Months ago, Alex Jurado of the Catholic apologetics YouTube channel Voice of Reason became entangled in a sexting scandal with women who consumed his content. He categorically denied that he was interacting with minors but had admitted to the salacious text messages.
On December 15th, he released a video entitled, “The Future of Voice of Reason” in what the thumbnail describes as “My final video.” The video consist of a slow talking Jurado describing how grateful he was for the support he has received while he had taken five months to improve his spiritual life. He states that “I wouldn’t change anything with how God dealt with me,” believing that God allowed his sins to become public for his personal benefit. He said that “God allowed me to taste that and I’m so honored.”
He then addresses misinformation that his return to Patreon and doing interviews on other channels violates restrictions placed on him by his local bishop, claiming that their restrictions pertained to the property of the Church, not that of his personal accounts. He then further adds that he has no access to his social media accounts to prevent him from falling back into his sin. He concludes the video by stating that going forward, his videos will be Patreon exclusive because he feels he owes something to his supporters who stuck through the scandal, so he is providing exclusive content to them.
His Patreon has three tiers: Cherubim at $5/month, Seraphim at $10/month, and Theotokos at $25/month. Per Graphtreon, he has had a surge in Patreon since releasing content earlier this month.
His paid subscriber surge has eclipsed his amount prior to the scandal. His subscribers had effectively been halved by the scandal, but recovered in a brief period of time. Graphtreon estimates a high of $4 thousand in revenue, which is not quite enough to live by, but not nothing either. Assuming an average closer to the $5 tier, he would need to approach 750-1000 to make Patreon Exclusivity financially viable.
Analysis
It was predicted at the time of his apology video that Jurado was leaving the door open to his return to YouTube ministry. Many catholic apologists went rather easy on him at the time, which certainly gave positive reinforcement to the notion that he could return.
His Patreon Exclusive strategy is counterintuitive to how a YouTuber would normally operate. Normally, one uses the main channel to build up an audience and a Patreon to upsell exclusive content, private chats, or otherwise reward loyal supporters, yet his model for going Patreon exclusive appears more as a stopgap. Without new content to bring in new subscribers, the normal churn of Patreon subscriptions could reduce him back to prior levels over the next year. So, while this strategy has proven successful early on, the long-term viability remains to be seen. For it to be a success, he would require a way to generate new subscriptions to replace the ones that leave. Otherwise, he is simply creating a sugar rush that will dissipate with time. Ultimately, it could signify a stopgap on the way to a full return to video content with the exclusive content becoming published after a delayed period. This would mirror what Kris “Kdub” Williams did after his scandal.
Alex Jurado wants back in to the content business but is taking a subdued approach, one as slow as his style presentation. Really, he is someone that should just get a day job and leave the life behind, which might be more consistent with his penance, but Catholics will continue supporting him despite a massive moral failure.
