amanda palmer's open poem to jonathan chait (and other crimes)

I am v v proud of m@tt H on this day of our lord.

Gaiman and Palmer starting to gross me out. This thread is a rollercoaster ride of sympathy and disgust.

@ sic. Yes, she does say it will cost $100 per unit for a 7" and arts-and-crafts package:

arts & crafts/7-inch packages, if we sell about 300 of them, adds about another $30k (we’re planning on spending roughly $100 each on the packaging for those, including not only the vinyl but the fun arts-and-crafts activities. oh, and postage/shipping x5)

that's not a per-7" mfg cost, that's for four 7"s and four fancy packages and four hand-made art & crafts doodahs and postage and packing for all four, made and sent separately several weeks apart, plus a storage case for all four, plus postage and packing for the deluxe CD.

I only looked this up bcz you keep saying the $100 mfg number and it seemed too ludicrous to be true btw!

Guys guys, I know this will help ilx dislike her even more, she's really tight bros with Kevin Smith.

they've met twice AFAIK

$100/unit for four fancily packaged, separately mailed 7"s, with a storage case, plus doodahs-- $100/unit is, sure, OK, higher than I'd settle for but I'm not in the business of doodahs so I'm not an authority. Plus, she said, "if we sell 300 of them", from which I inferred that she was planning on selling them. Is she gonna sell them? Don't answer that question. I am so sick of this discussion. Haters gonna hate, suckers gonna support

dude I have no interest in this product (hint: 'doodahs' is not intended to indicate breathless approval), just like I said before "the figures might be bullshit but misrepresenting them is no help"

likewise it's no wonder M@tt got dismissed as a troll when Gaiman at first engaged with him but was then met with "just gravy for the goth millionaire set" "must be some soundguy for $20k lol" and claims that Palmer's wealthy, which she's not, and that bcz he's earned money in the past he doesn't deserve to make money off other projects. it's rhetoric that doesn't help analysis.

i think he was trying to eat his goth cake and have it too. matt, that is. make some valid points and also troll it up a bit.

yeah obv, just no point in being surprised he got called on it

sell = "if that's the amount of pre-orders we get via this in-progress Kickstarter"

looking at the finished page, they got 65. probably either going to have to go lathe-cut or press 300 and quietly sell them on tour without doodahs.

No, I know, sic, and you're right. I didn't mean to imply you were some sucker. Somebody upthread mentioned that dissenting voices might be suffering from 'jealousy' and at first I was like "excuuuuuse me?" but the more I'm thinking about it I think s/he might be on to something. $1.2 million is a fuck of a lot of money and surely there's a part of me that is having pipe dreams about Iron Fortresses Of Eternal Drone and Golden Violas Of Damnation.

I watched the "Oasis" video, thought it was one of the stupidest things I'd ever seen, then watched a couple more, thought "OK, she can sing and write a melody; this is not too different from other things I like well enough", and now I'm a bit disappointed that I'm starting to like her music OK.

I really wanted to hate it!

oh sure

if you give <i>penny arcade</i> money, you deserve to have the government forclose on your house

With the Penny Arcade thing, they used to have a pre-Paypal thing and occasional rattling of the tin, then they switched to ads, now they are seeing whether they can use this as a revenue model instead - if Kickstarter aren't interested in enforcing their own rules* then yeah why not. I get the impression that the specific amounts of money for "we will take an ad off" are specifically matched at "this is how much it will cost us not to have that ad up for a year". None of the backer rewards will cost them that much money, but people like giving them money for adulation - their for-charity auction of a place in the strip earns around $10,000 just for a cartoon version of you that they put in one panel.

It must be really weird to be the two main guys from Penny Arcade. Though having seen their comedic video on the Kickstarter page then I would pay £10 not to have lunch with them.

Not sure about arguing that people should be pricing stuff at cost-only - that seems to have been the problem with some of the successes, that suddenly you need to organise transportation and distribution for 1000 when a dufflebag and a roll of stamps for 10 were all you intended.

Also holy shit at the number of these projects and the fact that so many of them are on a "If you don't make the target, you still get the money" basis. I just now got a link to one on Sponsume, and they charge 4% on targets met, and 9% on targets unmet!

*tho I think the get-out is that what they are making is a version of the site without the ad, and that costs the money.

the problem with kickstarter and also the economy at large is that nerds have too much money

and people just give them money, for doing basically nothing, huge gobs of it, and then they think thats how everything works, just throw money at amanda palmer and

she'll give you a "special hug?"

the problem with kickstarter and also the economy at large is that nerds have too much money

this x1000

honestly gaiman and palmer could get 5m from fans after asking for 100k to paint their house purple and i wouldn't give a shit, but if they got shit for asking for someone to paint their house for free afterwards and responded with "ARTISTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO PAINT FOR FREE" they earn any shit they get.

shit i said shit a lot

Sic

Skots basically right, I was trolling & being serious or at least trying to seriously break down his claim that all the money was filtered back into improving the quality of what was given back to the fans....I know geeta said I was trolling on twitter too....which like I said I was to a degree

But anyway this all took place in like 10 minutes so sorry it wasn't an atlantic piece or nabisco quality otm but I stand by my attempt to break down the math of how much even the most ”deluxe” packaging & posters cost to make....gaimen was the one who denied that they were making money on it not me

Also frankly he engaged with me with a pretty imperious, dismissive tone so sorry if the goth millionaires line wasn't helping foster a dialogue but I would note he never seriously addressed any of my points

Basically if they claim that the enterprise of doing this live recording & pressing a few thousand fancy posters & triple cds cost 137k they are full of shit, not me

Artists of the right to be full of shit.

frankly he engaged with me with a pretty imperious, dismissive tone

dude you opened with "ima stranger: ugh could you guys abuse kickstarter any more," when it's the only kickstarter he's ever done and it was more than a year ago!; it was exceedingly polite of him to reply at all

It seems he's saying they spent more on the posters and CDs than they would have if the orders had come in lower, not that all of the money went on fancier printing. And wtf big fucking deal if they made more money than they expected to! how many bands go "whoops our bad" if they sell five times more records than they anticipated and refuse to fill the orders because it means they'd get more money?

it might be gross to offer "special hugs" for $2500 or whatever it was, but that doesn't mean ppl paying $1 for a download or $25 for a quadruple CD are getting rorted as long as they get their product. and no-one on any side of the hugs transaction can be under any delusions about the labour and manufacturing costs involved

it was exceedingly polite of him to reply at all

i know, what a guy

Thrill of my life

Anyway I'm banning myself from twitter for awhile because arguing with a famous person is just a bad look and twitter arguments are pointless basically

uh oh really?

Just get in an argument with me, u.m.s.; I'll make you look good.

"Minneapolis and St. Paul are just the same thing, right?"

Lol, a huge loss to the twittersphere!

Watch it ned! I'll banish u to columbia heights

Albini, Palmer, Lowery, Lefsetz, or an NPR intern
The Traveling Wilburys 2.0

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, September 13, 2012 6:00 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actual death upon reading this just now

she talks about the suicide faking thing here about halfway through

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h57XWrFNGs8&feature=youtu.be

she actually says "i think its a really cool like art idea, but someone else might come along and say that's fucked up"

and he committed suicide 6 months later, not 2 years later

"he loved it!"

Maybe it's not a good idea to hold up Emily the npr intern as a kindred spirit.

http://i831.photobucket.com/albums/zz233/8ftmusic/afp/blog/20120916/05.jpg

if anybody understands my philosophy and the complicated collision of art, commerce and asking for help…it’s the folks at National Public Radio.

no doubt about it: my band has hit a DEEP, PAINFUL cultural nerve.

I realize I'll never experience misogynist bile, so my opinion is obviously blinkered. I can imagine if one is getting "stupid whore slut" comments, you'd want to call out that you're getting that kind of hate. But I can't help but wonder if, when faced with a spectrum of critical voices, some choose to ONLY acknowledge the one that says "stupid whore slut" because it makes it easier to dismiss those criticizing them.

Sigh.

yeah I'm sighing too. Sighing because "it's obvious I've hit a nerve" in reaction to people criticizing you is one of the lamest fucking things a person can say. "I shat on your french toast and you got really mad! I must have really touched a nerve!"

I think the worst thing I've said about Amanda Palmer is that she seems to be incredibly terrible at managing money

I'd say she's very good at it, actually

You know, if Palmer just admitted she's happy to profit from her work, and is grateful that fans give her the opportunity, it would be bullshit if she continued to get grief. She'd be no fucking worse than Kiss or 90% of rock bands. But if she continues to make the case that she's being really admirable and valiant here and blazing new pathways for ART, she basically is feeding the trolls.

Let's save judgment on that until we've seen her house and her pension fund.

She's great at managing others to give her money, not so good with it once it's hers.

"i talked with emily white over our beer about how she felt, being the living symbol in a giant cultural battle. as you would expect, it sucks the life out of you a little."

I can't believe that I feel twinges of remorse whenever I eat a few French fries, meanwhile this woman has the entire world screaming "PAY YOUR MUSICIANS PLEASE" at her and she can't muster up even an iota of self-doubt re: this issue

french fries, owen?

Freedom fries.

I'd say she's very good at it, actually

lol touche