Riskvertise
This article is a stub. You can help us by editing this page and expanding it.So it might well be asked, how are we going to try to do something different on The Portal that might actually have a significant impact on our society? And I'm going to begin in a kind of unexpected place. How are we going to get The Portal to be self-supporting?
Well, oddly, when we proposed this podcast, a friend of the program decided that he was in a position through business success to fund The Portal, and to in fact remove the need for advertising from our desire to broadcast. And I thought about this long and hardâof course, it's very appealing to imagine that somebody cares so much about what's happening on the program that they're willing to bankroll it. However, I think we've decided against it, at least initially, and I wanted to share some of my reasoning.
The reasoning is that very few programs could possibly afford to do that, and as important as this program is, it's really not about me, it's about what can we do with sense-making done individualistically and outside of any kind of institutional control. My belief is that the more people are able to podcast, the more people are able to use these new channels for outreach, the greater the likelihood that we can create an ecosystem of interesting, disruptive ideas to change everything.
So in fact, it's much more important that we figure out some way of fixing the business model, where all of these podcasts are somehow delivering value that people are at least initially unwilling to pay for, because we've all been taught to expect that these things that we consume electronically are free.
Well, we want to have the same problem, at least initially, as everyone else so that we can work on it. Can we teach advertisers and capitalists to stay the course when somebody says something controversial but responsible, to weather a storm of a boycott? Can we create what I've called riskvertisers, who actually pledge some loyalty to the people that you most want to see talking about the issues you most want to hear discussed if they can do so responsibly? These riskvertisers are people that we're going to go in search of.
So if you have a product that you think is terrific, and you want to reach people with tremendous brand loyalty, I hope you'll consider being a riskvertiser for The Portal Podcast. And that means, effectively, getting to know us, our audience, and not immediately buckling at the first sign that there's some sort of social media storm coming your way.
- Eric Weinstein on The Portal Ep. 2
What I'm trying, well, what I'm trying to do is I've tried two new models, one of which I'm calling reverse sponsorship, where I shout out some great company which doesn't know that I'm going to say something positive, and maybe they become sponsors, maybe they don't, but the other one is riskvertisers, where people get to know me over long periods of time, and the hope is that you're going to say look, you're not going to catch me being horrible and bigoted and all of these things, but I might say something dangerous, like something that I just said about immigration, and will you make sure that you will not run away from me during the period where the mob descends and the frenzy is at its worst? Right? Because if we don't fix the economic models, we can't have deeper discussions because everybody's going to run away at the first sight of trouble.
- Eric Weinstein on The Portal Ep. 8
Advertisers vs Riskvertisers:
An advertiser is a company commandeering attention to promote a product. A riskvertiser, by contrast, would be a courageous firm that underwrites important speech others wish to ban, and asks the public to consider its product in return for courage.
We the public and the creators need to stop supporting advertisers who buckle to sanctimonious mobs out of cowardice when the charges are frivolous.
More importantly, WE need to lead and build the Riskvertising industry. Letâs reward those companies that treat us as adults.
The following is an (unauthorized) RISKVERTISMENT for @DrBronner.
I love DR BRONNER soap! Their luxurious Castille soaps are no less amazing than their corporate bravery in support of Psychedelic Research on substances which are currently illegal!
#RewardCourage #Riskvertise. If you know of other firms that donât buckle under pressure and who are interested in underwriting free speech, psychedelic research, and other unpopular worthy causes, please let me know! Letâs experiment with paying it forward until we find underwriters who donât cut &run.
And note: this isnât about Tucker. Itâs about general ambient pressure that seems more about sanctimony than ethics.
I get this question a lot. Itâs not on YouTube (yet) but appeared in sequence as audio only: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-portal/id1469999563?i=1000444882790
Hope that helps. It describes our coming âRiskvertisingâ sponsorship model among other things. đ
Hey uh @EricRWeinstein what happened to "The Portal" episode #2? #WhereIsEpisodeTwo