Kanye West’s claim that he was $53 million in personal debt prompted appeals for financial support from both technology billionaires and his fans. In February 2016, the rapper and fashion designer tweeted that his dreams had brought him into debt and asked Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google co-founder Larry Page to invest in his ideas. The passages say the true state of West’s finances could not be independently established.

West had cultivated relationships in Silicon Valley over several years. He was acquainted with venture capitalist Ben Horowitz and Dropbox chief executive Drew Houston, had dined with Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, and had ties to Apple through music executive Jimmy Iovine. He also visited Elon Musk’s SpaceX factory. Earlier, West had presented investors with a broad vision for Donda, encompassing ventures such as fashion, publishing and alternative energy.

Minnesota graphic designer Jeremy Piatt responded to West’s debt claim by creating a GoFundMe campaign to help him. Piatt compared crowdfunding for West to the Italian Medici family’s patronage of artists, saying he wanted to raise awareness of the need to fund the arts. His appeal called West a great living artist and urged supporters to help realize his ambitions. One report said the campaign had raised $35; another put the total at $50 by Tuesday afternoon. Piatt said he was trying to contact West or his team so the money could be transferred. A separate campaign organized by Robert Kulik in Washington, D.C., was canceled after raising nothing.

The appeals coincided with the release of West’s album *The Life of Pablo* on Tidal and the debut of his clothing collection at New York Fashion Week. The album was reportedly downloaded illegally more than 500,000 times, amid complaints from some fans who said they had paid for downloads they did not receive. West also drew attention for claiming responsibility for Taylor Swift’s fame. Accepting a Grammy for best album, Swift encouraged young women to focus on their work despite people who might try to take credit for their accomplishments.

Another passage surveys unusual crowdfunding campaigns, including a woman’s request for $10,000 to travel the world on a spiritual journey and a New Yorker’s fundraiser to remove a “420” tattoo from her forehead, which raised more than its $800 goal. The remaining material notes that Alexa Internet began donating crawl data to the Internet Archive in 1996 for eventual inclusion in the Wayback Machine, and that Twitter users can control location sharing for individual tweets and delete their location history.