Kickstarted: The Documentary

[arzina221]

The rewards were even simpler if possible: a nice piece of meat. The background information was a bit sketchy and the video not entirely professional, but hey, meat farmers are also allowed to have a chance on Kickstarter. All in all, a great set-up and with a low target amount of only $2,374 also feasible. The simple and sympathetic goal and a reward that makes your mouth water, turned out to be a mega success, the goal was reached within a day and would grow to more than 5000% of the original amount in the weeks that followed.


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Meanwhile, elsewhere on Kickstarter, three producers had started their project to make a documentary about the crowdfunding phenomenon. They had already done a number of interviews with people behind successful projects, when they noticed the immense success of Kobe Red Beef. They approached the creators for an interview and that was the start of a mega unmasking in the form of a thriller, with an even bigger thriller in its wake.

The collaboration
Although the makers of the documentary were only interested in the story behind Kobe Red, the scammers had conceived the plan to appear 'big' in the film and had already sent reports about this new zealand phone data to their own supporters. They would have hired a filmmaker to document their success story. This resulted in a further increase in support for the fraudulent project. The producers thought differently and made it clear that there was no certainty about Kobe Red's ultimate contribution to the film.

Kobe Red

The unmasking
Over time, there was increasing uncertainty about Kobe Red's good intentions. Critical questions from backers were met with fierce responses from so-called independent supporters. These independent accounts turned out to be fake and directly linked to the Kobe Red scammers. Kickstarter got wind of the fraud and after repeated requests from concerned users and the attention given to it by the producers of the documentary, Kickstarter decided to kill the Kobe Red project, just an hour before the deadline had passed.