The Critics Respond, Part Three
Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings...
When I wrote a meta-piece about idiots begging for $20,000 so they can add an extra leg in their dream vacation, I rather suspected that the idiot himself might eventually show up to defend his actions, and I was correct. So far, he's responsible for four of the one hundred and twenty-something comments on the article.
A brief aside: Isn't it something that somebody can be on the far side of the world and still be able to set up a Kickstarter and argue its merits over the Internet? The globe seems very small today. But it won't last. The Internet is more fragile than anyone wants to admit and the era of our greatest online freedoms and communications is already past.
I selected the above comment for particular inspection because it reveals just what a complete fucking simulacrum of Brazil the United States has become. Brad Van Dickbag really is from a completely different world than most working Americans. In his world, you can easily save up enough money to take a VW Vanagon around the world by cutting back on nonessential spending. In his world, you can take a couple of years off and feel confident that you'll be able to find work when you return.
Most importantly, in his world money has little relation to value. His comment about "I'm from the world of business startups" is meant to be demeaning to his critics, who presumably are white-trash idiots working McJobs and therefore ill-equipped to understand his mirror-polished existence. What said comment actually accomplishes is to point out that he has no idea how business is done outside of his bubble. He expects people to fund his stupid idea because he's seen other stupid ideas get funding over and over again, the same way my son occasionally thinks he's entitled to scream in Bob Evans because he sees other children get away with it.
The worst part is that he's right --- insofar as the world of business startups goes. The stratification of our economy into super-winners and super-losers means that there are plenty of "angel investors" out there who simply can't spend all their money. Like Birdman, they have money to blow, so they don't mind throwing it at idiocy just in case one of those idiots turns out to be Mark Zuckerberg. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it's actually Pets.com. Presumably, Brad's seen a long string of Pets.coms blow nine-figure investments. Viewed in that context, what's $20,000 for a little vay-cay?
The difficulty comes from the fact that Brad's not asking angel investors for the money. He's asking regular people, who have less cash than they've had in real terms since Jimmy Carter was running the country. These people want value for money. I've spent real money, by which I mean over $100, on a few crowdsourced things myself, but in each case I did it because I was satisfied with the value on offer. George Benson's crowdfunding of his new Nat King Cole tribute is an example. The prices are all reasonable, in some cases perhaps too reasonable, (the Skype guitar lessons all sold out within a few minutes, preventing me from having one, boo hoo) and as a result he's going to be successful with it. The fact that Benson is already wealthy doesn't matter to people, because they are satisfied with the value on offer. Fair enough?
By contrast, Brad von Dickbag is offering a copy of his book for $250, which is just $50 cheaper than the George Benson package offering a copy of the CD and a one-hour Skype guitar lesson. Gosh, which has more value: a book that is guaranteed to suck donkey balls or what's likely to be a great album plus an hour learning guitar from somebody who really knows how to play? If you look at the two packages back to back, you'll notice that Brad values his time at a rate considerably above the rate at which George Benson values his time. But only one of them recorded Breezin', and it wasn't Brad.
As of right now, it looks like the kickstarter will fail. Good. It deserves to fail. It's good for Brad if it fails, because it will teach him a lesson that he has yet to learn as he surfs the Net across multiple countries and floats along on a raft made from wrapped bundles of hundred-dollar bills: in the real world, outside of venture capital and Audemars Piguet watches and skiing trips to Jackson Hole, people are still working for a living and they expect value. If Brad can learn this, chances are he'll wind up being a very successful individual. He might even end up becoming someone you'd respect.
In the meantime, however, he's still an idiot.