9 Year Old Girl RPG Kickstarter ... A Pack of Lies?
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The fact that Kickstarter seems to allow this also takes away from their credibility, not to mention the complete idiocy of allowing the campaign to collect over $20k.
The again, I guess if you are massively cheap, have zero integrity and don't mind ruining your reputation for less than 1/1000th of your net worth I guess it's a good idea.
She owns a collections agency. I think it's safe to say that she has no reputation that can be ruined by discovery of the fact that she will shamelessly grab every dime in sight, every chance she gets.
There are more than a few ways to make money, raise money, and live life that don't involve being a scumbag.
That does create a sort of tragic irony I suppose, because like I said, Barnum was a pretty great guy all told (philanthropist, abolitionist...)
This reddit post sums it up: http://www.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1awr1n/millionai...
The authors dug up some of her old tweets, and it's clear that Susan tends to behave unethically.
Also breaches Kickstarter rules: You can't fund your life (i.e. pay my tuition, or camp expenses). She is spamming all over twitter, including celebs.
Older siblings give younger siblings a hard time in general, regardless of gender; it's an evolved behavior, similar to baby birds pushing siblings out of the nest.
But, other than that, I don't see the problem. It seems mom is trying to instill her daughter with some 'how to hustle' life skills.
This seems like a modern-day take on "if you want to go to camp, sell lemonade and pay for it yourself."
I don't doubt that every single contributor feels better about himself or herself, even though they essentially purchased overpriced clothes. The lemonade itself is overpriced: You could squeeze lemonade yourself or get one of those packets for far less than 50 cents. In both case, the appeal is to emotion.
You have to buy lemons. You have to squeeze the lemons. You have to blend the lemonade right to get a good flavor. You have to refrigerate the lemonade.
Also, one of those little packets != actual lemonade.
Why is the lemonade from the kids' stand inherently charity, but Lipton isn't? If I'm paying $5 for that lemonade stand product, then sure, that might be charity because it's an extreme price.
I see no reason a 9 year old can't build a service, make a profit, and have it not be charity just because they're a kid.
The Lipton product sure sounds like charity to me on this scale. Because why would anyone pay so much for lemonade they can easily make on their own at maybe 10% the cost? And yet people do it every day, instead of making their own product they pay huge mark-ups for convenience. So why can't a child's lemonade stand serve the same function?
I remember running a little stand when I was a kid. We sold vanilla yogurt covered pretzels too, those were a big hit and you couldn't easily buy them at a store at the time. I never thought of any of it as charity, I thought of it as a fun expedition into an adult world. Plenty of people didn't mind paying $0.25 for a glass of lemonade on a hot Summer day when they were coming home from work. Maybe some buyers thought of it as charity, but we never charged those kinds of prices. $0.25 was a very fair deal.
So you have no logical or emotional differences between buying overpriced lemonade from the following sources?
1. http://t2.ftcdn.net/jpg/00/43/34/25/400_F_43342520_VKrcDJlV8...
2. http://insidebiz.com/files/ibiz/imagecache/fulllsize/picture...
Also on the case of this whole thing... I don't see why people are making a huge deal out of this... Someone paid.. They weren't tricked... She is planning to make a game... The mother probably helped alot but she had to have put some effort into this.. I say probs to her
Yeah, that screamed 'fake' to me as well.
When I was a kid and wanted money (I was around 10) my parents gave me a proposition. My dad is a small engine mechanic, so he gave me a mower and a whipper snipper and said if I wanted to earn money I should go knock on doors and ask if they wanted to mow their lawn. And who honestly would say no to a 10 year old kid (I was quite small for 10 too)? The catch here was any money I earned had to be invested in paying for fuel (fuel was way under a $1 when I was 10), they supplied the fuel initially and then I had to keep buying my own. While Kickstarter doesn't involve any effort, it seems Susan is teaching her kid how to hustle much like my parents did when I was younger. If my parents were rich, would it have been a low thing for them to do? Definitely not. My parents weren't rich, but if they were I can't see the harm in making your kids work for their money (no matter which way they decide to do so).
Are we forgetting gaming companies and people in the industry with money have been exploiting Kickstarter in the same kind of ways, why is Susan any different? She even discloses some information about herself on her Kickstarter bio, it doesn't appear she is trying to hide who she really is, what's the problem with exception of the exploitation here? Maybe her daughter really wants to go to this camp and make a game. The thing that irks me is the high tiered rewards, if the camp is only just under a $1000, what is the rest of the money going towards? Why a $10,000 tier?
Doesn't KS have an option to stop the project when it raises the needed amount like Indiegogo? Whatever the answer to that is, she can just argue it was too hard to find that option, or that it didn't exist. It'll be forgotten in one year.
>My Mom has to hire programmers and developers sometimes for her work. She's really glad I like computers and programming because she says as a business person she feels like she's held hostage by developers.
Besides the undertones of Clients From Hell-ian "my daughter can do this for free", isn't this counterproductive? If the girl is getting horror stories about developers from her mom, won't she be wary of becoming a developer?
But...I don't think her daughter has much to do with this: http://i.imgur.com/F03oG3e.png (picture of Larry King & Donald Trump with their "trophy wives") or this http://i.imgur.com/Y0yH2OK.png (I think it's a Greek billionaire w/ younger woman but not sure). If this was a project for a 9 yr old girl it would be much more about the actual project. Instead, it appears the mom is trying to take advantage of feminists who might be down after the whole PyCon fiasco.
And her mom's previous attempt to raise $20k for making capes has to make one wonder how much of the cash is going to her pocket. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/susanwilson/the-cape-pro...
Edit: Fact that mom has a debt collection business - maybe it's just me but makes it feel more likely the intentions aren't completely honorable.
She can just say she'll give it to charity- she has time to turn this around. Still...what 9 year old would like for her mom to manage her stuff? When I was 9 I hated my mom managing my stuff, I would have made the video my self and wrote everything too and collected the money from my friends by sharing the project on FB.
She's 9. The mom has orchestrated every inch of this and the child likely has no clue what mommy is planning.
This kind of harmful and devoid of content article should not be featured on HN.
Millionaires asking for money to create a product that requires a dev cost of millions which they often then give to donators is a little different.
This is more of the ever-popular "eat the rich" sentiment. Frankly, until someone can show that:
a) she doesn't have a daughter, or sons for the matter.
and
b) she pockets the money instead of spending on her daughter's hobby
there is no fraud. Basically if the mother wasn't worth north of a million no one would have batted an eye at this.
See? I already thought this was suspicious.
and to think I've spent twenty years doing just the R&D for my MMORTSFPSRPG
I am by no means a millionaire, but we're reasonably comfortable. I don't hand my children money, they have to earn it. Yes, you get a place to live, food, clothes, and some reasonable toys. Anything else? Well, you need to find a way to earn money for it. If I did have millions, I'd still do this because I'd rather not raise spoiled little brats that grow into adult-sized spoiled little brats.
Others have said it better in other comments here, but the sheer number of people jumping on the scam bandwagon with this article, without a bit of independent reasoning, is appalling.
Now, if she's breaking KS rules, she's breaking the rules. That doesn't automatically classify it as scam material.
Oh, so a manipulative vulture. Makes sense now.