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.