Everything You Like Is Stupid

A lot of different Kickstarter fundraisers have been getting a lot of flak recently. But just like most other things that get a lot of negative attention, it’s because these fundraisers deserve all of the hatred that is being thrown at them. Most people who complain about haters should probably just stop acting like a sociopath. I guess if you need your lifestyle bankrolled, just ask for money from your fans and then pretend like you need it to make something you could have made anyway. The most notorious Kickstarter from recently has been millionaire TV star Zach Braff trying to raise millions of dollars for his movie. People still mistakenly think that Garden State wasn’t a lump of goat feces that was molded into the shape of a movie, so he’s already surpassed his goal. So he gets to make the movie that he wants. This is like a rich kid deciding they want to be a painter, so they ask their dad to buy them a loft in SoHo.

Filmmakers often complain about the notes process they get from movie executives. And often with good reason, because most movie executives don’t come from creative backgrounds, so a lot of times their notes will be really shitty. But the good thing you do get from having to answer to somebody when you’re trying to get your movie made, even an independent one, is people asking the question “Why would anybody want to see this?” and “Is this even worth doing?” When you cut out that part of the process and you’re not answerable to anyone, you lose a possibly vital dissenting voice. And then you go ahead with a really bad idea. It’s like doing stand-up comedy without an audience. How will you know that anything you’re saying is funny? Zach Braff isn’t Woody Allen. He made a shitty movie about a mentally ill girl that he wanted to fuck and now he wants investors that have no say in how their money is being spent.

There are various creative projects I want to engage in that I don’t have the money for yet. So I’ve decided to wait till I get that money to start them. Begging my peers for money does not come into the equation for me. Obviously, I’m nowhere near Zach Braff in terms of people wanting to see things that I create, but even then, Kickstarter was more created for people like me than people like him. To get projects off the ground that couldn’t otherwise. Or, you know, I could just save up the money myself. Especially now since everything creative has been democratized by the ease of access and rapidly advancing technology. You can make a movie or an album or animate something for very cheap and very professionally if you put enough work into it and spend enough time. Or you could just ask people for money to do it the easy way.