How Crowdfunding is an Expression of Self, RLST 245

The traditional model for the production of music, film, games, and technology has been with us for a long time. We all know how it works. When an individual, or group of individuals have an idea which they consider to be good and marketable, they must find a publishing company who will fund the costs of producing such a product and advertise its existence.

            Unfortunately, this model has a number of restrictions. Because the people producing the product rely so heavily on the publisher, they must often compromise their ideas with the intentions of the publisher, which is always to make more money. This means that often products are put onto the market even if they are unfinished, and different than the creators originally intended.

            However, the relatively recent phenomenon known as crowdfunding has provided an extraordinary alternative. The most well-known organization that allows for crowdfunding is the website Kickstarter.com. This website allows people who believe that they have a great idea for a product appeal directly to their market for the necessary funding to begin production. It’s often hard to believe that people would willingly donate money without any guarantee that their generosity will be rewarded with some sort of return in value. However, it’s evident that crowdfunding is a very effective model for production. According to its website, Kickstarter has raised $953 million dollars.

            The reason for Kickstarter’s success may be in the way that it appeals both to the ideals of utilitarian individualism and expressive individualism. These terms are used by Robert Bellah in his book Habits of the Heart. Utilitarian individualism an ideal in which a person works hard at their personal interests and through hard work improves themselves and becomes self-sufficient. Expressive individualism refers to an ideal in which a person can freely share and express their self and their values without restrictions.

                                                                        Star Citizen has raised $37,000,000 of its $500,000 goal

            To illustrate how these ideals work on Kickstarter, I will present one of the most successful instances of crowdfunding in video games, Star Citizen. When Chris Roberts presented his idea for an open-world space-flight simulation game for the PC, he made a number of interesting claims in his pitch. First, he presents himself as an idealistic youth, someone awed by the icons of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, and how much he wanted someday to be a hotshot space pilot. This appeals directly to our utilitarian individualistic sense that one must pursue our personal self-interests, because they will lead us to a sense of success. Second, Roberts stresses that this is his dream game, the product of his extensive imagination and artistic expression. This strongly aligns with the expressive individualistic desire to share our self with others and celebrate our own identity. Additionally, Roberts reminds potential donators that what he wants to do is push boundaries, and that one of those boundaries is the traditional relationship between a publisher and an artist. He wants to become unrestricted by those conventions and self-sufficient in his pursuit of creating his personal work of art. This self-sufficiency and freedom is common to both expressive and utilitarian individualism. In so many ways, Roberts embodies exactly what many admire about individualism.

            But the success of kickstarter is more than just the way the creator of a product presents themselves. It is also in the ways that donors themselves achieve these ideals. Kickstarter projects usually offer specific rewards for donors. Usually these rewards offer trinkets, such as posters or figurines, but sometimes they offer the chance for the donor to contribute to the product, such as getting their name engraved, or a custom design included in the final product. In the case of Star Citizen, donors are given access to special spacecraft, custom-engraved pilot’s licenses, or T-shirts. Kickstarter appeals not only to the individual desire to express their personal interest by giving their money directly to things they identify with, rather than through the middle-man of a publisher, but they also give the donors a chance to get a product customized for them, and even contribute of bit of their own identity to the product.

            In these ways, Kickstarters are not just the product of an individual, but they are also a product for an individual. This is a remarkable way to both bring about the justice that an individual can achieve greatness through their own hard work, rather than the conceit of a publisher, as well as a way to express oneself directly to those who can share and admire your identity.