UPDATE 2: Celebrity Digital Death

Bitch tweeted!

Like all dead people.

Twitter didn't exist back then.  But this guy sure did party post-posthumously...

Viral Facebook Campaigns

By now, I think we all know what this is about.  You change your facebook profile picture to a picture of a cartoon character from your childhood and then you end child abuse.  Or something like that.

Is the bear upset about pedophilia, or the lack thereof?  I find this confusing.

Not unlike the the "I like it on the..." campaign of earlier this year (It had to do with breast cancer.  If you click here to read about it, you will also get to see boobies!!) these "awareness-raising" viral campaigns are nothing more than what some are calling "slacktivism"- joining groups, participating in internet memes that don't actually do anything but rather, allow you to feel good about yourself by doing virtually nothing.  (Hint- if you can change your profile picture with one hand, you have your other hand free to masturbate!  Everyone wins!... Unless you're looking at pictures of little kids- in that case, you've kind of just canceled yourself out.)

"Stop touching your root chakra while watching Justin Bieber videos!"- no matter what you call it, it's wrong!

These campaigns claim to "raise awareness."  Y'know, for those of you unaware of breast cancer, or child abuse.  Here's what seems contradictory- with the "I like it on the..." campaign, statuses were changed by women only.  The idea was to "intrigue" men, to have them ask what their status was about, or perhaps use it as their opportunity to proposition their crush to finally have sex with them on the coat rack. (See?  It doesn't even make sense!  Nowhere you like putting your purse is somewhere you'd also like having sex!  Unless you like leaving your purse on the mad tea party ride at Disneyland.)

Don't ask me how I know this, but I would highly recommend sanitizing that purple tea cup if I were you...

How often do we hear about women getting ahead in their career by sleeping their way to the top?  Or being accused of getting promoted because they are more attractive than their possibly-more-qualified colleague?  We want to be taken seriously, to not be seen as sexual objects, to not have our looks, our bodies, our sexuality a determining factor in our rise to the top of our careers, or the causes for which we fight.  And yet, the most effective way someone can think of to bring awareness to this campaign is to create sexually suggestive facebook statuses?  Isn't this pretty much saying "hey! We want you to care about this disease!  And since we're women, we'll use our sexuality to achieve that!" 

Also, who is the target audience here?  Since all women were in on this, were men the ones to be targeted?  And if so, why?  Are men less aware of breast cancer?  Do we want men to donate more money, because we assume their love of boobies could save millions of cancer victims?

And why even alienate men?  They can also be diagnosed with breast cancer.  And society is A LOT less aware of that.  I found this site.  They promote the pink and blue ribbon, for male breast cancer.  How many of us have seen that?  How many pink and blue items are sold every year to raise money for male breast cancer?  Why are we raising awareness for a disease that everyone is very aware of, and what type of awareness are we raising?  To learn about breast cancer?  How to test for it?  Who is most at risk?  Or is it about donating money, or participating in walks?  And if someone inquires about my status, do I have the knowledge and facts to get that person to actually get up and do something for the cause?

  And what about this cartoon image campaign?  The idea is to "change your profile picture to a cartoon character from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same. Until Monday (Dec. 6) there should be no human faces on facebook, but an invasion of memories. This is a campaign to stop violence against children."

Really?!

This campaign is supposed to stop violence against children?!  HOW?!  Imagine I'm a pedophile.  I see a picture of a Care Bear.  Do I think a) "oh wow, being a kid is really great and innocent, I should stop molesting them" or b)"mmm.  Care Bear.  mmm. Kids watching Care Bears.  mmmm. Must go find a child."  And if I'm not a pedophile (which I'm not, just so we're all clear...) I obviously am against violence against children!  I don't need a facebook profile picture to remind me of that!  And, much like the "I like it on the..." campaign- what type of awareness is being raised?  Is this to help children who have been victims of child abuse?  Is it to help would-be attackers get psychological treatment?  Are we trying to raise money for victims of child abuse?  Are we trying to teach kids how to be on the look-out for potential child abusers?  Once I see the image, and think about child abuse, then what?  
Well, then I probably look at more boobies.

Aaaahhh, no, not those ones!!  WTF?!!?  "Hillary's New Look for the Primaries"- I'll say!

Again, mere slacktivism.  We like to feel that we're doing something but, y'know, just... without really having to do anything.  At least some people were brave and courageous enough to stop tweeting for their cause.  Which is... Oh man, I forget.  Something about Kim Kardashian being tired, I want to say?

"Should I keep sleeping, or wake up, tweet about sleeping, and then keep sleeping??"

If only everyone just complained about this stuff on their blogs.  We'd all be so much happier.

UPDATE: Celebrity Digital Death

It's me and Danny Bonaduce against the world!!

Trust me, if I could make this image bigger, I would.

Celebrity Digital Death

Aaaaahhhhhomgwhat?!  What's going on here?! Alicia Keys is dead!  Look!  She's in a coffin! 

Oh.

Wait.

She's not actually dead.  None of the celebrities are.  But their twitter/facebook accounts are.

aaaaahhhh!  Worst thing ever, worst thing ever!!!

Here's the concept:

"How many real lives can be saved by sacrificing a few digital ones?
MILLIONS Starting December 1 - World AIDS Day - the world's most followed celebrity Tweeters are sacrificing their digital lives to help save millions of real lives affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India.
That means no more Twitter or Facebook updates from any of them. No more knowing where they are, what they had for dinner, or what interesting things are happening in their lives. From here on out, they're dead. Kaput. Finished.
But they don't have to die in vain. And they don't have to stay dead for long. Just watch their Last Tweet and Testaments, and buy their lives back." (source)


Here's what I hate:

1- How much money went into hiring the photographers, stylists, web designers, campaign managers, etc, to put this "charity" together?  Of course, any philanthropic initiative takes some initial start up money.  But remember when Sarah McLachlan made this video?  It raised awareness, it made a clear, concise point that remained consistent throughout the video, and- perhaps most importantly- barely cost anything.  Usually, when launching such an initiative, you want as little out-go as possible.  You want the money coming in, you don't want to be spending it on hiring stylists to create massive bouffants.  (pssst- who's Daphne Guinness?) 

2- Remember this campaign?  You should, because it just started in September of this year, and is still very much active and relevant.  Basically, there has been a rise in teen suicides recently, mainly as a result of bullying, and mainly bullying of homosexual, or suspected homosexual teens.  It Gets Better aims to tell teens that suicide is a permanent solution for a temporary problem, and that, quite simply IT GETS BETTER.  So let me get this straight- we're telling teens that death isn't a trivial matter.  It's permanent, it's devastating to your loved ones (and you all have them!) and it is no way glamourous.

OR IS IT?!

This website even encourages it's viewers to "sacrifice yourself."  Is this really the language, and are these the images we want the general public to be seeing right now, given everything that has been happening in our society as of late? 

3- Millions of lives are actually lost due to HIV/AIDS every single day.  A lot of the people who lost their lives never had access to clean drinking water, let alone twitter or facebook.  And, if I donate money to them, they won't come back to life, like these twitter/facebook accounts will.  I think a lot of the fascination with celebrities twitter/facebook accounts is that the "normals" like you and I (and this guy) want to read about the mundane crap they did during the day (actual Kim Kardashian tweet: "I'm soooo sleepy I just need a 7min nap!" don't I know it, sistah!)  This campaign shows us how out of touch and unaware these celebrities actually are.  It's world AIDS day, teens are killing themselves because they are being bullied for nothing other than being true to themselves, and I'm supposed to care that Kim Kardashian and Justin Timberlake aren't tweeting?! (Side note: Kim Kardashian also describes herself as a "perfumista" on twitter.  Just thought you'd like to know...)

4- Oh, what's 4 again?  Oh right- NO ONE CARES IF YOU DON'T TWEET!  Have you noticed how A.D.effing.D. we all are?  If you don't tweet, we'll just read Shaq's tweets.  Or Aziz Ansari's tweets.  Or my tweets.  And what happens if they don't raise enough money to "bring them back to life"?  Will they stay off social networking sites forever?!  Because that's actually huge incentive to not donate.  Of course, I won't know when Kim Kardashian goes to the gym, or when Alicia Keys is feeling bloated, or when Ryan Seacrest's hair needs to be re-dyed (seriously, Ryan Seacrest is participating in this campaign.  Why do I keep getting a sick sense of glee by seeing the phrase "Ryan Seacrest is dead"?) but, on the upside, maybe it will just show us that celebrities don't really matter all that much, we shouldn't care about the self-indulgent sh*t they have to say, and we should focus on the real issues.

Here's what I love:

1- That this campaign is suffering.  Read about it here.  Or here.  Or here.   

2- It's sparking discussion.  Even if the campaign sucks, we all know when world AIDS day is now.  And we can spend hours just speculating which of our fave celebs is eating lunch right now.  It could be anyone!

Just try to tell me she's not at the Peach Pit.  JUST.TRY.

  So, let the discussion begin.  Do you hate this?  Love it?  Do you wish you too were a perfumista?  Are you concerned about who will now bring sexy back, with Justin Timberlake dead?  And how does Lance Bass feel about this?

Exclusive: he feels gay.