Last time I introduced you to Lord Aardvark and the XXX 3D SFM renaissance which has emerged as a result of the SFM software, but not everything has been smooth sailing for Aardvark and his fellow purveyors of 3D game inspired erotica. Like any important movement, the SFM community exists in its own de-facto ecosystem, utilizing Tumblr almost exclusively to reach fans and give updates on progress, user driven adult video websites like Pornhub and Youporn to reach new fans and most importantly, Patreon to convert fan loyalty into capital to keep artists creating content and earning a living through their art.
This movement is not without enemies, either. And like any ecosystem, the SFM community is reliant on a series of interconnected systems. Patreon recently made changes to their terms of service that seemed to be particularly targeted at certain SFM artists. I asked Lord Aardvark about his experience with these changes in our interview.
“Jack Conte, the founder of Patreon, has always been extremely vocal about the fact he hates that people try to use Patreon for porn. At the same time, though, he has also been extremely vocal on both the ‘right of artists to pursue their passion unfettered’, and ‘clarity of policy between consumer and platform.’”
The changes to Patreon’s TOS put several established and successful SFM artists in violation and forced temporary suspensions of accounts earning thousands of dollars a month in patron contributions.
“Apparently, from what I've read in the days after the change, Conte has always had a personal dislike of the "fringe" content targeted - things like rape porn, bestiality, and lolicon. And apparently, he and Patreon have been keeping an eye on some of the artists for a while, wanting to knock them down. But they couldn't, because of their commitment to transparent moderation - it wasn't banned by the rules, and so they wouldn't ban people for it.
Enter this change, where Patreon have finally formalized what they have ostensibly been wanting to do for a while.”
The main problem with a rule change of this sort, is that the artists’ content had already been created using patron funding that the platform they’d used to donate was no longer willing to support. In spite of the suddenness and obvious targeting of this change to Patreon’s TOS, SFM creators were quick to evolve, removing flagged content and briefly scrambling for new sites and ways to get their content hosted.
Just for reference, a great many of the better known SFM artists depend solely on Patreon for their income from the work that they create, according to Lord Aardvark, “…there'[re] people for whom Patreon's sudden destruction would literally bring their lives to a screeching halt.” But fortunately for both artists and Patreon (which seems utterly ignorant of just how dependent their platform’s success is on the sort of content they’re targeting), the situation seems to have worked itself out without much lasting fallout beyond some panic among creators and fans.
“It's unfortunate, but at the same time, I do have to give Patreon respect where it is due. They are being extremely lenient on the subject matter. Compared to Tumblr, whose policy is ‘if you get 3 strikes then your account is deleted and your blog can never be accessed by anyone every again in the history of time; oh and we might wait literal years before informing you of a strike, and then spam them all at you so quickly you don't have a chance to rectify the issue, and then use those 3 hugely-delayed strikes to immediately strike you down’, Patreon's policy is ‘if you have content that violates our terms, then we will freeze your account until you delete the infringing content. Once you delete all of that content, we'll release your account and you can continue operating without any interference from us.’
I have had people who panicked about getting hit by it discuss their email correspondence with Patreon's support, and their emails were nothing but civil and polite. At one point, one such artist asked them ‘have I deleted everything?’ to which Patreon responded with ‘you got most of it, but there's still some content we don't approve of up. Delete all of that, and we'll be able to get your account back up tomorrow.’ The artist did, and lo and behold, less than 24 hours later, their account is back online (albeit significantly stripped, since pretty much all of that artist's content violated the new TOS).“
That is a big relief for fans and creators involved in this SFM 3D Renaissance, but it does serve as a stark cautionary reminder of just how fragile this ad hoc ecosystem of creators and patrons is, that it’s subject to the whims and mood shifts of website operators who find this content morally objectionable. For now, creators have adapted to the TOS change, finding new homes for content that’s assumed to violate the altered TOS. But never forget that the stakes are very high for the creators of this content.
“[Patreon] has been my sole source of income for about two years now.
If worse comes to worst, I have friends in various tech companies, including Amazon, that could help me get a job doing what I'm trained and educated in (systems engineering, specifically). But, all things being equal, I would much rather not have to do that.
I grew up in a family with a stay-at-home mother. My father was a blue-collar mill-worker. He worked long, hard hours that took a toll on his health. Every day, I would witness him dread going to a place he hated working at, to do a job he hated doing, for a company he hated working for, with people he hated working with. Whenever he came home, I would ask him, ‘How has your day been?’ to which his response would always, without question, be ‘A whole lot better now.’
My father hated his job. He hated everything about it. If he was given the chance to quit it, and not put the well-being of his family in danger, he would do it in a heartbeat. He only worked to support us. That was his only reason. If it were just him he were supporting, then he would have quit it, and make ends meet some other way. But it wasn't just him. And so he suffered, so that my mother and I could have the very best his means could provide, even at the cost of his literal health and happiness.
I don't want to do that. Good God, do I not want to do that.”
As a fan of Lord Aardvark’s work and several of his contemporaries, I don’t want that either. Let's hope that this renaissance ecosystem continues to evolve and adapt, in spite of the forces acting against it.
Check out some of his longer movies, hosted with the artist's permission on Hentai0.com
Mass Effect - Blue Star Booty, Part 1
Mass Effect - Blue Star Booty, Part 2
Check out his Tumblr and Patreon for more of his amazing work.
