Has Kickstarter become the 21st Century Infomercial?

11 months ago, I started with a completely unplanned mission: make better quality clothes for fellow free-range professionals (it's the best way I can describe the lifestyle I live and promote) that aren't cheap China dropship crap. It's taken a long time to get here (and I'm still a few months from launch), but I wanted to share a few things I've learned along the way to radical transparency (shout out to Buffer for inspiring this approach years ago in a previous startup I had).

I lived in San Juan, Puerto Rico for 2 years and resorted to wearing gym clothes 24/7 because nothing else was comfortable and kept me cool enough. Then I started scouring Kickstarter for new companies that were making "high tech", "smart", "revolutionary" clothing. I spent a lot of money and time buying and reviewing them. Everything from Labfresh to Sutran to Gymshark to the "1500 feature travel clothes" brands. When I received them, I was pissed. The quality was from cheap manufacturers in China, the tech washed out after 4 or 5 times, they were incredibly uncomfortable. In short, they are brands built on marketing and not product.

I used to love Kickstarter for it's innovative products (Pebble, anyone?!?). Now, it has become the infomercial of the 21st century. It's nearly impossible to discern between dropship quality and true innovation.

How are you guys managing the perception of this on Kickstarter, Indeigogo, and in online marketing in general? At least in the fashion/online clothing industry, 90% of the brands are just cheap China knock-offs with great marketing. It's repulsive, not to mention that the "tech" and "ecofriendly" materials they use are not even real.

How do you guys manage authenticity in an era where social media marketing is everything?