pictures for sad children author goes through MAJOR Creator Breakdown

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/73258510/sad-pictures-for-children/posts

So to summarize:

• Campbell has apparently nuked the pfsc site.
• He is holding 25% of the books that his backers paid for hostage with no intentions to ship them and threatening to burn them all.
• Apparently he wants people to pay him for nothing because CAPITALISM IS EBUL.

...I've got nothing other than "I hope he gets professional help".

edited 27th Feb '14 3:24:59 PM by Psyclone

Wow.

So that's what a psychological breakdown looks like when written out in text.

Um.

I'm not even sure what to say.

edit:

I guess I can say that I have no animosity for the person's decision to get away from the system. That's their choice, and there's nothing wrong about it.

I'd say something else, about what parts of the execution of his decision are a bit messed up, but that's kind of pointless. They'll never encounter any part of it, and if they did, it would just cause more measures to go further off the grid.

edited 27th Feb '14 5:43:19 PM by Enlong

Yikes. Professional help is needed indeed, and if he goes off the grid, he's not likely to get any.

There's a difference between "I now think that capitalism is unfair so I will adjust my life accordingly" and "I don't like capitalism so I will keep the money you sent me and burn the product you bought." This isn't counterculture or visionary, this is just dishonest, immature, and pathetic.

Well. That's NOT how to do a kickstarter.

He spent the money they gave him. On the publishing, apparently. Part of the big rant was about how he only gets enough money to fulfill the orders by taking even more money from Kickstarter (he said something like: "I'm just cutting out the middleman, get your refunds from the other fans directly"). This feedback loop seems to have caused this breakdown. Based on the overall message, it seems to me like dealing with large amounts of money made him extremely uncomfortable.

He also showed pictures of his bank account and stuff. He simply doesn't have the liquid assets to do the refunds, assuming he's honest.

edited 27th Feb '14 10:03:30 PM by Clarste

He also mentioned he was specifically withholding from his larger backers, and was being threatened with lawyers.

I don't see this ending well for him. He made a big shpeal about how donating more money makes people feel important, and said, "If I'd set the bar to $125, then those people who donated $75 would be a lot more civil, and it would be the $125 people talking about lawyers." Which misses a key point: anyone who can afford to hire a lawyer over this only donated $75 because it was the highest tier. It's not that the $75 matters so much to them in comparison to everyone else, it's that they are financially sound enough in and of themselves to be able to donate the most amount of money requested, and to enforce their financial decisions with attorneys.

Those exact same people would still be the ones in the $125 tier making threats if he'd set the bar there.

edited 28th Feb '14 7:48:48 AM by TobiasDrake

I wonder whether this will be where we'll get stronger contracts built into the Kickstarter pledges. As I understand it, you never buy anything via Kickstarter, only donate with the knowledge that you may receive a gift, and the only contract is that Kickstarter will only take your money if the goal is met, and then that specific percentage. We've had Kickstarters which never produced any product. We've had ones that have underperformed. And yes, we've had ones which were too successful and have led to people losing money trying to fulfill the goals. Question is, do people really have a lawyer-able claim here?

It's an investment. You are investing in a company or person. Requiring a guarantee of success would defeat the whole point.

As an aside, I would think it's legally relevant that he gave refunds to some people but not others.

edited 28th Feb '14 8:27:02 AM by Clarste

The comic's description mentions these events twice but Creator Breakdown hasn't been added to the page...that needs to be taken care of.

Wow. This sure looks like an actual psychological meltdown happening. I hope he gets help from people in his real life, because even well-intentioned missives from the Internet apparently are not going to go over well right now.

Pretty sure it's actually "she".

John Campbell?

Yeah, apparently she came out as trans in a kickstarter post. (it's backer only, but she makes references to it in the one we're talking about)

Damn. I'm sure that is not helping the current situation one tiny bit.

I'll be honest, I'd be more inclined to take it seriously if it wasn't being declared in the middle of what appears to be a complete psychotic breakdown.

People misidentify as trans all the time because the grass is always greener on the other gender; my kneejerk reaction to hearing that is, "Live it for a few years, then get back to me." The fact that he appears to be under extreme emotional duress isn't helping it sound any less like he just thinks getting what he wants would be easier as a woman.

Which isn't to say there aren't legitimate cases of transgendered people, just that the category is thoroughly flooded with self-diagnosed men and women who don't quite fit into their understanding of their Patriarchal gender role, and leap too quickly at the transgender explanation, only to regret it years down the line - hopefully before it's too late.

edited 28th Feb '14 12:04:14 PM by TobiasDrake

"All right: I want direct funding for my living necessities. I want to establish relationships with a group of people who can pay for my baseline needs like food and rent. I am looking for people who do not feel they need to see any “return” on their “investment.” I am looking for people who understand that money is a bad joke we use to hurt each other. I’m looking for people who like me were born with a lot of privileges but who have had the awareness and emotional stability to keep their bucket under the faucet when the money comes out."

man fuck this guy

im so pissed at the fact he thinks it's ok to do this. you can't fucking do that. I don't fucking give one damn shit about money. I make tons of stuff, and all of it is free. I work my ass off on it and I don't get paid one damn cent for it because I don't give one damn shit about money. What do I care about in this situation? I kinda care about the people he scammed. You can't just use your views or whatever to not give people money. That's not how it fucking works in the system. He complains about how people won't pay him to live or whatever. Tough fucking shit, you asshole. The only way you could give money to him was the kickstarter. I do not care about his living situation anymore, instead I care about the people that were supporting him and then were refused what they paid him for. I hope every single cent from his bank account is taken from him, because he does not deserve a single penny from it.

it's like opening up a bookstore and then when you buy something the register just takes the book and the money. he then rants about capitalism and how it's not fair that some people get rich and some don't. shit, why'd you even open up the bookstore? you're not selling any fucking books and I might care about your living situation but now I fucking hate your guts because you stole my fucking money.

edited 1st Mar '14 4:43:36 PM by Honeydance

If I had any respect for him (I just heard about this) before, it would be long gone now.

Chill a moment. Mental illness is serious, and that is just about the last thing you should do in reaction to someone in that condition.

That's not much better.

If this thread is going to degenerate into bashing someone who clearly needs help and intervention, then a lock is warranted.

She came out in October. Also, saying you know someone's gender better than they do and continuing to misgender them after being told otherwise ain't cool.

I was not bashing. A terrible freakout is awful to go through, but legal stuff is always the biggest priority, affecting citizenship criminal status, credit ratings, and all that. If he really wants to be free of materialism (and avoid the most inevitable swarm of lawsuits to follow) he will refund that money or give the remainder of those books, then do whatever he wants. Those are simply the facts. I would rather talk about the comic than the creator, but this comic is now inextricably tied to his ego, or what's left of it.

Is the author also the author of that post or the one being responded to there? This is a very confusing situation.

The boohoohoo tumblr author is also the creator of the webcomic. He was angry because he made an insensitive reply to a tumblr post written by the creator of Hijinks Ensue, Joel Watson (another webcomic) when Watson was asked on tips to give someone's daughter who was aspiring to be a webcomic creator.. He got involved by butting in the conversation for some reason and giving a mocking reply, got rightfully called out on it by Watson and also by the mother for telling horrible things to her daughter, then for some reason threw a tantrum and stated Watson is the reason Campbell is quitting sad pictures and taking down the kickstarter. Really, Watson got thrown into a firestorm of controversy he never asked for.

Sorry for the wait, took a while to write this post.

edited 1st Mar '14 10:55:32 PM by ninjaclown

I looked up Joel Watson after seeing the boohoohoo tumbler link, and the first result was an Economic professor, so I thought that was the guy being refereed to. Made sense because of the whole capitalism stuff, but I guess it's this webcomic guy with the same name. Weird.