic, and not visually interesting enough to justify the continuation of mine being a premium tier account. Honestly, I am getting pretty sick and tired of being told this by those who host my content. This is exactly what the so-called "experts" at YouTube keep telling me: that my content isn't up to their standards, that my content "isn't done right," which is why my content struggles to build and maintain an audience. I have been on YouTube longer than any of these so-called "experts" have been; longer than there even was any sort of "standard" to have to measure up to. I get that none of the content I create is professional-quality, and maybe the best tools at my disposal are only prosumer/entry level, but here's the thing: I put far more effort into the content I create than most of thebig and noteworthy "Content Creators" out there who basically just steal content from across the web and compile them into review/reaction videos, or just sit in front of their cameras and record themselves talking about subjects they hold no expertise in. My Redbubble designs were no exception to this: I spent a lot of time and effort designing the kind of products I figured fans would be interested in buying, and I even promoted my Redbubble shop whenever I could (especially when Redbubble had site-wide sales) to drum up business - something that I never do, because I've learned the hard way from past experiences that advertising and promoting does more harm than good. Maybe if I had better tools and resources at my disposal, or actual opportunities were available, I might could actually create and produce professional-level content that could actually measure up to whatever standards the hands that feed us set for us. Even so, I don't create content to measure up to any sort of standards, or to appease the very people who continually stunt my creative growth; I create content to satisfy my own artistic passions first and foremore, and to entertain other people second. I don't have the biggest numbers, but there have been plenty of folks who have genuinely enjoyed the content I've created over the years regardless of the quality of said content. Heck, even in my earliest years on YouTube, the quality of my content was pure crap due to the poor tools I had at the time, and yet, people loved Steve D'Monster's antics, and he garnered a small, yet dedicated following - all before the corporate takeover that rendered YouTube into a sea of droll talking heads and vapid vloggers.
So like I say, I debated even selling merchandise in the first place, because I figured I wouldn't be able to sell anything, and since I did indeed fail in that objective, and it's actually causing me to lose money when I intended to make a little extra money, I have finally decided to shut down the Official Scarbrough Redbubble Shop.
