One Year Of The Helipad! Now What?
The Chairman reflects on The Helipad's accomplishments for its one year anniversary and discusses what lies ahead.
Amazingly, April 16th marks the one year anniversary of The Helipad. As I have said so many times — this is an experimental blog. The main question has been, “can there be an outlet that thrives on reporting on non-political and non-left wing/non-woke entertainment?” After a full year, I think the answer is yes.
We’ve had the blog retweeted by big names like Jack Posobiec, Will Chamberlain, Amanda Millius, Mike Cernovich, and many more. I cannot thank those people enough for doing so. When it gets shared out, The Helipad gets big numbers and piques a lot of people’s interest because no one else is doing what we’re doing.
Each week we have brought subscribers and readers lists of the news, movie reviews, and editorials about cultural issues that they care about.
We strive to review the movies that people are too afraid to review, that get ignored entirely, or that get reviewed unfairly by the corporate media. I’m proud that our biggest accomplishment was when our review of Hoaxed was posted on Darren Beattie’s Revolver.news. That was huge for a non-funded, volunteer-only, independent blog that had only been around for three or four months at the time.
So where do we go from here? Do we expand or close up shop? It's time to answer these questions.
But I have some questions for you, the reader, to answer if you could.
Please let us know your answers in the comments below (click the “Leave A Comment button) or send your answers to HelipadTips@yahoo.com.
I promise this won’t be long.
Content:
The three main types of content we have been posting on The Helipad has been lists of the week’s news, cultural editorials, and movie reviews. Our numbers seem to basically be the same regardless of what we post. (Though, if the artist retweets the article, then things change drastically).
So my first question is, as the reader, what kind of content do you like most? The week’s news, cultural editorials, and movie reviews?
Monetization:
The fact of the matter is that crypto currency hasn’t taken off as fast as we had hoped. Another fact is that we can’t keep posting for free. These weekly posts take more time to put together than one might think.
So the next question is, would you pay for The Helipad’s content to continue?
The way I see it is that we have two payment options:
We can have subscribers pay through Substack using Stripe — the standard way that most writers on this platform use. The issue I see with this is that Stripe has a history of banning people.
The other payment option I see with potential is creating what I have named a “digital art scene” using Locals.com. If you don’t know, Locals is sort of like a Facebook group that people pay to join for a small monthly fee to form a community with like-minded people with the same interests. It’s a platform with a much smaller chance of banning people as well. My thinking is that it would be a place where artists and their fans who are not left wingers can interact while supporting the work we do at The Helipad.
I think that leaving a space for a Locals supporter’s work in our weekly lists would be in the cards as well.
Read more about Locals.com here.
And Finally…
The last question I have for the readers is, do you want The Helipad to continue?
Frankly, that has been on my mind, too. I think we’ve made our case that there is a scene of non left-wing artists, film makers, alt tech creators, comedians, etc. that are worth following. And I think that we have proven that people are dying for alternatives to mainstream entertainment and culture.
There are always alternatives to the mainstream if you look hard enough. We at The Helipad have tried to make that search a little bit easier for you.
To Wrap Up…
So to review, here are the few questions we have for our wonderful readers:
As the reader, what kind of content do you like most? The week’s news, cultural editorials, and movie reviews?
Would you pay for The Helipad’s content to continue? If so, would you prefer to just pay a subscription through Substack/Stripe or pay to be a member of a Locals.com community (The Helipad’s digital art scene)?
Do you want The Helipad to continue? Or have we proven our point?
Once again, please let us know your answers in the comments below (click the “Leave A Comment button) or send your answers to HelipadTips@yahoo.com.
Whatever we decide, thank you for reading and sharing The Helipad. This year has been an absolutely amazing journey!
Sincerely,
The Chairman
1. Content-wise, I think you guys are nailing it. Some culture, some politics, some reviews.
2. I'd prefer paying through Substack or other normal channels. I don't use crypto.
3. I hope you continue! I'm a conservative in a very liberal area, and knowing that there is sanity out there in the world is really life-affirming. Love you guys!