Photo by: Lawrence Lee
Area Mad Scientist Hugo Mounster began using crowdfunding platform GoFundMe to raise money to create life that is “an affront to all the gods of man.” The creature, his “very own Frankenstein,” would be “his greatest creation ever, only possible by the contribution of everyday folk,” who are interested in crowdfunding and the creation of real-life abominations.
Mounster is a well-known San Diego mad scientist, who graduated from University of California, Santa Barbara with a BS in Occult Science and Arcane Wisdom and a minor in Sports Therapy. He launched his first crowd-funding campaign in June 2015, and quickly achieved the 10,000 dollars he requested to help him cover the costs of his project and his living expenses.
His “down to earth” honesty drew in many previously jaded users of crowdfunding campaigns.
“I’ve seen dozens of mad scientists, crazed inventors, and wild-eyed hedge mages come through here with big promises of penis enlargement and eldritch horrors that amount to nothing,” said Marcus Frizly, a crowd-funding veteran. “I saw Mounster’s pitch and I thought, wow, this guy is the real deal.”
To encourage donations, Mounster agreed to send contributors at the $10 level a bag of assorted viscera from one of the small animals utilized in the construction of the creature. At $150, they could have a body part grafted onto the creature. At $5,000, they get to be the one to pull a lever that hoists an apparatus into the blowing winds, so that the lightning strike of a wrathful god may, through bitter irony, give life to the very abomination it would destroy.
To keep costs low, Mounster’s Frankenstein would be built using whatever parts could be salvaged from the bodies of the recently inurned, area pets, and the refuse bin at a local McDonald’s. However, “the tiny wire needed to stitch nerves together still costs an arm and a leg. Or, well, as much as a new arm and leg would cost me, if I wasn’t refurbishing.”
Mounster drew flack after, following the successful funding of his first crowdfunding project; he launched a second one, which increased the monetary goal from 10,000 dollars to 50,000. With the change came a host of new, slickly produced videos, replacing the grainy, minimally edited originals.
“The ten thousand dollars was enough to really prove to myself, with small scale versions, that this is possible,” says Mounster, in one video, through narration over MTV-style angular zooms on the rotting, writhing remains of squirrels fused with raccoons.
Along with the feeling that the money they donated to the original project was wasted, many feel that the second funding campaign has lost the genuineness and soul which defined the first round. “You know, the first time through it was just so real, you know? Like, you were helping realize this guy’s dream; creating new life that spits in the face of mother nature,” wrote twitter user @KmartHole.
“Now it’s just gotten all corporate and shit.”
@KmartHole has not been the only crowd-funder who has taken issue with his program. A mob of users — both offended by Mounster’s Frankenstein creation itself, and the squandering of money intended for it — has built up and is slowly approaching Mounster’s San Diego home.
Experts described it as the “New Generation of Mob,” equipped with 3D Printed Pitchforks and Eco-Friendly Torches. They’ve been able to cover distance “like no mob in history,” thanks to their Hovertrax and Pebble-watch coordination, so Mounster has limited time to complete his dark work before the raving masses surround his apartment/lair.
Written by: Riley Mallory
The premier satire magazine at UC San Diego.
