2. The Story of the Loneliest Mixtape

    On Monday, I stumbled upon a curious little project. It had a $5 goal, one available reward, and there was barely a capital letter in sight. It was called the loneliest mix, launched by LA-based Mike Ambs just a few days earlier, and it opened with this line:

    imagine roaming the world’s largest ocean year after year alone, calling out with the regularity of a metronome, and hearing no response. ∞

    Yes, that’s infinity hyperlinked.

    The project marks the start of Mike’s quest to share the beautiful and rare song of a last-known hybrid blue whale, known by the name the loneliest whale, one mixtape at a time. I watched his hypnotic video and scanned the sparse page. I then remembered that I had backed 99 projects thus far and had been waiting for something special to back for #100. I thought, I must have this mixtape.

    So one $5 pledge later…

    I got all excited and tweeted the milestone. Some blogging and cyberhugs followed.

    *hug* Thank you so much for being the 1st supporter of the project. And I love that @52hz was your 100th @kickstarter :)

    Four days later, the cassette was in my hands, with a nice note from Mike.

    “I HOPE THIS MIX MAKES YOU FEEL AS CALM AND FOCUSED AS IT DOES ME.” —52 HZ

    I don’t even own a cassette player, but this project, so simple in its execution and so easy to support, is a story I’ll never forget. (Also, I’m now looking for a cassette player.)