TWL #10.5: Argleton (+ Patreon) | Wendover Productions

0:00This will not be a normal whenever productions video. That's because I'm getting a patreon, but first I need to show you why. So at 5 a.m. on a recent Saturday morning, I woke up, left my apartment, walked downtown, took a bus, took a plane, took a bus, took a train, then arrived here, an open field. It may seem strange that I traveled over 200 miles to an open field, but this was no ordinary open field. This was Argleton, a place that was once a story in every major newspaper worldwide. Now this place may sound familiar to you. I talked about it in TWL Episode 3. Argleton exists, but only according to some maps. It's a paper town. Back in the old days, mapping companies devoted an enormous amount of resources to just figuring out what existed where. They had to survey every physical place, map every road, plot every mountain, just so they knew what to put on maps. Some figured out though, that they didn't have to go out and survey places. They could just copy the information from other maps. They were, after all, mapping the exact same world. So in theory, there would be no way to tell if they were plagiarizing.

1:04That's why paper towns were created. These towns never existed in real life. They were just randomly and arbitrarily placed. If competing maps suddenly started listing paper towns, such as Argleton, their source would know and could prove that they were plagiarizing, since there certainly no way that they would get the false information from surveying. Modern maps are constantly updated and adjusted using new technologies like satellite and GPS, but a good amount of information on our 21st century maps comes from centuries old maps. Modern day companies such as Tom Tom and Tela Atlas acquired much of their information from slightly older companies, who acquired their information from even older companies and so on and so forth. So, remnants of those 19th and 20th century maps sometimes will show up today. Argleton is one of those remnants. Some time down the line, some company placed Argleton on the map as a copyright trap. And decade after decade, nobody noticed. Even when it got onto digital maps. Nobody's actually sure when it got there. Tela Atlas, who sourced mapping information for Google in the region, tried to figure out where Argleton originated from, but came out inconclusive.

2:09After it was pointed out that, in truth, Argleton really is just this field. Google removed the town from its listings. In the area, there's no trace of the paper town that once received worldwide media attention. There are no signs, no souvenirs, nothing, even for perhaps the most famous fake town ever. So now's when I talk about money. If there's no way I'll ever convince you to contribute to my Patreon, you can go. But I do encourage you to hear me out. I was able to do such a ridiculous thing as traveling 200 miles to an empty field because of your guys' support of the channel. I think this video is much better than the original video I made about Argleton, partially because I was able to go to Argleton in person. And I want to do things like that more. I've grown enormously, and through AdSense, Licensing, and Freelance, this channel is now basically my job. I make enough through these sources to support myself, but I want this channel to improve. That's why I've started this Patreon. Every dollar you give to my Patreon will be spent directly on the channel. I'm serious about that. I will not take a dime of what you contribute.

3:09I'm even going to release a monthly report showing you where your money went. The cool thing about this arrangement is that the two or five or ten dollars you contribute will come right back to you in the form of a better video. You will be directly affecting the quality and quantity of whenever production videos. There are a couple of things I want to spend this money on. As with this Argleton video, I think there's value in getting real footage of real places, along with doing research and interviews on location. Some of the money will likely go to travel expenses to get to these places. Additionally, I'd love to hire animators and sound designers and others to improve. I'm not going to change format. I promise you. I will always have the same simple, clear animations in my videos. They'll just be cleaner and smoother. So, a big part of the money will go to this mad push for better production quality. I've tried to create some really rewarding rewards. At only $2 per video, you'll have early access to my videos, access to the behind the scenes Patreon feed, and you can wipe your conscious clean for using adblock. At $5, you'll get a handwritten letter and stickers sent to wherever you live.

4:13$15 gets you into a super secret group chat with me and other high level supporters. And your name will be eternalized in the description of all videos you support. $20 per video will get you an awesome looking win over productions t-shirt. There are some higher tiers too, but I won't go over them here because I doubt many people will actually use them. Also, just to be clear, at whatever tier you support, you'll also get the rewards of the lower levels. So, if you have the means to, I would love your support on Patreon. I don't need this money to keep doing the channel. I only want it to improve the channel. So thank you and good night.