by Karyn Bosnak
On the eBay front, I ended up selling 146 items. I sold purses, sunglasses, shoes, leather belts, jewelry, my $100 shower curtain, part of my new stereo, my feather bed, picture frames, silk flowers, clothing, a couple of watches, books, magazines (people really bought them!), and CDs. I made $4,340.60. I held off on selling my Gucci purse—my most prized possession—until the very end. It wasn’t because I was still carrying it, but that it symbolized me at the height of my madness. It was a memory and I didn’t want to let it go. But I finally listed it, and a woman in Chicago named Michelle won it. She paid me for it, but didn’t want me to send it to her. She said I wasn’t allowed to resell it to anyone else, and wanted me to keep it. She said that I shouldn’t have to let everything go. I don’t carry it anymore. But it’s all wrapped up in my closet and it’s not going anywhere!
The success of my website started what’s called an “Internet panhandling” phenomenon. I do not like the name Internet panhandling because I choose to think that I provided loads of entertainment to people, and in exchange they gave me some cash to show their gratitude for making them laugh. Anywho, hundreds of sites have started in the wake of my success. Most are very similar to mine, complete with a Grand Debt Tally, weekly update, and a Daily Buck sort of thing. But very few are as successful.
Because of their lack of success, some skeptics have doubted that I collected as much money as I claimed to have collected. However, when mine was “active,” there were only two other sites out there similar to mine—not hundreds.
Save Karyn wasn’t the first Internet panhandling site. Before me, there was “The Amazing ‘Send Me A Dollar’ Website” at send meadollar.com, and “Odd Todd” at oddtodd.com. The former started in 1998 and has received a total of $4,998. He claims to have received over one million hits. His site is still up. I think the reason that I was more successful than he has been is because his website is really only one page that essentially says “Give me a dollar.” There’s no story and there’s no reason. I think savekaryn.com gave people something to invest in—stories, funny bits, and so on. I think a second reason mine was more successful is because he doesn’t have a goal. The website is set up to collect as much money as possible. He has a “count up,” if you will, and I had a “count down.”
“Odd Todd,” on the other hand, was set up in June 2001 by a guy named Todd Rosenberg, who had just lost his job. He created the website to poke fun at a day in the life of an unemployed person. It’s made up of cartoons, and something called the Daily Fact That I Learned From TV, among other things. He didn’t create it specifically to collect money, but he “installed” something called a Tip Jar. Basically if you surfed through his site and liked it, and felt like he deserved a tip for making you laugh, then you could donate to him through PayPal. He never created it with the sole intention of making money. He did it for fun, and the Tip Jar was part of that fun. He never posted anywhere on his site how much money he made either, but he tells me that it’s somewhere around $20,000. And like my site, he has also received over two million hits.
So I wasn’t the first Internet panhandler out there. I was technically the third. But I offered more than the Amazing Dollar Guy, and I offered something different from Odd Todd. I was “new” in the Internet panhandling world, and that’s why I think it was so successful. I also think people related to it because debt is so universal. No matter where you come from, you can relate to debt.
As for the new sites that popped up after mine, like I said, most are very similar and that’s why they aren’t as successful. It’s been done. The ones whose “owners” (for lack of a better word) put time into updating and keeping them fresh, obviously collect more money than the sites whose owners don’t update at all, but it’s still not that much.
It’s pretty obvious that I feel indebted to society and to the people who helped me pay my debt back. To pay people back I am going to do a couple of things. First, I’ve started an area on my website that’s sort of a “Pass the Buck” area. It highlights one Internet Panhandling site a week. And since my website still receives anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 hits a month, it’s a way to get traffic to their sites. I also give them all a small donation to help them get going. Also, as soon as I’m able, I plan to donate to charity the same amount of money that people gave me. A lot of people assume that since I have a book and movie deal, that I am a Rockefeller, but I’m not.
DEBT AND WHAT I LEARNED
I never intended for any of this to happen. Of course, I’m thankful that it did. I needed a wake-up call in my life. A lot of people have said that by not paying off the debt myself, I haven’t learned my lesson. But I beg to differ. Through all that’s happened I’ve learned a bigger lesson than if I had continued to make monthly payments all by myself.
First, I’ve learned that people make mistakes. People screw up in life. It is a fact. But others shouldn’t judge them because of it. More importantly, if you’ve made a mistake, you shouldn’t beat yourself up over it, because the bottom line is that you can’t go back and change a thing. So, don’t have regrets—mistakes make you the person that you are. Even if I had the chance to go back and do things differently, I wouldn’t. Learn from your mistakes—don’t regret them.
Also, money isn’t everything. I think I initially chased a career in daytime television because I saw how much money producers could make down the road. It was never my passion. And to chase a career that wasn’t “me” because I wanted to live a “fabulous” lifestyle is just wrong.
There’s more to life than highlights and high heels. In the long run, it’s not going to matter what kind of purse I carried. What’s going to matter is how many lives I’ve touched, how many people I made smile, and how I made this world a better place. And I feel proud that my website made people laugh, and made debt-ridden people all over the world not feel so alone. I still receive e-mails every day from people who say my silly little website motivated them to get serious about paying their debt off. It made them feel like they actually could conquer it. And that makes me feel good—to know that something I’ve done might have made someone’s life a little bit brighter.
Also, sometimes you need to be bold in life. I’ve always been a go-with-the-flow type of person, and the one time I didn’t go with the flow, my life changed. What if I had stayed in Chicago, afraid to make the move? What if I had signed my extension at Ananda and stayed there for six more miserable months? I think that I so frequently went with the flow because I was scared of taking chances. And by doing that, I wasn’t discovering my true potential or happiness.
So, I moved to New York to get away and go to a place where no one knew my name, to figure out who I was. And what did I find out? Well, sometimes you have to lose yourself to find yourself, and I think that’s what happened to me. I’m not a fancy New Yorker—I’m still that greasy little Midwestern girl in the Hot Rollers jacket who just happens to live in Manhattan now. I mean, Brooklyn.
And you know what? I like to make people laugh. And I’m going to keep doing that, whether it’s by working in television in another capacity, or writing a book, or just crackin’ jokes on the way to the supermarket—I need to make people laugh. It’s funny that after working in daytime television for over six years, some silly little website brought me more success.
I moved to New York to figure out who I was. And since I’ve been here, I’ve learned more about life, people, humanity, and kindness than I could have ever imagined.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special thanks goes to my family: Mom, I love you—You are the greatest! Dad, ditto and I swear I have a savings account now. Lisa, you are the best sissy I could ever ask for. I love you and your crazy curly hair. My stepdad, Mick, thanks for always pushing me to be the best that I can. Todd, thanks for loving my big sissy and being a part of my life. A big shout-out also goes to you for always footing the bill when we go to dinner. More thanks to Mrs. Rivelli for telling me I was funny all those years ago. Thanks for listening to me when
I pray. And last but not least: Grandpa Creaney, I love you so much. Thanks for always having faith in me! You are the best!
Huge thanks also goes to Alison Callahan and everyone at HarperCollins. To every one at RLR: Jodi Turk, you are awesome! Thanks for hooking a girl up. Jennifer Unter, more thanks to you for hooking a girl up with HarperCollins. Bob Rosen, thanks for owning the company that hooked a girl up. Gary Rosen, thanks for being the son of the guy who owned the company who hooked the girl up. And for telling me to “keep it simple.” And Ezra Fitz, for helping Jennifer hook a girl up. More thanks goes to Jordan Bayer.
I wouldn’t be anywhere without my friends. Scott, you are a great roommate. You and Mary Veda will always be close to my heart. Mark, you will always be my gay boyfriend. I love you very much. Tracy & Naomi, you two are the best friends anyone could ask for. I love both of you like family. Naomi’s parents, Sharon & Chuck, for the $100! Elvis the Bush Cat—thanks for peeing on my sheets. People really got a big hoot out of your antics. And thanks also to Bev, the new addition to the family.
The BIGGEST thanks goes to the 2,718 people who sent me cash to help me get out of debt, the 147 people who bought my stuff on eBay, and the two million + people who visited my website.
Miscellaneous thanks goes to: Haribo Gummi Bears and Pepsi-Cola for providing a sugar rush during times of need, and American Express for having loopholes that made the Buy and Return Credit Payment Management Plan possible.
And…To whoever hung that sign up at the Brooklyn Met, I hope you got your seven grand!
About the Author
KARYN BOSNAK was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago. She is a daytime television producer turned Internet guru who likes (but can’t afford) the finer things in life. She now resides in Brooklyn, New York. She can be reached at www.savekaryn.com.
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Copyright
SAVE KARYN. Copyright © 2003 by Karyn Bosnak. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
EPub Edition © November 2009 ISBN: 978-0-06-199706-8
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