Fungibility Explained
A popular critic (and troll) of the pony analysis community, who strangely enough now apparently makes pony analysis videos himself, has recently taken to YouTube in an attempt to explain the concept of fungibility. What he accomplished was merely proving he doesn’t quite understand the term nor how I applied it in my article on FallenWish (which was published in Horse News and on the Pony Tonite YouTube channel).
I’ll attempt to explain this as simply as possibly by outlining a scenario and three ways in which the scenario could play out.
Scenario
Let’s say I am saving up to move somewhere. This money will be used to pay for the moving expenses and will act as a bridge to keep me alive from when I arrive at my destination to when I can establish a steady income.
Outcome 1
I save enough money and make the move. I keep a tight budget, only spending money on the necessities to survive, and finally am able to land a job with steady income. Hooray!
Outcome 2
Let’s go back to before the move. This time, I coordinate a fundraiser on my behalf. I tell people I am raising money because I have no other means to get out of my current location. Really, I do have some money saved up, but it is nowhere near enough to make the move.
Let’s say my fundraiser is successful and I raise a couple thousand dollars. I move to my new location and keep a tight budget, only spending money on the necessities to survive, and finally am able to land a job with steady income. Hooray!
Outcome 3 - Fungibility
Now let’s talk about the f- word. The fundraiser is successful and I make the move. But instead of being frugal, I say to myself, “Self, you have all this money you saved before the move. That’s basically yours to do with as you want. I mean, I got all these sweet brony bucks sitting in my bank account that I can survive on. Why not use my saved money and go to a pony convention in another country?” PARTAY!!!
KA-CHING!! Enter the concept of fungibility. Or, more specifically in this case, indirect fungibility. Because I have those sweet brony bucks, I can take my hard earned money, that otherwise would’ve gone into the necessities of life, and blow it on whatever I see fit. It’s technically okay, since the money earmarked for keeping me alive is not directly being spent on the convention. But of course, if it were not for the fundraiser, I never would’ve been able to afford the pony party, since the money I spent on it would’ve been used for my survival.
Conclusion
This isn’t an honest way to run a fundraiser. If you are requesting money for a need, there’s a presupposition on those donating that you cannot do this on your own, and they want to help you. If you then take their money and turn around almost immediately afterwards and blow some of it on a luxury, you must anticipate some backlash. And, in the case of FallenWish, she freely admits to using $100 of the actual GoFundMe money collected for a trip to BronyCon, which in total cost her at least $300.
