Cameron Bertuzzi is a prominent apologetics YouTuber who operates a channel called Capturing Christianity with 218K subs on the platform, a massive jump from November 2022 when we first reported on the announcement of his intentions to convert to Catholicism. In November 2022, Bertuzzi claimed his ministry needed more Patreon subscribers because Capturing Christianity was losing $3000 a month, which he claimed was not sustainable. It appears that Bertuzzi is once more operating his ministry at a $3000 monthly deficit as the money he raised by converting to Catholicism has run dry. The announcement was made:
Quick Ministry/Financial Update: You guys really stepped up last year when we mentioned that we had a monthly giving deficit. You helped us get closer to the break-even point financially, but donor attrition happens to every non-profit, and we are currently operating at a similar monthly deficit to where we were last year. We need to make up roughly $3,000 per month. With our size audience, this is 100% doable! But we need your help. If you’ve gleaned from our content and can support us financially, please consider doing so. Those that sign up on Patreon get cool perks in return as an added thank you.
Link to support (includes a link to give one-time if you prefer that): capturingchristianity.com/donate/
For those wondering how we’ve kept afloat with a monthly deficit, every now and then we receive one-time donations. These have kept us afloat, but they have slowed down considerably over the past several months and are too unpredictable. Also keep in mind that while we have a relatively large audience, we don’t generate enough monthly views to rely on income from advertising on YouTube (the apologetics niche is comparatively small and will only interest so many viewers).
Indeed Cameron Bertuzzi’s Patreon subscriptions had cratered to pre-Catholic conversion levels. Capturing Christianity had reached 832 giving patrons in the aftermath of converting to Catholicism, a massive increase from 511. According to Graphtreon, a Patreon tracker, Bertuzzi only had 492 at the start of 2024. He currently has 517 at the time of writing 10 hours after his call for aid.
Is Capturing Christianity Catholic?
Cameron Bertuzzi milked his announcement to Roman Catholicism for money, interviews, and relevancy. Yet despite making a spectacle of his announcement, Cameron Bertuzzi has not followed up with an announcement that he was confirmed in the Catholic Church, something he said would happen around Easter 2023, as is typical for adult Papist converts. This has led many to believe that his conversion was less than genuine.
3000 The Magic Number
A commonality in the two pleas for money is the number $3000 as an operational deficit. Even though his patrons had reached pre-Catholic levels, the substantial growth in YouTube subscribers should have led to an increase in profitability on the platform. YouTube ad rates are currently high after being quite low in the middle of the summer. The one-time donations are impossible to gauge, but generally, December is a good month for them.
$3000 seems as though a strategic number because it’s not insurmountable to deter giving, and it’s not so low that people will dismiss it for lack of urgency. Perhaps it is the strategic sweet spot of grift.
Final Analysis
The latest fundraising scheme appears to have netted some results, but not a sustainable extra $3000 a month to operate a YouTube ministry. And if the trend maintains, Bertuzzi will churn through these supporters as well. The initial Evangelical Dark Web analysis that the conversion to Roman Catholicism was motivated by money has since proved to be accurate.
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3 Responses
I’m currently making content for the glory of Jesus in a particular way that can actually be sustainable (on my end), but I don’t expect any money coming from the creation of the content that I make.
Your analysis that he converted for money doesn’t add up, considering that he only started to lose money after converting. Converting seems to have been a terrible financial choice, offending his protestant audience and causing him to hemorrhage patreons.
There is a concept in marketing called audience capture, which is a self-reinforcing feedback loop that involves telling one’s audience what they want to hear in order to be rewarded with more views and support. For Bertuzzi, conversion to Catholicism was not what his protestant audience wanted to hear, which explains why he started to lose money after announcing it.
He was losing money before the announcement of his conversion. He put out a video talking about it.
I’m not sure how you can conclude he lost money due to his conversion when he experienced an increase in both his YouTube subscriber count and the people supporting him via Patreon immediately after his conversion.
This would indicate that the increase in his Catholic audience was disproportionate to the decrease in his Protestant audience.
The financial loss he is now experiencing is due to a decrease in Patreon subscribers after the initial post-conversion bump.