P4A

Project for Awesome was this past Wednesday, and I did not participate. And for those of you who may not know what P4A is, it's when a bunch of nerdfighters try and "take over" YouTube with their videos promoting charitable organizations, etc. But more on the main point for this post:

Hayley and I were talking, and she suggested that I participate this year. I hadn't planned on it, and also didn't want to, seeing as how I feel that the whole project is sort of a joke. I let her know this, and we argued a little bit. I jokingly suggested that if she wanted to really see large sums of money donated, that she should offer to shave her head if $3,000 were donated. Obviously she said no. And just to be the dick that I am, I asked if her hair was worth more than the good all that money would do for those abused kids. She told me to shut up. :) I was sort of "inspired" by what she was saying earlier about it being for a good cause, etc. so I told her that if she could find me a good, well-known charity and a website that I can use to track how much money has been donated, that I would shave my own head for $450 donated, and that I'd also donate $50 out of my own pocket. Sadly, she did not respond to my request. 

Truth is, people are selfish . . . I've got $100 in my wallet from selling my books back to NDSU (yeah, they cost me close to $400). What am I going to do with this money? Not give it to charity, of course! What if I gave it to someone else? Will they give it to charity? Course not. Hardly anyone would. And that is why I believe that "movements" like Project for Awesome get nothing done. Like Joe said on the subject: "People only want to seem like they care." The majority of the subscribers that watched those videos posted on Wednesday did nothing. They don't want to come to YouTube and be told about the world's problems. They want to watch a funny video, or--as John Green said--watch Turkish soccer (I think he said Turkish). 

Take a look at Charlie and Alex. They offered to shave their heads for (I believe) cancer research. The money they raised probably wouldn't have been even close to that of the amount of money if their video had just said, "Donate for cancer research here. Kthxbai." (Which is the essence of every P4A video.)

. . .

I'm sure a lot of the people that made videos did good on Wednesday, but they didn't change the world. They have hardly changed anything. 

Why toss the starfish back into the water if it's just going to end up back on the beach?

__________________________________________________________

Yeah, I know I'm going to Hell.