As you may’ve heard…

…independent media is largely long gone, dead beneath the boot of Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/TikTok…you know, Big Tech.

For many years, thanks to you, and our readers, and our remarkable staff, we’ve been able to resist that trend.

But we’ve seen it beating down our defenses, over time.

Now, it’s upon us.

But I haven’t given up hope.

We have several cards up our sleeves.

So: we have laid off many of our dear, talented, caring editors. This…sucks. You can still write, and share it to your community, and get edited if it’s special, and get promoted/shared by us if it does well via your community. But we will largely ask you to send your articles to Instant, and we’ll edit from there, if we choose to. If we don’t, that’s not a bad thing, that means you’re live on our platform, that you can instantly post, share, and build up your community over time as you do on Instagram, your Facebook wall, etc.

I’ll include a few articles about how you can help Elephant. But the best thing you can do is write. Share. Stay active. Keep the fires burning. We’re still at millions of readers a year, and have years left in our tank if I continue to guide our community through the whitewater ahead. To mix metaphors.

Our mission is all the more urgent, not less: it’s nothing more than to create an independent, mission-driven, ethical community for those who want to create a kinder world, together.

Finally, we have changed author winnings, from weekly to monthly. The better we do, the more we’ll pay. So put more energy in, we’ll share more out. We spend everything we make on salaries/retention and paying writers and maintaining our platform on a technical level.

The top 3 winning writers as chosen by our readers (and editors have a humble vote) earn $108 (good for competition, but also cooperation)

• $108
• $108
• $108
• Then:
• (Bottom 7 earn incremental amounts, seems more fair, still big wins for many)
• $100
• $90
• $80
• $70
• $60
• $50
• $40
• Finally:
• Three runners-up get gift subscriptions to give to a loved one:
•   Gift Subscription to Loved One
•   Gift Subscription to Loved One
•   Gift Subscription to Loved One

It is my hope that as more readers subscribe, we can hire a few of our dear editors back, if they’ll have us. Subscriptions may seem like small fry (they’re cheap, usually), but they’re huge for our stability. If we can pull in 1 or, well, 5,000 more, we could right our ship. To mix metaphors.

Here’s a few reads:

One by Jodi Felton that was very sweet, and appreciated.

And one by Cheryl Baskin, that was very sweet, and appreciated. It also inspired lots of folks to subscribe, as Jodi’s may have as well.

​~ Yours in the Vision of Enlightened Society, Waylon