The Kickstarter Diaries, Part I: Attack of the Bots

I’m going to try something a bit different for this Kickstarter campaign–I’m going to write a campaign diary, something more personal and (I hope) more interesting and entertaining than the usual series of pleading appeals. And I’m going to start with literally the first ten minutes of the campaign, and a robot. Or ten.

I hit the launch button sitting in Cofein, my new favorite coffee shop in Cambridge, and within ten minutes someone pledged $230. I was, of course, stunned and delighted, but I was also puzzled, as that sum of money doesn’t correspond to any of the rewards. Minutes later I got an email through Kickstarter, apparently from someone called Ryan of Ryan Photos, saying that he’d made the pledge but had a question, and could I email him back at his personal email address?

Sure, I say, how can I help?

Before The Robot Called Ryan could respond, someone else upped Ryan’s ante and pledged $620, and immediately messaged me through Kickstarter to say he had a question, and could I contact him through WhatsApp?

Sensing a pattern, I hesitated. Almost at once someone else pledged a whopping $1,111–and followed it up with another request to contact them through Whatsapp.

By now Robot Ryan had whirred into action and emailed me to ask about my campaign strategy and tactics–a generic message that clearly had nothing to do with carving endangered alphabets and sending them overseas.

So by the time the campaign was only an hour old, it had apparently raised almost a quarter of the goal. With a sinking feeling, I guessed what was to come.

Sure enough, one by one the robots twigged that I had twigged their game, and began cancelling their pledges. So even as real people, the Endangered Alphabets faithful like yourself, began making real pledges, the total went down like a rock rolling down a flight of stairs.

None of this means you or your pledge are at risk, by the way. It just means that I have developed a growling hatred for robotics, and I can never be sure how well the campaign is doing–which will be, for the next 28 days, the basis for my mental health.

With luck, the bots are galvanised into action (see how I used the word “galvanised” to imply they are made of metal?) by the launch of a Kickstarter, and they will give up after the first 24 hours.

Just as long as you and I don’t do the same, we’ll be fine.

By the way: if you are a human being, I welcome your pledge HERE!