It Came From the Internet: Kickended

Welcome to "It Came From the Internet."  Each week the intrepid crew of the H-PCAACA will venture boldly into the farthest reaches of the internet to find interesting and offbeat sites relating to American, world, and popular culture.

Crowdfunding has become a notable element within social media networks. It's a refreshingly novel and egalitarian idea on the surface. Individuals put their ideas out for judgement, and the public decides which projects they will fund and to what extent. Despite notable successes, many crowdfunding projects never reach their goals. Statistics on Kickstarter give a success rate of 40%. The majority fall short. Perhaps even worse, a few come close and stumble at the last moment.

However, some projects do not gain a single backer, do not raise a single dollar. It is these that failed projects that Silvio Lorusso, an Italian artist and PhD candidate, archives in Kickended. Kickended takes these unfunded projects and preserves them exactly as they appeared on their original Kickstarter page.  As stated on the site:

"Kickended is the place where campaigns with no backers live a second life. Free from the pressure of money raising, these retain the purity of abstract ideas."

While acting as an archive of ideas, Kickended is also an exploration of what makes the crowdfunded system work. Some of the projects are perfectly viable, others remarkably terrible. The factors that separated unfunded projects from success may be many, yet most intriguing is the idea that not a single person had enough confidence or interest in the archived projects to fund them. Lorusso gives no answers or speculates on the reasons in Kickended, so it falls to the viewer to decide what critical element was out of place.

Flip through the random projects on Kickended, and ask yourself if any of these zero funded projects might have gained your support.

kickended.com

Have a site you would like to recommend for It Came From the Internet? Contact us at the link to the right.

-----

Dan Fandino is a history graduate student at the University of Central Florida.  So far, every good Kickstarter idea he has had, has already been done. 

It Came From the Internet is an H-PCAACA feature on interesting web sites relating to American, world, and popular culture. Feel free to comment by clicking on “Discussions” in the right side panel. If you are interested in contributing a post or if you would like to create your own blog or feature, let us know through the email link.

Content reflects the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily that of H-Net. H-Net is not responsible for content or opinions on external web sites.