UPDATE: A member of Psyclon Nine has addressed the situation and is working on sending out all merch orders from Kickstarter. Might be a little late for the paying customers, but at least it was addressed by someone. However, the aforementioned Hester Prynne has deleted all social media and contact outlets, despite the legions of fans calling them out for theft. They also declined our request for an interview.
Kickstarter, IndieGogo, and other such crowdfunding campaigns are surely one of the greatest ideas of the social media age. Bands like Protest The Hero and Misery Signals went independent for their most recent albums, both of which were excellent.
However, there’s a dark side to these things – namely, bands stealing from their fans. It’s obviously not a good way to endear yourself to your fans – in fact, it’s criminal.
Deathcore band Hester Prynne and industrial metal band Psyclon Nine, unfortunately, are two such bands using these mediums for evil purposes – if the dozens of fans who have created a Facebook group entitled I paid for Psyclon Nine merch I never recieved are to be believed.
Hester Prynne is just as bad. Their Facebook page, which you can find here, hasn’t been updated in months. What’s even worse, however, is Psyclon Nine’s Facebook page is updated somewhat regularly – with absolutely zero updates about the crowdfunding shipments.
It would be different if it were only a few people complaining about this. But there’s been dozens – for months. There’s something to this, and we’ll find out what it is.
I think the biggest thing to remember about situations like this is to be careful who you entrust your money to. Mediums like this can be used for amazing purposes – or for bad ones.
