Show me the money...?

"Show me the money!"
-- Tom Cruise as Jerry Maguire, "Jerry Maguire", 1996

The trappings of micronationalism are, sadly, not free.  Scepters and crowns and capes and wax seals and medals all cost money.  Even decent parchment for printing proclamations is not the cheapest of royal office supplies.  If you're already independently wealthy, micronationalism can be a fine hobby!  For the rest of us, though, it can be another expense in already-stretched household budgets - and unfortunately, it's not tax-deductible!

Queen Anastasia of Ruritania has presented at MicroCon in the past about embracing a DIY ethos in micronationalism, but unfortunately her talks are not available online.  A lot of it comes down to re-using materials found at thrift shops, such as modifying a bread basket into a crown by removing the bottom, or "blinging up" furniture with gold leaf and gems to make them more opulent.

There are problems with this approach, of course:
- You are reliant on what you can find at your local thrift stores, where the selection can be sporadic to say the least.  While We have found several good items locally, We have yet to find anything approaching a throne in Our local thrift shops, for example.
- You need some artistic vision and ability to do some of the more creative modifications that Queen Anastasia has demonstrated in the past (and kudos to Her for Her obvious abilities in this area!).
- While thrift stores are cheaper than buying retail, they are still not free.  For micronational leaders under the most severe financial constraints, this may not be the best approach.

To that end, many micronations look to earn "hard currency" from any of several groups, including
- their own citizens
- other micronations
- micronational fans or "camp followers" (a specialized audience to be sure)
- the macronational world

One of the most obvious ways of raising funds for your micronation is by selling goods.  There are a number of micronations that earn hard currency via this route.  Some choose to sell "tangible" goods, such as the famous salt mines of Molossia.  We have heard of other micronations who participate in small-scale agriculture, growing and selling fresh and dried herbs from their gardens.

Some micronations also sell what I would call "micronational-specific" goods, but care must be taken that you are not embroiled in "macronational" scandals or accusations of forgery.  We must particularly caution against the sale of "citizenships" or "passports", which have been used in the past to prey upon the hopes of refugees.  However, putting that concern aside, a market does exist for micronational goods, including:

• stamps
• coins/currency
• "war bonds" or other negotiables
• honours such as knighthood or a noble title

Additionally, the Internet has opened up a number of possibilities for revenue streams.  For example, Slabovia has a small "kit shop" on the Cafe Press website where Our people (and visitors) can buy Slabovian-branded merchandise, and the state gets a small cut of the purchase price.  Websites and blogs can participate in Google Ad Manager to get a small cut from every visitor.  The micronation can become an Amazon affiliate, and earn a small commission every time one of their citizens buys something off that site.  If you've got talented citizens, perhaps you can start up a YouTube channel and air videos, although monetization on Youtube seems to set a high bar for entry.  Regardless, there are a number of online options that can generate revenue streams for the determined micronationalist.

Finally, there is the realm that nation-states tend to claim for themselves - taxation.  Very few micronations embrace this in any meaningful way, but Slabovia has a completely voluntary 50% tax on lottery winnings if its people win anything in the lotteries in their host countries.  It's entirely voluntary, as We said, and doesn't bring a lot of money in.  But, if one of our citizens should come into a large windfall and tithe half of it to the state, We certainly won't say no!

We have also looked with small envy at Patreon, where you can literally have people give you money every month in exchange for "behind the scenes" extras.  We suspect, however, that only the very largest micronations could aspire to build a following via this route.

A couple of quick links of note

As promised, the second article on medals and honors has been posted on Prole-nounce, which is Sandus' journal of the arts.  The article can be found here.

More excitingly, the website for MicroCon 2021 has gone online, and can be found here!

Finally, I am working on several different articles to post, including thoughts on micronational war, micronational diplomacy, and various techniques used by micronations to get "hard currency" to support their projects.  Watch for those articles soon!

Quick update to a previous post

We'd mentioned that We had authored a pair of articles for Sandia's online magazine, prole-nounce.  The first such article is now available here.  When the second article is posted, We will also provide a link to that one.

What does your micronation need?

We are moderately active in a couple of micronational-focused Facebook groups.  It seems like every week, someone pops in and says something along the lines of "Hi, I want to create my own micronation, I need help with...." (basically everything).

Okay, first off, please go to this site, there are lots of resources there for starting your own micronation, including a model constitution, some "food for thought" to get you thinking about the form of your micronation, and a few other interesting links.  Plus, it was set up by the President of Molossia, so he knows something about what he's talking about.

Moving past that, what makes you a micronation?  Personally, We like to define a micronation as an "intentional community" - the usual definition is that it's a "planned residential community, designed from the start to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork".  In this instance, though, We would prefer to remove the word "residential", because not all micronations live together under one roof.  Other than that, though, the definition works for most micronations - they are planned communities that have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork."

From this, you might be able to infer the most important component of a micronation, at least as far as We are concerned - people.  Like-minded people, gathering under a common banner because they want to be there, to hopefully build something larger than themselves.

Can you be a micronation of one?  Sure you can!  However, you're going to be awfully busy being the "chief cook and bottle washer", as the saying goes.  The more people assisting you, the more fully you can explore different facets of nationhood.  You don't need to have twenty thousand citizens like Ladonia, but having at least a few friends along for the ride will make things easier in the long run.

In fact, We would argue that having too many citizens can be a detriment to micronations in some instances.  For instance it makes it difficult for everyone to take a truly active role in the running of the micronation - and may in fact encourage the "riding of coat-tails" in some.  Additionally, depending on how you are allowing people to become citizens, it's possible for an organized group to "stuff the ballot boxes" and take over your micronation, subsuming what you've built up.  We are not saying these things are necessarily show-stoppers against having a large micronation, just that you should be aware of the potential for these abuses, and create safe-guards well in advance.

A bit about MicroCon

I've mentioned MicroCon a couple of times here.  Maybe I should talk a bit about what it is, and why it's a "good thing" for micronationalism.

Basically, it all started back in 2015, when Kevin Baugh of Molossia put out the word that he was hosting a get-together of micronations at the Anaheim Central Library in Anaheim, California.  Slabovia made the decision to attend, to try to put faces to some of the names we were dealing with in the micronational groups on Facebook.  There's a great write-up on the conference (and lots of photos) here, but in short it was a day of talks, of meeting with other micronational leaders, and of generally having fun.  It even included a "live steel" medieval combat demonstration by the Lamia Knights of Shiloh (who unfortunately disbanded the following year).  We were privileged to be able to speak at the conference, and presented a retrospective of what We'd learned in 25 years of Slabovia - which We hope the attendees found both informative and amusing.

That evening, a MicroCon Cotillion was held, to include a dinner (in this case, tacos), award presentations (which We irreverently refer to as the "gong show" due to the many medals being presented), and a dance.  This essentially "set the tone" for future MicroCon events - a day of talks, followed by a formal dinner and awards.

In 2017, a second MicroCon was held, this time hosted by Ruritania in Atlanta, Georgia.  Again, a wonderful write-up and pictures can be found here.  This time, Slabovia sent a larger contingent, including not just the Monarch and the chancellor, but their respective families as well.  And, again, Slabovia was able to provide a talk for the itinerary - in this case, "How to host a MicroCon", which was our way of announcing not only that MicroCons would be held on a regular basis going forward, but also that Slabovia would be hosting the next one, in 2019.  We're sneaky that way.  :-)

True to form (and following what had been established two years before), that evening a formal dinner and awards ceremony was again held, this time at a local restaurant.  Unfortunately, due to space and time limitations, there was no opportunity to finish the evening with a dance.

And that brings us to 2019, and our own version of MicroCon.  We would estimate there were 100 people in the room this time, a considerable growth from the 30 or so who attended the first MicroCon only four years previously.

This time, we had a variety of talks on topics such as micronational conflicts, citizen engagement, the history of micronationalism, and even an overview of Asian micronations (provided by Minsung Kwon of the Jusin Republic).  Despite a minor glitch with the air conditioning (which is less than ideal on a hot and humid South-western Ontario summer day), the conference was a rousing success overall, carrying on the MicroCon tradition in fine form.  We were privileged to address the conference three times that day - to deliver the opening remarks, to provide an update on MEDALS, and to introduce the hosts of MicroCon 2021 - which will be held in Las Vegas (dates TBD) and c0-hosted by Westarctica and Shiloh.  We cannot stress enough Our gratitude towards our citizens who helped with both the organizing and running of the conference; much of the "smooth sailing' that occurred that day is doubtless attributable to their tireless efforts.

And, of course, that evening was the formal dinner and awards ceremony.  We were happy to bestow awards on a number of Our micronational colleagues, and We were Ourselves honoured to be recognized by many of the same with numerous awards and honours, a few of which are shown below.

Overall, being the host nation for MicroCon was a wonderful experience, and one that We are not willing to repeat any time soon due to the stress, aggravation, and other issues that accompany such a task.  We do wish both Arch Duke Travis (Westarctica) and King Timothy (Shiloh) all the best in their efforts, and look forward to attending it in 2021!

About medals, and MEDALS

One of the trappings of micronationalism that fascinates Us is the phaleristics - that is, the medals and awards that micronational rulers award to themselves, their citizens, and other micronational rulers.  Slabovia has a large and well-established ecosystem of awards, but We are certainly not the only ones doing it, and Our way isn't necessarily the best way.  Indeed, We have made a few mistakes over the years that have somewhat limited us after the fact.  (Hint: while standardizing on one ribbon width is strongly recommended, We cannot endorse 1-3/8" as that standard width, due to the relative scarcity of ribbons of that width.)

In order to document our own lessons learned, as well as to educate the public about the splendor of micronational awards, We ordered and endowed the creation of the Microphalerist Educational Archive and Library of Slabovia, or MEDALS, as a site where micronations can submit their awards to be documented.  Hopefully this will inspire micronationals to create more beautiful and meaningful awards, prevent duplication (accidental or otherwise), and help the public to see the wonderful work being done by micronations in this field.

The main rules of submission are:
1. Anything submitted to the site must exist in the real world, no "virtual-only" awards.  This isn't to disparage virtual micronations (I'm sure some people would consider Slabovia to be one of those), it's so that a) We don't get inundated with submissions that only exist in the fertile minds of their creators, and b) We can create a travelling exhibit and someday even have museum exhibitions of micronational awards.

2. No awards that are awarded by a "macro-state" or other non-micronational entity should be submitted.  This goes back, in part, to concerns about stolen valour.  Not to single anyone out, but We have seen micronationals wearing macronational medals that they could never have been awarded in real life, including high awards for military valour.  Quite honestly, We feel that this disparages and cheapens the hard work being done by many micronationalists, and can only hurt the field as a whole.

Of course, We prefer that people contribute an exemplar specimen of their awards for the archives (for the travelling exhibit opportunities mentioned above), but photographic evidence can also be submitted to the archive.

So it's been a few weeks... Err, months

Huh.  It's December.  How'd THAT happen?

So, what's been going on in Slabovia?

Well, MicroCon went off in July without a hitch - huge props to Our Chancellor and the organizing committee for all of the hard work that went into this event, We really can't thank them enough.  The event itself ended up being hugely successful, with a hundred people in the room (some coming from as far away as Europe and Korea).  We made new friends, renewed other friendships, and generally had a wonderful, if exhausting, weekend.

There's a fairly good video that was shot at the event, available here.  And We are in it a fair amount, so We can't complain about the coverage.

After MicroCon finished, We were invited by the Sôgmô of Sandus to submit an article about developing honours systems and making medals to their art and design journal, prole-nounce.  That ended up being two articles, sort of "theory vs practice", and they were submitted a little while ago, and should be going live at some point.

In August (while We were working on the articles), we had a visit from Arch Duke Travis of Westarctica.  We showed His Grace how to "blow things up real good" playing Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator.

In early November, the royal couple found Ourselves in Montreal, where We visited with Emperor Eric of the Aerican Empire and his fiance Jenny.  We are looking forward to returning to Montreal for their impending nuptials in February of next year.

And that's about it - just an international conference, a couple of articles, and a couple of royal visits.  A fairly normal year, really.