- How many copies of the album did you end up ordering?
- 37 so far, though there are a few more people I’m in talks with. That’s $1,217.98, so an average of about $33 USD per purchase. A lot of that was shipping costs, and many of these were international – Pakistan, India, South America, South Africa, all across Europe, etc. All of our purchases except for maybe three or four were physical albums, as my goal was to allow as many people as possible to get a physical copy that otherwise might not have. Many people said this will be the first item of Louis’ they’ve ever owned.
- Did you fund this all yourself or were there donations?
- Donations, so many donations! I received donations from 29 different people in the amount of $1,049.63 total. This isn’t counting six purchases (counted in the original 37) that were directly bought by some of those same donors. Everyone who helped directly buy an album or two (sometimes for UK sale purposes, sometimes because I didn’t have a reimbursement app that the person could use) also donated directly back to me. People have been so generous. I got many donations of $50+.
- Have you organized something like this before?
A. Sort of! I used to stream on Twitch and ran a couple of fundraisers for various causes. My first one was for Direct Relief when the pandemic first hit, and we raised over $1,000 in donations there. Then I did another one the next year for The Trevor Project, [an] organization that helps LGBT+ youth, and we raised over $2,000 towards that cause. I’ve done other smaller efforts but those were two of my proudest ones. Organizing on this more personal level is newer to me – when I was streaming, people would donate money for me to do funny things or play games with them, things like that. This has just been out of the goodness of peoples’ hearts.
- Were you surprised that it all worked and Louis was #1?
- I honestly don’t think my group’s particular effort necessarily did a ton to help numbers, but I do hope it encouraged more people to make an effort to purchase the album. My #1 goal was always just to make people happy; the album getting #1 is an extra bonus. 🙂 People like @Jessica8384ny definitely did more towards hitting that goal and I have so, so much respect for her and all the time she spent on that.
- Based on some of his comments, it seems clear Louis knew we made a push to get him album sales. How many of Louis’ burners do you think reached out to get a copy of the album? This is mostly a joke… but I’m curious how you think Louis feels about this.
- HAHA. I’m sure he appreciates it. It would be interesting to hear directly from him, and I got so many people tagging me and sending me that tweet. It was a lovely moment, even if I struggle to attribute it to myself. I just hope that when Louis sees this, he says, “I’m glad there are people who are helping those who can’t afford it, because I’ve been there.”
