Etsy has Regretsy. Pinterest has WTF, Pinterest? With Kickstopper, the Daily Dot highlights the most bombastic and absurd projects seeking support through the popular crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter.
Sometimes the finest Kickstarter campaigns are concocted late at night in the back of a gas station.
Just ask Aaron Allsop, a 24-year old native of Rexburg, Ind., whose YouTube channel, Awkward Moments in Life, captures the true charisma and charm of today’s prankster-prone youth.
Allsop’s been a man on a mission since stepping out of that gas station. That mission: to bang a gong into the naked ear of just about everybody he can sneak up behind and surprise at a moment’s notice.
“It was one of those late night ideas where nobody was thinking straight,” Allsop told the Daily Dot. “We started looking online for gongs and found this old Stooges gong for $350. I already have this YouTube series where we’ve reenacted awkward moments that I’ve experienced in life. What’s more awkward than somebody coming up behind you and smacking a mallet against a gong?”
The young rabble-rouser drew up a Kickstarter campaign the next morning, queueing up his Awkward Moments alter-ego Stirling T. Casablancas to explain You Just Got Gonged, the Web series that he’ll launch if he can raise $500 to buy a gong by June 17.
“The concept is simple – we go up behind people in public with a gong and bong the gong – surprising them and instilling laughter in all that watch. This is more than your average “prank” show – this is a new web series with many possibilities.”
Allsop’s idea puts the young man a drum beat away from getting labeled as a seriously misconstrued one-trick pony, but he’s got ideas on how to keep the show fresh. As he told it, there are all sorts of places you can “get gonged”: gong ’em in a library, gong ‘em in the park; gong ’em at their front door, gong ’em at the store.
What’s his dream gong setting? Allsop had his answer before the question closed out:
“It’s gotta be the Library of Congress with a 40-inch gong,” he said. “It’s the biggest library in the country, and there are a whole ton of people. It just seems like something that Stirling T. Casablancas would do.There’s something funny to me about taking a proper gentleman and throwing him into the Library of Congress with a gong to hit.”
Funny to him, at least.
To everybody else? We’ll have to wait and see if this gong show gets funded.
Kickstopper: You Just Got Gonged
- Location: Rexburg, Ind.
- Summary: The host of Awkward Moments in Life wants to launch a Web series that allows him to bang a gong in people’s ears and then run away.
- Amount raised of press time: $190
- Days left: 24
- Best buy: For $50, backers will receive a T-shirt that says “You Just Got Gonged!” and a personalized video from Stirling T. Casablancas. “The story may not be true, but it will be awesome,” Allsop wrote.
Photo via Kickstarter