Zack Danger Brown wins the Internet today with this Kickstarter:
John Herrman lets us in on the joke:
As of writing, a Kickstarter campaign for “just making potato salad” has raised $37,115. Every few seconds that number climbs higher, and each uptick is greeted with cheers. It’s a self-perpetuating humor machine, and it is horribly efficient. There is no joke, at least not anymore; whatever joke there was has become an adaptive, joke-like arrangement of circumstances. It is a perfect device, compatible with all known theories of humor and therefore with none of them.
Michael Thomas explains how this is possible:
[W]hile Kickstarter once vetted all projects, they can now move forward without approval, though the company can still shut down a project page at any time.
There were also rules against projects that essentially funded a person’s lifestyle, with a food-related exception. As this project’s popularity increases, more and more media outlets are chiming in on its relative worth. Polygon is fully supportive of the endeavour, with writer Ben Kuchera calling the project “original, goofy and satirical” while adding that people are always willing to spend a bit of money on novelty. On the other end of the spectrum, the AV Club‘s Katie Rife calls this project “the fall of the ironic empire” and that people shouldn’t give Brown any more of their money.
Brian Barrett sees the project as needling Kickstarter:
Good things have come out of Kickstarter. But, especially with these new rules in place, they’re far outnumbered by terrible no good impossible projects, pipe dreams wrapped in windmills, renders not worth the pixels they’re produced with. Potato salad guy, though? Openly satirical. You give money to Danger because you’re in on the joke, not being made into one. At this point it’s safest to think of Kickstarter as performance art. And potato salad right now is the best show in town.
The copycats are popping up already:
At least a dozen Kickstarter campaigns have launched in the past 24 hours attempting to capitalize on the newfound attention surrounding potato salad. (Yes, writing that sentence made me question my choices in life.)
One user put up a campaign, called “I’m also making potato salad,” and has raised $1 out of its $9 goal. Another has raised $10 out of his $50 goal to make Japanese potato salad. Some found more success by changing things up a bit. Sidney Shapiro of Sudbury, Ontario, launched a campaign to fund making chicken soup and has already raised 74 Canadian dollars, beating his goal of $10. “Lets prove its better than potato salad!,” Shapiro wrote on the campaign’s page.
The Dish 