THE ANGLE
The sympathy angle, Janice explains, was the only angle we had. We couldn’t focus on the books, because they were dreadful, and we couldn’t focus on an audience, because we didn’t have one. All we had left was the fact that Thomas is a pathetic, useless excuse of a man in a very literal sense, and in particular because he’s unable to masturbate.
And that’s their stroke of genius.
Who wouldn’t feel sorry for some poor sad wanker if they couldn’t even wank? Not only was it original, but it was edgy. More importantly, it was true. Although the project’s reviewers initially rejected its submission on the grounds of being almost astronomically inappropriate, they were forced to conceded approval when Thomas’ inability had recently become a clinical sign of psychoenteritis; refusal would be tantamount to discrimination on grounds of disability.
THE REACTION
This, they hoped, might create an intrigue through its contrast with the advertising clamouring other projects.
Because all funding projects follow the same template on any given site, in an effort to normalise them, their only hope was to create intrigue.
The project’s economic rationale was based on 20N practice (the required crowd size N determined by the target funds divided by 20; twenty dollars being the most common donation size). This resulted in needing fifty people to commit funds in order for the target to be reached and the funds released.
4 iMagazine / April,