Controlling The Narrative
Why I Am Launching A Paid Tier Of My Newsletter
“I know more about the history of England than I do about my own people in Africa.”
It was at this moment, as a grown man, I realised something had to change. Many of you started with me on this social media adventure last December. With the explosive growth my platform has experienced, it has now become a full time job. It’s time to take it seriously.
If you’ve already made your mind up from my previous content and want to skip to direct information on how to pledge your subscription for when the paid tier goes LIVE you can scroll to the end of this article.
Over the last few months I’ve gotten some amazing messages from people in Africa and the diaspora, grateful for my videos and insight into Africa’s past because they know so little about where they come from. What they didn’t realise is that this has been as much a voyage of discovery for me as it has been for them.
Many of my black American subscribers said the narrative they’ve been given of Africa has been of a backward, war torn, disease ridden hell hole. I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. We have our problems but I will always love Nigeria more than anywhere on the planet and I’ve been to a lot of places.
Starting THE MERC newsletter wasn’t something I’d planned to do. In fact when I heard mailing lists had made a comeback, I didn’t take it as a serious means of reaching my audience. My journey on social media only really began a few months ago when I decided to put up a TikTok video on western hypocrisy surrounding the Qatar World Cup. I went from 192 followers that Friday night at 7pm to 16,000 followers when I woke up in the morning.
The rest is history.
I’ve had numerous viral videos to date, hitting an average of 700K to 2M views a post. Some of my videos have pulled in 50-70K followers on their own. This proves our people are starving for knowledge but more importantly, starving for voices that speak from a different and authentic African perspective.
So, as I sit here with over 400,000 TikTok followers five months later, a Youtube channel, Spotify podcast, Twitter and Instagram, I’ve taken control of something I was fearful of; social media. I’m an old man learning everyday with each post I make. I’m just like you, a person who knew there was something wrong with what I was and was not being told.
It hasn’t been without obstacles.
YouTube is tough to grow as is Instagram but TikTok has been particularly rough with multiple community guideline strikes leading to my LIVE privileges being revoked when I posted a video about the FBI report on white supremacy. I’ve been told the issues I’m having may be less about the algorithm and more about unscrupulous people mass reporting me due to the content I put out. I don’t run a militant platform or one of hate.
While my work is accessible to everyone, I’m particularly interested in unifying Africa across borders by virtue of education and enlightenment about our true history. One of the key elements to achieving this is undoing the miseducation we’ve suffered as a group. Another is to provide an autonomous and independent space untethered to the mainstream.
THE MERC newsletter is immune to the algorithms that prevent content creators like myself reaching the audiences we need to on TikTok, Youtube and the like. Whereas they can block, ban and restrict the reach of my posts, this newsletter goes directly to your email inbox.
So what is the plan for the future?
From June 15th there will be two tiers of THE MERC; a free and a paid one.
FREE TIER
This is what everyone is on now. If you wish to stay on the free tier, you don’t have to do anything. You won’t notice much difference to what you’ve been getting. The free articles will be lighter and give you context to my videos, updates on what I’m working on, my thoughts on current affairs, media, music, tech and so forth. African historical content will also be in the free tier as summarised quick reads with links to the videos and podcasts if available.
PAID TIER
Note, if you’re an official supporter on my Ko-Fi you will get paid tier material as part of that membership.
The paid tier, which includes all the free tier posts, will be far more robust with in depth articles about special topics I care about and feel would be of interest to you. For example, my CLEOPATRA BLACK OR WHITE release will be an epic five part series on the paid tier covering all aspects of the debate over her race as well as the black origin of Ancient Egypt. It was a journey of discovery for me as I knew little about that history. What I found out was incredible and is due for release in June.
I’m separating the tiers out this way so paid subscribers get the benefit of the content that takes me the most time and effort to produce. The Cleopatra article and video has taken weeks and by the time it’s completed would have been over a month of work.
It’s been worth it though. However this is impossible to continue without funding and I do not want to get an investor because then I will be answerable to them. My autonomy in this process is paramount to its integrity.
HOW DO YOU SIGN UP?
You can pledge to subscribe monthly to the paid tier when it becomes active in mid June. You’ll find that option when you subscribe. If you are already subscribed and want to pledge you can either click the subscribe button again for the pledge options or you can go to your library and select ‘manage subscription’ via the three dots next to the publication . If you wish to be a founding member you can sign up for the full year at the special price to show your support for the platform. In fact, you can pledge whatever yearly price you want.
I can’t do this without your support and thank you for all the kind messages, donations and memberships. They are appreciated and never taken for granted.
If you feel this newsletter will be of interest to someone you know, make sure to share it with them and spread the word.
The Merc