#EPIC

re: Cold Mountain Yes! I can see where trying to survive the harshness of the times around the American Civil War is just like a walk on a well-maintained trail with ample guidebooks. Perhaps you are kidding me and I don’t get the joke? 😉

As for GFM, I think we have our wires crossed. You are discussing market economics. I get it. I really do. However, various reality TV that is “epic” does wonderful too. It is still crap. GFM to fund time off is just begging in a slick new way. I admire the chutzpah. But it it sill panhandling.

In any case, thanks for your many words on my silly little website. 🙂 Enjoy the outdoors…

Adventure-oriented GoFundMe’s that promise nothing of value in return for the support of the backer fail as well. It’s the brutal math of crowdfunding, and it’s the same on any platform.(GoFundMe’s for medical costs or other crises expenses etc are of course a different story.)

And are you kidding? Cold Mountain was totally over-dramaticized! “I hid in the woods with only a handful of cornmeal to eat. The mysterious goat lady nursed back to health.” Etc. I love that book so much.

Thanks for the input! I am well aware of Joseph Campbell. Just most of this genre is not done well to *my* taste. Over dramatized is not epic..it is bad literature I think. Sure as hell most of them ain’t the Odyssey or Cold Mountain. 🙂 But that is why Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors. We all have our own tastes.

Finally, crowdfunding ala kickstarter is a lot different than GoFundMe. I am the proud owner of a locally sold potty trowel after all and help with organizations I believe in. And most of the GFM, on the other hand, I am sorry to say, strikes me as skeevy enterprises.

Good luck and happy hiking!

This type of storytelling/writing has been around since ancient times. It’s called the hero’s journey:

http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm

You see it in many movies (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, etc) and books (The Hunger Games, The Odyssey, Harry Potter, etc). It’s compelling to us as readers/watchers because we can follow along with the main character as they leave their regular life, which we can relate to and is familiar to us, and venture out into the unknown, overcoming challenges and eventually returning forever changed. It’s also what many people experience on their first long-distance hike (when everything IS hard and epic and new). Once one is an experienced long-distance hiker, however, the act of hiking becomes “regular” and It might become difficult to understand peoples’ interest in these kinds of stories. But the majority of people in the western world are still unable to leave their lives for long periods of time to walk through the wilderness (or go on epic quests of any sort), and so these stories will always have appeal/serve an important role in the collective mythology, providing a means of vicarious escape for those who cannot get out and adventure themselves.

And as far as crowdfunding one’s hike- crowdfunding is a way to provide advance funding for a product that will eventually exist (a book, documentary, poop trowel, hoodie, etc) and it is also almost brutally fair. If a crowdfund is successful, it means that people believe in the product and want it to exist, and so they help to make it so. In the end they receive the actual product. This is a fair exchange of money for an actual product, and there is nothing shady about it. If a crowdfund campaign is asking for funds but offers nothing of value in exchange, it will fail.

Now I’m hungry. I had to google Bread and Circuses.

Mmmm ham and bread.

I love ham myself. A simple raspberry chipotle glaze really brings out the flavor. 🙂 Being somewhat serious, if people find a niche..hey whatever works. People enjoy their “bread and circuses”. Does not mean some of us won’t stop paying attention to that person behind the curtain however…and letting other people know what is behind said curtain. 😉