A man from Ohio started a Kickstarter, crowdfunding page, with the dream of making potato salad. So far he has raised nearly $50,000, from more than 5,000 members of the public.

But the question is why!? Is it for the love of the humble spud or is there something we’re just not getting.

It’s obviously a joke. Zack Danger Brown, from Columbus, Ohio, stated “Basically I'm just making potato salad. I haven't decided what kind yet.”

Within a week of posting his request, on Labor Day weekend, Brown had received more than $70,000. That figure has now dropped to just under $50,000.

New York magazine also questioned why the public was donating to a potato salad joke.

They quote Peter McGraw, a humor researcher and author of “The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny.”

He said “One thing that helps explain why people are donating (very small amounts of money) is that people like to be in on the joke. By contributing, they are contributing to the success of the joke. And the more they donate the more absurd that the joke gets.”

Brown, the co-founder of Columbus Web development startup Base Two Interactive, said he plans “rent out a party hall and invite the whole internet to the potato salad party” with his money. Unfortunately due to Kickstarter’s conditions he cannot give the money to charity but he does plan on buying folks some presents.

As it turns out when the Tax Foundation did some maths they calculated that Brown’s tax rate would be 32 percent, that’s about $21,000 of his total.

Still that’s not a bad take home for a Labor Day joke.

In saying that, I have one for ye, an Irishman walks into a bar. Now can I have $50,000.

Here’s the US Today’s report from some days ago: