24 HOUR UPDATE

In 24 hours we hit $654, added 11 paid subscribers, and proved this work has a backbone.

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24-Hour Update

Goal: $1,200 | Raised: $654 | Remaining: $546

In 24 hours we crossed the halfway point, and the speed of that is honestly astonishing. It’s also for the best, because the faster we close this, the faster I can stop campaigning and get back to the work you’re actually paying me for.

We’ve added 11 new paid subscribers in a day. No definitely not “fireworks and confetti” territory, but absolutely “okay…we’re moving” territory. And to everyone who chipped in on Cash App: thank you. That one-time support matters more than you know. Thank you to everyone past and present who have contributed. Thank you even to the free subscribers who keep my stats juiced just enough to keep me in the algorithm’s limelight.

Here’s a brief moment of comic levity for ya. The moment those Cash App donations hit, my monthly auto-bill for MeidasTouch basically reached up and took most of it, like the universe was tapping the glass to remind me what indie media economics actually looks like.

Also yeah, if you wanna call this a Valentine’s Day gift, fine. Like I’m some rabid marketer running a “limited time offer.” I’m not. This kind of marketing shouldn’t even be necessary. Truth shouldn’t need a campaign.

But here we are. If you’ve been meaning to go paid, this is the moment. If you’re already paid, upgrading or gifting one helps.

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*This is the previous fundraiser post

XVOA is short $1,200.

Not because some random bill “showed up.” Because new paid subscriptions fell off a cliff, worse than the Christmas dip (expected), worse than the New Year dip (expected). Those recouped. This one didn’t. And it was steep enough that I stopped what I was doing to run this campaign.

I’ve got a strategy and direction that will shore up subscriptions. But this has to be handled now, before everything we’ve built together starts to fray.

If I don’t close that gap, XVOA has to go part-time.

This is reader-funded. No sponsors. No institutions. No quiet backroom money. Just us.

Six Months: From Publishing Into the Dark to a Real Operation

The growth over the last 6 months has been extraordinary, and honestly, odd. I know it because I’ve seen the wreckage of Substackers who brought over a following and couldn’t grow and had to leave the platform after a year or 2.

Me? I started with 0 subs. Literally publishing into the dark. I didn’t know who I was or where this was going.

Then in just 4 months, XVOA went from zero subs to quitting my gig work supplementing my retirement and going full time running this publication.

Now I’m a citizen journalist. And I’m building a novel with a list of supporters backing my manuscript in anticipation of it being picked up by a publisher.

Here’s the point I want to make plain as day. This newsletter does reporting on par with mainstream outlets, and my Pam Bondi write-up is a perfect example of that.

• Jacqueline (Journaliste): “Super thorough, and very helpful for someone who couldn’t stomach watching the full four hours (me). Thank you Xplisset.”

• AMCottingham: “A great critique adds volumes of depth, understanding, and wisdom. You did that very, very well here… I’m grateful.”

• Pasqual Allen: “Bravo Bravo Bravo. X take your bow. This was tremendous. You put us in the hearing.”

That Pam Bondi piece was built almost in real time during the hearing and published within about 30 minutes of the conclusion. It took a ridiculous amount of diligence to parse fast-moving transcripts, track what was actually being claimed, and add the missing context so you could feel like you were in the room without sitting through four hours.

I intend to keep going forward, not regress backwards. This is an independent media entity, and it will be here for you as mainstream media continues its slide into irrelevance.

Here Is What a Paid Subscription Really Buys

Paid doesn’t just buy posts. It buys access to me.

I read everything, but paid subs get priority. I have literally pulled over on the side of the road to reply. I may not be able to accommodate every request immediately, but you won’t be shouting into the void.

You don’t get that from Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Reich, or Joy Reid. And that’s exactly how the 3 part deep dive series started: one subscriber asked me to review Sinners, and it turned into a 3-part deep-dive series.

Here’s what your support is funding right now

The 3-part deep-dive series I mentioned earlier is the kind that requires real research time, rereads, rewatches, note-stacking, and hours you don’t see.

1) Sinners — a music film disguised as horror, where the “monsters” are the camouflage.

2) Counterframe — the unified field theory: “all men are created equal” vs white supremacy as a sickness, Blues as the cure, Black love as proof.

3) Come Home To Me — how slow-drag love music became a way Black women reclaimed autonomy and the right to be chosen, not taken, with Blues men as the counter to slaveholder courtship.

And yes, the Epstein files are threaded through all three, because predation always shows up wearing a polite smile and a VIP wristband.

I even built the crazy-board image—part self-deprecating humor, part dead serious—and I might actually build a real evidence board for this.

The ask

I’m not thrilled to write this. It’s a distraction from the work.

But what’s worse would be putting everything on pause and risking becoming the wreckage I’ve watched other Substackers turn into.

So until this goal is met, you’re going to see an urgent ask with progress updates.

Goal: $1,200 this week
Raised: $____
Remaining: $____

If you’ve been reading and thinking “I’ll go paid later,” later is now.

Go paid if you can.
If you prefer one-time help, I’ll add Cash App: $xplisset

If money’s tight, restack and share so this doesn’t get throttled into silence.

Because I can write this either way.
The question is whether I can keep publishing it at full speed.