(Incredibly RELATED update landed in my inbox about 10 minutes after I posted the original story below.)
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Yet another would-be visionary discovers that constantly striving for “originality” and “authenticity” eventually results in a grim, joyless — and even phony — existence:
“Authenticity” is a word in the kink.com mission statement, so, to back when this project was first conceived, the goal was to make this as real as possible, complete with participants taking on actual House roles and responsibilities, and in some cases actually living in the Armory for contracted periods of time. This raised considerable questions for myself, along with kink’s HR and legal staff. As much as possible, the social events were to be real – subtle lighting, a tolerance for background music, and good food and drink were all ways we made the space feel less like a commercial shoot and as genuinely enjoyable as possible. The ultimate aim was to create a self-sustaining project with revenues from 24×7 webcams as well as recorded content funding the maintenance and development of the ‘Household’. (…)
We found that there are only so many hours that customers can spend watching a person mop a floor before it gets old. Much to my disappointment, nobody wanted to see me take a shower either. (…)
As time passed, what started out as a fun idea slowly lost its momentum. The burden of having to keep up the pretense of being ‘in character’ each and every day was taking its toll. The enthusiasm from the core participants waned, extras stopped wanting to attend the events, and it became hard work to keep the idea going. (…)
I began to question my motives for having created this space. Why was there a giant portrait of me wearing a tuxedo in a gold frame? Was I building a fantasy from a book or was this a quest for fame and was my ego the primary driving force? The more public my life was, the more alone I became.
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Oh, and…
