Are you morally-conscious? Feel like you should be doing more to help your fellow man, but feeling a bit strapped for cash at the moment? Don’t feel like putting together some sort of fund-raising event because, after all, it is a bit cold outside and it might snow.
Never fear! Web 2.0 is here to allow you to assuage your guilt without any need for financial or time outlay! All you need to do is change your profile picture and/or status to something vaguely related to the charity that you would like to support and that counts as you having Done Your Bit when it comes to Judgement Day. Me? I like the Cats Protection League, so I shall be donning a LOLcats avatar for the day.
Grumble, moan etc. I know. And I have a sneaking suspicion I may have mentioned this before.
The above piece of sarcasm is proudly sponsored by today’s Facebook and Twitter campaign to get as many people as possible to change their avatars to their favourite cartoon characters of the 80s or 90s. This, apparently, counts as you “joining the fight against child abuse”, and has been attributed to the NSPCC by several people. Go look at the NSPCC front page right now. Do you see any mention of any campaign “not to see a human face on Facebook until Monday, December 6th”?
No. I certainly don’t. Probably because it actually has nothing to do with the NSPCC whatsoever, and probably because the NSPCC would rather you got off your arse and either did something to raise money for them or just reached into your pocket and sent them a tenner.
“Donating” your Facebook status or a tweet means nothing. And the “it’s just a bit of fun” defence is bollocks, too; there are plenty of people out there who feel like changing their avatar (a task which takes, ooh, a minute at most?) and/or copy-pasting a status is absolutely “doing their bit” and absolves them of any sense of responsibility, putting them on the same level as someone who has diligently, say, organised a sponsored run, bake sale, 48 hour Desert Bus marathon, three-week charity wankathon, whatever. It doesn’t.
This isn’t a rant saying that everyone should donate to charity. I don’t—at the moment I can’t afford to. It’s up to everyone whether they would like to support a charity that deals with an issue they feel strongly about. But “supporting” that charity means just that—supporting them and the work that they do. That means giving them some money, or some of your time, or just walking into one of their shops and buying a dodgy velvet jacket for a 70s night or something.
It doesn’t mean changing your fucking avatar. How many people out there copy-pasted that status and changed their avatar and then felt all smug and self-righteous before going on to do other things, forgetting all about the fact that they hadn’t actually donated any money to the charity in question, who probably had nothing to do with the campaign in the first place?
So don’t let me stop you changing your avatars to your favourite cartoon characters. If you do, though, at least be honest about why you’re doing so—perhaps you think Superted is awesome, in which case, say so and don’t hide behind some kind of false altruism—or actually follow up what you’re doing with a donation.
Rant over.
Actually, no it’s not.
Girls, next time you feel tempted to post something that the “men won’t get” in an attempt to “promote breast cancer awareness”, realise that we all know what you’re doing and would again much rather you just donate to a worthy cause like MacMillan, rather than supposedly “raising awareness” by being deliberately obtuse. How the fuck does that even work?
Rant over. For reals, yo. Take care of yourself. And each other.
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You are the greatest human in the history of humans.
Aw, shucks. Thank you, sir.
I had a massive rant about this earlier today. The “it’s not doing anyone any harm” argument makes me want to scream.
Fantastic observation Sir. Now we could just do something about all the idiots who post shit like “repost this if you or someone you know has been effected by cancer , snow , bad breath…” etc
Oh and if you can stop retards posting about xfactor , I’m a celebrity etc then I shall give you all my money and worship at your feet.
I did some research into this. It wasn’t very extensive and it wouldn’t stand up to peer review. My findings were as follows: People who copy and paste any sort of “lets get 8 billion people to suck off my hamster” update aren’t very bright.
You may be without peer, Don Woods, but I can certainly review your findings.
And I find them to be correct. Well done.
Also, I really enjoyed Adventure.
Free advertising for the charity, so your are giving them something even if its not directly.
Even ranting about it your giving them free publicity.
“Publicity” is of little help to the charities in question. Anyone who doesn’t know that child abuse is going on, or that the NSPCC is the most high-profile charity devoted to stamping it out, is spectacularly ill-informed.
The world isn’t changed with Facebook statuses. Even in the case of Paul Chambers and the Twitter Joke Trial; yes, #IAmSpartacus was an amazing show of solidarity, but you know what really helped him and CrazyColours out? The fact that many people who contributed to #IAmSpartacus actually dug deep and donated to the fund for his legal expenses, to the tune of over ten thousand pounds. I wonder how many people who changed their avatars today can say they contributed anything other than a low-res JPEG to the cause.
I’ve no doubt that people will have donated thanks to this little stunt. Or even if they haven’t, the next time they consider donating to a charity maybe they will consider a childrens charity.
However even if its only 0.1% of people that have donated, thats donations they never would have received.
The gesture may have little direct impact towards the charity but that does not make it worthless.
What complete and utter tripe!
http://www.facebook.com/nspcc
Oh, and yes I did!
And that proves… what, exactly? Exactly what I said, that the “campaign” was nothing to do with the NSPCC. Of course they’re going to thank people for their “support”, they can’t very well say “Great, but give us your money instead, you stingy bastards”.
I’m glad you donated, but I’m pretty sure you are in a minority. Most people would have just changed their avatar and then not thought any more about it.
Thank you for this ‘rant’. I saw everyone changing their avatars on FB in support of the NSPCC and didn’t even consider a donation. But then I found a link to this blog on FB.
I haven’t changed my avatar but have made a donation.
Good man! Thank you. 🙂
Well, as one of those people who have changed their avatar to a cartoon character (She-ra if you’re interested), I haven’t done it for charity. I couldn’t give a fuck about charity. I like the picture.
Does that make me a bad person?
Nope, because you’re being honest about why you’ve done it!
The objectionable thing is when people try and make out that something is effortless as changing an avatar in any way supports a charity.
So no, you’re not a bad person! 🙂
Good. No fuck off my blog.
Oh…
I’ll get me coat.
Haha. Right.
She-Ra was hot.
In fact, I believe that many of the people who have changed their avatars on Facebook recently are in your camp – they’ve done it just because they like cartoons, and blindly copy-and-pasted the status message without paying attention to it. I’ve seen too many people saying “I had no idea it was a charity thing” over the past few days for that to not be the case.
Dave Gorman wrote a good post on the subject around the time that “FollowersInNeed” account sprung up on Twitter. That turned out to be a worthless scam, and proof of why this sort of thing is a bad thing. http://gormano.blogspot.com/2010/11/beware-of-twitter-scams.html
I changed my pic but didn’t even post the status bollocks.
One way ticket to hell please.
That’ll be one soul, please.
Don’t feel bad about not donating – as I said in the post, I don’t, because at the moment I can’t afford it. And I generally haven’t in the past (save buying a few things from charity shops) – but I do believe that it’s hypocritical to claim to support a charity’s work and then do precisely nothing about it, which is what many (not all, but many) of the copypasters are doing.
Just to play devil’s advocate… there is still an effect of “raising awareness”. Is there anyone out there that isn’t aware of child abuse? No. But if, say, 40 or 50 percent of facebookers had changed their status, then the others would’ve asked: Why? A discussion is started. Attention gets drawn. I haven’t considered the good work the NSPCC does in years and years – I was reminded when a friend changed her status & avatar. She cannot financially donate money – I can. I wouldn’t have without that simple facebook avatar change, as trivial as it might have been. How many times did that happen this week? There is a value to wearing a badge, a ribbon, a bracelet… it is less than sending a check. It is more than remaining silent.
A good point, and I haven’t said that this doesn’t happen. Good on you for following through and donating.
However, the “discussion” which this has raised is hardly positive. Most of the discussion has been along the lines of the above – people pointing out that “awareness” is nothing without action.
The upshot of this is should the NSPCC decide to launch an official campaign, the impact would be greatly lessened due to the mixed feelings surrounding this completely unofficial campaign.
And if you (that’s anyone reading, not just you, Arthur) were in any doubt as to whether or not this is a strictly unofficial campaign, I encourage you to read this well-researched post by Glen McNamee. See also Dave Gorman’s post that I linked to above as to why this sort of thing is bad in the long-term.
This was never about “raising awareness” or charity work in the first place. It’s the Chinese Whispers effect. Granted, it may have had a small positive impact in that it has encouraged people like you, Arthur, to donate. But that was not its original intention.
There are better ways to go about this sort of thing. If you walk up to someone in the street and say “I hate child abuse!” they’ll probably go “So what?”. Changing your Facebook status/avatar is the online equivalent of doing that.
Want to make a difference? Set up a stall. Sell things. Get sponsored to do something awesome. And while you’re doing those things, tell people why you’re doing them. “I’m raising money to give to the NSPCC”. Or just reach into your pocket and send them some money instead of hiding behind flimsy justifications and weak arguments like “it doesn’t hurt anyone”.
Saying “I’m supporting the NSPCC”, as most people in this case are, means nothing.
Once again, Arthur, good on you for donating. I hope more people follow suit.
You may be interested in what the NSPCC said on their own facebook page about the cartoon characters
“A warm welcome to all our cartoon friends! We are incredibly grateful for your support to end cruelty to children in the
UK. Although the NSPCC did not originate the childhood cartoon Facebook
campaign, we welcome the attention it has brought to the work we do. If
you would like to find out more about how you can get i…nvolved,
please visit our website.”
I changed my avatar when I saw that the NSPCC welcomed it. I also contribute regularly.
By the way, regular direct debit payments are much better for the charity than one-off donations. The admin costs are much lower and the charity can budget more effectively.
I agree, that for the most part people who post these types of status’ are all talk and no trousers. However, I will point out that the campaign, whether official or not, did prompt my husband and I to set up a monthly direct debit to the NSPCC, something we wouldn’t have thought of doing had our “awareness” not been raised via FB.
We also didn’t just change our profile pic, but posted links to the NSPCC website donations page, to make it easier for those who want to follow suit. If just a small fraction of those who changed their pics have also donated money, then it can only be a good thing.
I think your rant quite ridiculous. Whether or not folk have changed their fb profile pic in support of charity is immaterial; I bet most people who made the change did so for the fun of it and, to those people, whether or not it helps or hinders said charity is irrelevant. From my pool of fb friends, only 3% changed their status along with their avatar and these people often copy paste such status messages – I seriously doubt that even they considered themselves absolved “of any sense of responsibility” or that they have made a significant contribution to charity.
Whether or not you think so, it is a bit of fun; a bit of fun which many have enjoyed for the sake of enjoyment itself. For my part, I’m hoping that few people change their pic back come Monday 6th because, in my opinion, a facebook full of cartoons is a facebook full of win.
THANK YOU! I rant about this all the time and I’m glad to not be alone.
Uhh….yeah.