On -isms: KS Gold

This week, Kickstarter launched a series of special "Kickstarter Gold" projects. Basically, they went back to the folks behind successful campaigns and asked if they wanted to revisit their projects. They run the gamut from comic books to music to technology to typography. Here's how Kickstarter describes their "Gold" concept...

From June 20 through July 31, we’re spotlighting new projects by exciting artists and makers who use Kickstarter to sustain their creative independence.

Why? Because repeat creators are an integral part of the Kickstarter ecosystem. In fact, a third of all pledges to successful projects —over $1 billion since 2009 — go toward projects by creators who have run two, three, four, or even 100+ projects.

We selected Kickstarter Gold creators for their creativity, ingenuity, and success using the platform. They’ll be making new works inspired by their past projects, so backers can discover extra-amazing ideas, plus special rewards that aren’t available anywhere else.

Now, what I find interesting is that a number of the projects are the creation of traditionally sidelined groups, i.e. everybody except straight white men. What I don't know, but would be interested to discover, is how the demographics of these creators lines up with the demographics of all successful KS creators. That is, are POC (for example) more represented in the "Gold" category or is there simply a higher percentage of POC creators utilizing Kickstarter than the overall population.

Either way, the answer would be interesting and enlightening, I think. If there are more minorities represented in "Gold" than we typically see in Kickstarter, that would suggest the people at Kickstarter themselves are intentionally trying to foster inclusivity and diversity by selecting minority creators. If, on the other hand, the overall population of Kickstarter creators tends to favor minorities more than broader population demographics would suggest, this would imply that these minorities aren't finding other venues where their ideas might be accepted, and have turned to crowd-funding because traditional gatekeepers are keeping them out. This would further suggest that Kickstarter itself is a very agnostic platform; they don't care who you are, just do something cool.

Again, either way, the answers would be interesting, since Kickstarter is one of the top comic publishers these days.

The "Gold" projects seem to all be doing very well in general, but I'll end today with a specific plug for one of my favorite projects that, as of this writing, hasn't quite met it's goal yet.

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