The honest alternative to Kickstarter

November 21, 2014 8:31 PM

Introducing WorkHarder, a “non-funding online platform for creative projects.” From Daily Show producer Jena Friedman, there's now a wonderful solution for all the artists out there who can't find enough friends to give them easy cash.

The sketch was written for Wedensday nights' Doctors Without Borders Benefit For West Africa Relief in NYC, a comedy show raising money for Doctors Without Borders.

posted by Catblack (14 comments total)

they should have workedharder on the punchline, imho
posted by p3on at 8:37 PM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

It's a parody of crowdsourcing... that's a fundraiser?
posted by gwint at 9:00 PM on November 21, 2014 [2 favorites]

Also, didn't we just do crowdsourcing schadenfreude yesterday?
posted by gwint at 9:02 PM on November 21, 2014

Reggie Watts can make anything better. So when something he does is just "meh", imagine how much worse it would've been with Wayne Brady.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:17 PM on November 21, 2014 [3 favorites]

The internet is increasingly proving me wrong, but I've been of the opinion for awhile that we really don't have to make fun of everything.

That beings said though, granting a little bit of levity about Kickstarter, I don't get the feeling that this video makes fun in the right kind of way. It's like it's picking a fight that isn't there. It's not technically a straw man, but it's like it takes a possible sterotype that could exist but doesn't really exist in most people's minds, and then makes fun of that.
posted by SpacemanStix at 10:05 PM on November 21, 2014 [5 favorites]

As a working photographer who's seen way too many other photographers take to kickstarter to guilt their struggling photographer friends to fund their books and projects I approve this message.
posted by photoslob at 4:46 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've seen very, very few "please fund me" campaigns that made me even a tiny bit tempted to give money. But it clearly works for a lot of people, most often probably because it's a socially acceptable way to ask for money from friends and family compared to just walking up and asking for cash. I definitely have friends who, if they were ever to ask I'd donate, not because their ideas would be good but simply because they are my friend and if I have the money of course I'll give it. (Personally I'd rather just be asked for the money, but I understand that, like cash gifts at weddings and telling people what your salary is, these are things with a lot of complex feelings and social rules attached, and people are trying their best to navigate it with at least a bit of tact.)

But giving money to a stranger's campaign makes little sense to me -- more power to them and it does me no harm at all, but I very much can see why it is ripe for comedy.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:27 AM on November 22, 2014

"You would think a one-woman improvised short film about midwifery would sell itself."
posted by shivohum at 6:37 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

So this is basically Youtube, right? Post a video online of your project idea. Get unfiltered negative feedback.
posted by I-baLL at 6:53 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've almost never tempted to give money to crowd funding campaigns, but the business model is completely sound : Any consumers who really care about a product can fund the product's creation by buying in advance and sharing the financial ricks.

It's dumb to borrow money form a banker, record label, etc. who don't give a shit about your band, and thus wants interest, ownership, etc., when your most fanatic fans will happily part with money they'd eventually spend anyways and share the risk that you'll fuck up.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:45 AM on November 22, 2014 [5 favorites]

Work harder, Doctors Without Borders.
posted by lumnar at 9:06 AM on November 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

As someone who has used Kickstarter as a crucial part of her growing creative career, I was prepared to hate this. But, well, I have seen enough obviously-doomed-to-fail projects. And this nailed the feel of them well enough that I giggled.

Also of course it had Reggie Watts.
posted by egypturnash at 10:52 AM on November 22, 2014

Kickstarter mashup website floating in my brain:

LeastICanDo -- back KickStarter projects that won't get funded

With LeastICanDo, you can back projects nobody else would. You get all the smug benefits of funding the arts with a very low risk of actually spending the money you don't actually have. Why back one project, when you can pretend to back dozens? Surely this is the least you can do!
posted by pwnguin at 10:59 AM on November 22, 2014 [5 favorites]

photoslob - i find most of the photobook-for-a-completed-project campaigns far more legitimate than the rest of the stuff in the photography category on kickstarter, most of which fall into one of the following:

1) I need some camera gear, buy it for me.
2) I have an idea for a project, pay me to shoot it.
3) I want to travel somewhere and shoot photos, fund my trip.
4) Calendars!
5) Technology.
6) Photobooks of completed projects.

If you look through the kickstarter archive you can see a clear pattern. Unsurprisingly nobody wants to fund 1, 2, or 3. Number 4 is fifty-fifty, and 5 and 6 are generally successfully funded.
posted by lawrencium at 11:55 AM on November 22, 2014