the ridiculous "potato salad" kickstarter

On one hand, I think it's sad that money is thrown at this Kickstarter while other good ideas through Kickstarter fail to get funded.

On the other hand, people can do whatever the hell they want with their money, so I'm not one to judge.

@MikeFerrari7: what statement did he make about kickstarter exactly? Not trying to sound like an ass just wondering as I don't see. I see a bunch of people making a dumb joke ( a joke that doesn't make me mad or anything but I just don't really get why it's funny)

Once again not trying to be an ass but if there is some statement being made here in totally missing it.

I can think of way more stupid ideas than this, I could become a Kickstarter millionaire.

@mb: unfortunately you have to be the first to make the money. Now you have to compete with tons of copycats.

I feel bad for the kickstarter mod team right now

@mb:

I hate to break it to you, but Penny Arcade beat you to the punch.

relating everything to being a victim must be exhausting

Anyone remember SaveKaryn? Some New York woman got herself into a whole bunch of debt buying designer shoes and handbags and shit, made a website asking for money to pay off her debt, and paid it all off down to the last penny on the donations of strangers. Sometimes I just want to slap people.

@fattony12000 said:

Gnocchi kinda looks like potato salad.

oh my god i demand all of that in my mouth immediately C:

I hope your invitation to the potato salad party gets revoked!

@shagge: Just as a side update to what I mentioned earlier, I spoke with my friend again today, and there at least seems to be some level of hope. She just needs to hold together for a few weeks until a test that can potentially get her on a donor list. And then, well, live until she can get a donor. It's not the most hopeful scenario, but it's something.

And she has raised a little under half of her financial goal in the last two days. So, that's good. It's not much in the bigger picture; certainly not potato salad money or anything crazy like that. But it's a start.

For human kindness?

Hey, that's a good start. I'd been thinking about her situation off and on all day (I know the frustration of donor lists... it's a necessary evil, but I've always found the process a bit infuriating).

As for potato salad money: Man, ya gotta get on them streets and hustle some potato salad money if you want to stack some stacks on stacks of stacks, heard? The potato salad game is hardcore, but so is these streets.

The harvest has been good, my friend. Soon the streets will run white with Potato Salad.

@truthtellah said:

The harvest has been good, my friend. Soon the streets will run white with Potato Salad.

Gimme that funk, that sweet, that mashed, that russet stuff!

Hopefully this ends up going to a charity somewhere. Provide some potato salad to people who are legitimately starving to death at startling rates. Not sure why somebody would consider pitching $5 to a joke Kickstarter more fun/fulfilling than dropping some coins in a UNICEF box.

I'm not a great fan of Peter Singer, but shit like this just makes his point that much harder to argue against.

i bet most people throwing a buck at the kickstarter wouldnt give that same buck to a homeless person or when a cashier asks if you want to donate a dollar to whatever cause. those things aren't ironic or stupid or funny so f that right?

You know what? Who cares. People can do whatever the fuck they want with their money. Why doesn't all of your money go straight into charity?

Is it human kindness to hand an ex-smoker a cigarette?

What if there's a very good chance their life depended on that cigarette?

How good a chance are we talking here?

A self evident chance. Like you could look at the person and immediately tell that their life would go to shit if not for this one cigarette. For hard numbers, let's say 75%.

Well, in this unbelievable, seriously improbable, hypothetical situation, I suppose I'd give the person a cigarette then.

I doubt that if people are kickstarting potato salad that weren't into kickstarting other things that they suddenly would if it didnt exist.

I have absolutely no idea what this means.

I wish stupid people would give me money.

Then I'd donate it to Polar Bears

My thoughts exactly. I get that everyone is entitled to do what they will with their money, it just seems like there are many other worthwhile projects and charity causes that deserve money more than someone trying to succeed with a stupid joke.

Just my two cents.

I just can't get mad over it, I don't see any big injustice here. I noticed you mentioned that you are angry about it because you have a conscience but I don't think the view that anyone not outraged by the potato salad Kickstarter must have a total lack of ethics is justifiable. Okay, you believe this is wrong, but why is it wrong?

A common argument in situations like this is that at least that money could go to charity and while there might be a point there and we do all need to remember that if we can spend $20 on a potato salad Kickstarter we're somewhat economically privileged, that doesn't seem to be where most of this anger is coming from, and people spend that kind of money on frivolous items to make themselves amused without this level of outrage all the time.

I've seen people argue that this project is a clear indicator of exactly what's wrong with the Kickstarter model, and if this were a situation where the project creator was falsely advertising or not delivering on promises I'd agree, but that's not what's going on. People are going to spend money on things you consider worthless or dumb, if you're going to criticise Kickstarter for letting people do that then you might as well criticise money as a concept for enabling people to do that. I'm just not seeing the part where this thing specifically is something that deserves serious criticism or is representative of some larger problem.

@gamer_152: the question I would pose to you then is whether or not kickstarter should stop pointless or frivolous ones. Why or why not?

@praab_nz said:

I don't think they have a moral obligation to do either, I think customers should be free to spend their money on whatever they want as long as it's not damaging anyone, but I think which path they take really depends on what kind of service they decide they want to be. If they want to put some seal of quality on their site so that you know whatever you're putting your money into there is what they see as a half-decent product or service then they should stop that stuff, but if they want a site where project creators and potential customers have the most freedom and openness in what they create and what they are able to donate to, free of the subjective opinions of Kickstarter themselves then they choose the latter option.

As it is Kickstarter has some degree of limitation, they stop people just putting "fund my life" projects up, and I think there's room for crowdfunding platforms in the world that take both of those approaches, but Kickstarter have set themselves up as far more the latter than the former, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that as long as it's always made clear to customers what the state of the product or service is going to be.

I'm happy for Zach Danger Brown (which is a fantastic name), I imagine this is a massive surprise to him and whatever money he raises will improve his life in some way. The fact that people donated so much money to the potato salad kickstarter doesn't affect the 100's of other 'real' kickstarters that will probably fail to hit their goal because those people wouldn't have backed those projects either way.

The people trying to replicate the popularity with their own sad attempts at making a few easy bucks are kinda lame though.