The Crowdfunding Thing Options

[Ben Higgins]

I wanted to post about this because I'm interested in what you all think.

I'm sure you all know what crowd funding is by now.. if any of you follow certain metal news sites you've probably seen an ongoing story involving Wintersun. To try to sum it up, the band's main man has complained of being in a sort of deadlock with his label Nuclear Blast and has declared the only way he can move forward is by using crowd funding to build a studio. Not a spartan style studio with the bare essentials but a proper, plush studio complete with absolute life essentials like... a sauna, for example. You know, those things that we couldn't function without otherwise we'd die.

I don't know much about the band but I like their music, or what I've heard of it. But anyway, you can catch up with the full story here with some handy links to fill you in on previous instalments. Warning: You might want to grab a coffee and sit down, there's a lot of words.

http://www.metalsucks.net/2014/10/03/winte...ssed-made-nice/

I'm not gonna slag off Wintersun or Jari. But all I will do is say how I personally feel about a hypothetical crowdfunding scenario if it applied to me.

I don't think it is anybody's responsibility but mine to sort out my life and get to where I want to be.

Even if I'm poor. Which I am. Probably a lot poorer than Jari and certainly less well known with less contacts or opportunities in the music industry. Even then, I would not allow fans in their innocently naive enthusiasm to endlessly post things on my wall declaring that they will send me money to my Paypal account. And this isn't just the occasional fan. It's loads of them. Ready to throw their money at it.

Now, even if I didn't take them up on their offer (which Jari may or may not have done) I would still (out of basic human decency) publicly thank them but kindly refuse their offer of help. Because I wouldn't want them to feel like it's their responsibility to make the project happen. I certainly wouldn't let them just say all that stuff and say nothing in return.

It's like when someone sees you're upset about something and you let them worry about you instead of reassuring them that they don't have to worry. If you allow people to fawn over you and you enjoy the attention, you're probably being an a**hole. That's how I feel about fans offering to send money to musicians and musicians allowing them to feel like they should.

I'm not really big on the whole crowd funding thing anyway. Even for small things. But maybe it's because I'm a dinosaur when it comes to certain outlooks on life. Maybe I'm too honest, too responsible. Maybe I'm not willing to use people enough in this dog eat dog world. Or maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way. I don't think it's an issue of pride either. It's just common sense and decency in my eyes. I chose this life. If it's not easy it's because that's what goes with the territory. But the choice was mine.

There's a difference between allowing people to help you in life and a lack of responsibility. When it comes to crowd funding I just can't help but see the latter.

I try to be open minded so I'm prepared to look at other sides of the story as always. What do you guys think about this Wintersun situation and crowd funding in general ?

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