sexism – Data Science, Data Analytics and Machine Learning Consulting in Koblenz Germany https://www.rene-pickhardt.de Extract knowledge from your data and be ahead of your competition Tue, 17 Jul 2018 12:12:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.6 Is a music record only worth 40 Cent? About the dragging Crowd founding campaign for the new Mock Unit record https://www.rene-pickhardt.de/is-a-music-record-only-worth-40-cent-about-the-dragging-crowd-founding-campaign-for-the-new-mock-unit-record/ https://www.rene-pickhardt.de/is-a-music-record-only-worth-40-cent-about-the-dragging-crowd-founding-campaign-for-the-new-mock-unit-record/#respond Tue, 11 Feb 2014 17:03:22 +0000 http://www.rene-pickhardt.de/?p=1796 There is a trend on the web that artists, start ups (and other people) try to do some crowd founding. I really like the concept. Ask your true supporters, fans, customers to realize the next big project which they will like. But sometimes I have the feeling that especially in music crowd founding might not go as good as possible or to say it simple: People unfortunately have just the attitude expect to get music for free. I am not saying that everyone is participating in peer to peer platforms and doing copyright violations but music as a good is nowadays just available in a way as it was never before and most people seem to forget the intrinsic value of music. After I helped to build up the band in Legend and have some experience about music and the cost of creating music I want to share another story that brings me to my sad conclusion:
There is this German Band called Mock Unit. In 2009 they released their first video ready to mock which was followed by is doch kärb (2010) and seid ihr dabei?! (2011). Until now these videos have generated almost half a millions views on youtube. You think that is nothing in comparison to psy’s gangnam style. But consider that the band has a very unique style:

  • Their lyrics consist almost exclusively of swearwords, there is a lot of sexism in the text and they seem to make a lot of fun of a certain part of our society. Until now I hope that this is satire and a way of expressing disappointment about the existence of problems like sexism in our socity. (Otherwise I would reconsider my positive feelings towards the band)
  • They sing in a very local dialect which only few Germans would understand right away (I would guess about 1-2 Mio.)
  • The musical style itself is also not something for everybody and rather speaking to young people.

Yet The band has quite some success in this very small target group.

  • Their Facebook profile has about 5k fans (I assume most of them living closer than 50 km around Mainz)
  • Fans start to take own videos in the same style but with other songs
  • Concerts are sold old. 4 month ago they had a concert in red cat and had to send home people because the venue was completely sold out. 
  • Fans are dressing up in the same “trashy” style and when I did the same and walked through Mainz people on the street would associate me with this band. 

All this together I conclude that this band (which obviously is not casted by some label) has a strong fan base in a very small region and also has not really a commercial interest but just wants to continue to create music for their fans. Now the mock unit wants to create a second record and decided to go for a crowd founding campaign on startnext (basically the german kickstarter). They provided a good nice advertising video in their style and also the rewards are fitting the style. Everything is really authentic.
Also the Mock Unit only asks for 6000 Euro. Which according to the number of Facebook fans is an average of only 1.2 Euro per fan. Apparently this seems impossible to achieve. Currently the band has not even collected 2k euro which I really do not understand. I don’t ask you to support this band or become a fan of. I just think it is incredible that a band that has delivered music and videos, that  has a solid fan base, that is able to sell out venues is not able to collect 1.2 Euro per Facebookfan for the sake of creating a new record and video.
I think it is really a shame in our society that culture became apparently so worthless. By the way I would have much more faith in a musicians crowdfounding campaign if he would promise to release the record under creative commons share alike by licence. In this way I would know that in return of my support I would not only be able to expect some entertainment but I would also obtain the legal right to use the material which I directly founded.
For those who know the band and like the band I created a video using their style in order to animate other fans to think about if they really do not want to support the band:

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