After 10 years in the satire business, Waterford WhisphersNews (WWN) is proud to announce the launch of a new fan subscription service.
Creator Colm Williamson and his team of two writers are launching a fan-led subscription service to help WWN survive and thrive in the face of legal threats, restrictions imposed by social media giants and the realities of shrinking online advertising revenue for all publishers.
The fan-led subscription service is launching on Monday, November 4th and will cost just €5 per month. Those signing up to support WWN will gain access to bonus content aplenty while keeping the site itself free and accessible to all.
Satire fans and all-round comedy junkies can access behind the scenes bonus content from WWN, personality-driven inteviews, exclusive offers and discounts, along with exciting projects planned for the near future.
Speaking about the next exciting step for WWN, Colm Williamson shared:
"We're joining the likes of Blindboy Boatclub, Second Captains and An Irishman Abroad among others, and looking to our fans who enjoy and value our work to help provide the best foundations for keeping the WWN train on the tracks. After a lot of research and deliberation, we see this model as the best way to ensure WWN can continue its journey and produce satire that continues to make headlines and enemies around the world."
"Some of the legal threats we've received were designed to shut us up and ruin us financially. We've received the odd death threat or ten. The restrictions and suppression of some of our work by big online platforms has been chilling and doesn't bode well for the future of satire and artistic expression online."
"It puts us in a precarious position, but with support from our loyal readers, who have always been such huge megaphones for WWN, we're looking to afford ourselves the freedom to challenge, offend and call out eejits in power as well as make the odd fart joke along the way."
Established in Colm's apartment in Tramore having become unemployed in the wake of the recession, WWN has released six bestselling books, earned several awards, had its work archived in the National Library of Ireland and performed at Electric Picnic, Cat Laughs, the 3 Arena and Vicar Street among many other venues. More recently, Facebook reached out to Mr. Williamson for him to help advise them on how the social network giant manages satire and dark humour.
WWNs work has seen it included in Donald Trump's campaign emails, its website hacked by North Korea and its articles have shared by luminaries including Michael Moore, Margaret Atwood and Ru Paul's Drag Race's Yvie Oddly.
Due to the nature of the beast, Williamson stressed: "No, this announcement isn't Fake f**king News".
WWN's new fan subscription can be found at: waterfordwhispersnews.com/fansupport/
