The Uncultured Project

A few months back, I was contacted by the brilliant Dr. Michael Wesch. If you don’t know who he is – he’s basically writing the book (literally & figuratively) on what it means to form and be a community on the internet. This video with over a million views is one of Dr. Wesch’s most well known online works.

Dr. Wesch had contacted me because one his students is doing a term-long research project on me and the uncultured project! It’s a very surreal experience. It just seemed like yesterday I was the one doing term papers and calling up people to interview as part of my research. Now I’m the one being interviewed.

But this project isn’t about me – it’s about you guys. And I need your help.

Danielle Vaughn (the student doing the research project) has asked people to let her know why it is you support the uncultured project. Part of her report will have a video component to it, so she’s asking for people to submit video responses on YouTube to this video that she made.

I’m hoping you can help Danielle out – not just because I know how hard it is to research these things, but also because this helps me as well. For much of the time I’ve been doing this project, I’ve been guessing, assuming, or piecing together why you guys support this project.

This is a perfect opportunity for me to learn from you guys and learn what you like about UP. Not just that, but it’s also an excellent opportunity for me to have concrete feedback on certain things I should keep in mind as I move forward with this project.

For example, in this above response, I learned that the fact that I’m not selling anything and that I’m not asking for huge amounts of cash is important. I now have something I can cite the next time someone insists I should start selling t-shirts or that I should “take my work to the next level” and focus on big fundraising campaigns.

I won’t lie: the landscape of charities, non-profits, and people wanting to make a difference are changing. When I first uploaded my first video on YouTube, most charities & orgs were still only using YouTube digitize and store their TV spots. There wasn’t anything by which to compare my efforts to.

Now major charities are vlogging, creating creative online content, and interacting with their supporters. And, more often than makes sense to me, I’m told (in private) that my work is cited as the “one to beat” or the “one to copy” in boardrooms and briefings of some of the biggest (and smallest) charities.

This little project is getting less unique by the day – and maybe that’s for the better. And so this research project is a great way to put together what made this project unique in the first place – and what I can continue to build on.

[And, sidenote to charities reading this, what's with the competition? Why hire someone to copy me when I'll team up with you for free. I work for food, shelter, and enough logistical support to get the job done. Charity work doesn't need to be as competitive as many of you make it to be.]

I wrote “Is it really supposed to be this hard?” mostly for myself. I had written it in stream of conscious in a text file (offline) but decided to post it as a blog post partly because I was sleep deprived and partly because it didn’t seem too terribly written

But it must be said: I love what I do.

When you’re in college or school, you can sometimes find yourself pulling all-nighters. Why? Because you need the good grade, you don’t want to fail, and want your degree. At an office, you can sometimes find yourself working late into the night. Why? Because your boss wants something done and you don’t want to lose your job.

With this project, there is no one grading me, I get no degree, and I have no boss. And, unless you count the few pennies I earn from AdSense, I don’t earn any money from the work I do. I do this not for a degree, a deadline, a title, or employment. I do it because I fraking love what I do – and I love it enough to do it for free in the face of a gazillion frustrations.

But there is a reward in this. When I come up with some new way to connect you guys in the fight against global poverty, when I’m able to tell a story that’s never been told, and when I’m able to make a difference in the life of someone, some family, or some village that’s never been done before – all the frustrations, facepalms, and headdesk moments become insignificant.

When those moments happen, it feels like I could endure each and every roadblock & hurdle a hundred times over.