How to support Curiosity Mine

First, let me be completely clear about this - you don’t have to support this channel. I am asking for nothing.

I make YouTube videos in my spare time, I make them because I enjoy making them, and I will continue making them. However, my spare time is finite, and I cannot justify spending more than my available spare time on making videos without some kind of measurable (i.e. financial) benefit in return, beyond the feeling of satisfaction in providing educational information and hopefully some degree of entertainment to my subscribers and viewers. YouTube revenue is a great incentive, but pay the bills it does not.

So, now that that’s out of the way, there are some ways in which you can help support Curiosity Mine.

In order of effort required:

Number one: Watch Curiosity Mine videos, and watch the ads too.

Every watch counts. If you appreciate my videos, then you might find yourself watching them anyway, so this probably won’t be too onerous. If there’s a pre-roll ad on the video, you’ll fetch me a neat quarter of a cent for watching the ad, too. It’s not much, but it all adds up.

Number two: Like, comment, subscribe, share.

YouTube is an algorithm wrapped in an enigma wrapped in an algorithm wrapped in a non-disclosure agreement. The whole thing operates on engagement, and the more engagement a creator gets, the further YouTube spreads that creator’s videos. If you enjoyed one of my videos, hit the like button. Drop a comment under the video — it doesn’t have to be war and peace. Click the subscribe button on YouTube. All of these actions create useful data for the YouTube algorithm, and they encourage YouTube to push my videos harder to other people who might want to see them. It’s all a huge gamble, but hitting the buttons and giving the computer the most possible information to work with really helps to get my videos out there.

If you’re on social media, hit the ‘share’ button to help spread Curiosity Mine videos to your friends. This is especially beneficial if you think your friends might like them too!

While you’re at it, you could also follow Curiosity Mine on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and engage with posts over there, too. They all have their algorithms and they’re all data hungry. Every click shows the robots that you’re interested in a thing.

Number three: Buy merchandise.

Check out the Curiosity Mine shop for merch options, maybe there’s a t-shirt or hat that you can’t live without. Every purchase from the store goes towards making more Curiosity Mine videos.

Number four: Patreon.

Curiosity Mine has a Patreon page, and you can subscribe there to support the channel directly. Again, I am not asking you to do this, but if you choose to help support the channel this way, then I respect your life choices and support your decision to pledge money toward continuing videos about dinosaurs, rocks and roads.

Also…

If you have an interesting story that relates to the usual subject matter for Curiosity Mine videos (palaeontology, gemmology, opal mining heritage, infrastructure, rural history, rail history, etc), please get in touch. I have strange filming schedules and usually a really long lead time on my videos, but if your story piques my interest I’m sure we can make something happen!