Where will I go?
I decided on Murpheree area on campus because I live there.
What kind of people will you approach?
Anyone in the area. I feel like answering this question otherwise would inherently discriminate against other potential subjects that could give me insight during the exercise.
What will you say to get the conversation started?
"Hey what's up, so i have this dollar but I'm trying to give it away, think you can help me out?"
What is your plan for the conversation?
Persuade them to take the dollar by any means necessary. Okay, so not so harshly, but enough so that they feel it's alright to take my dollar.
Out of five attempts, how many dollars do you think you'll give away?
About 4, because I mean, who doesn't like free money?
So I didn't get to record the encounters... While doing the exercise I actually forgot.
My results, however, are pretty weird. Giving away a dollar to a stranger was really hard. More than half the people I approached thought I was crazy. The other half treated the situation so awkwardly I'm not sure if I would've just preferred them decline the dollar and move on. When people asked why I was giving away the dollar my first reason wasn't valid enough and so people didn't take it. It wasn't until I started switching my approach that people began to take more interest in the dollar. I assumed that people would love free money but it seems that where the free money comes from matters a lot more than I thought. You would see some people and think, "they'll take the dollar," and more often they were the ones to have the biggest issue with it. This was definitely a harder exercise than I thought it would be.
Hey Eddy, I understand the struggle to successful giving a dollar bill away to random people, people have a tendency to think into situations too deeply. I encountered similar issues with my trail runs giving away a single dollar bill, the fact that I am a giant biracial male kind of made people hesitate to respond or engage fully into conversation. I happened to give away all five dollar bills without being denied once luckily, like you mentioned in your post who does not want free money. If you get the time check my post out: https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8545792306262525561#editor/target=post;postID=7356401631169980237;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=1;src=postname
ReplyDeleteIts really sad you didnt get to record your results of giving away the money! Its so awkward giving away this dollar because many people are hesitant to take a dollar since the value is not very high and many people think you are just trying to pull a fast one on them. Becuase of these reasons thats why you had pretty mixed up results. Also if your argument is that its free money i bet if you had 100 dollars more people would be willing to take it since they care less about the risk. check out my blog at http://michaelduellent.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteHey Eddy,
ReplyDeleteIts a good thing you didn't have to suffer through recording your encounters because that was probably one of the most awkward parts of this experience. I too got two "crazy person" looks while in the line at chipotle, so much so that i had to forget about the rules of the assignment for one and had no choice but to let the person know that i was doing this for a project and not because i was a crazy person. I guess my approach was too great, unfortunately i was out more money than i was hoping because the people actually accepted my money, perhaps it was the location since i was at chipotle they wanted to pay for their burritos. If you'd like to see my attempts to give away money you can watch it here: http://ent3003img.blogspot.com