When the listing cruise liner, NYCOncordia, appealed for a $1 million Kickstarter patch last month, we called it fair game, despite its detached & passionless marketing approach that made no attempt at a meaningful connection with its check-writing public (or PayPal transferring public).
But it why should it have? We're not convinced that NYCO was convinced that such a steep sum was attainable from it's proletarian, grassroots public, unlike The Metropolitan Opera's white knights straddling its many-millions white stallions. So here's our #surprisedface when, 22 days later, the experimental fundsourcing project failed and NYCO filed for bankruptcy.
Now comes the unwieldy aftermath of the star-crossed organization whose Kickstarter attempt brilliantly, narcissistically shifted the "I" to the "You" -- the audience (or obviously, lack of audience at 2,108 backers pledging a total of $301k) -- and rewrote its demise with a morally-ambiguous shrug -- after all, whose fault is it really if the public couldn't toss down the $1 million lifeline? The léger de main may be why some are just. really. super. cranky. about the ungraceful exit, like Manuela Hoelterhoff, who digs in for Bloomberg.
Peter Dobrin at the Inquirer surmises that a bureaucratic slash & burn will lay a new groundwork for NYCO 2: The Reawakening. Hopefully its Act II prelude will be more graceful than its Act I finale.