The Marketability of Saving the World

So, going back as far as the old Geocities site, I have been linking to this one site where clicking on these icons they’ve got is supposed to help raise some money for some worthy causes. Apparently a bit of money actually does go to those causes, so I keep clicking. I think there was only three or four causes back when I started, but just the other day I noticed a new one, for helping homeless veterans. It seems like with this new edition it is as good a time as any to comment on something which has been bothering me for a while.

When you click on a cause’s icon it, as with any website in this day and age, shows how many people have “liked” it on Facebook. Each cause apparently having its own Facebook page, they each have their own numbers of “likers” and the numbers for each cause goes as follows:

Hunger: 67,871
Breast Cancer: 409,396
Animals: 368,019
Veterans: 4,765
Child Health: 24,292
Literacy: 24,626
Rainforest: 36,122

Okay, Breast Cancer is winning. I am not really surprised by that. For some reason breast cancer “awareness” has been a thing people have been concerned with for forever. Obviously I’m not pro-breast cancer or even cancer in general, but I’m going to complain about raising “awareness” for things that probably nobody is unaware of at this point. But here’s the thing: Apparently it worked. Almost half a million Facebookers bothered to like that page on the site (which actually sends money toward mammograms rather than just raising awareness, for the record). I mean, excepting the Animals one, the other causes don’t add up that high combines. People are aware.

Veterans comes in last place, but hey, it’s only a few days old. Next to last? Child Health and Literacy. I really would have thought that a lot of the people who would bother “liking” the page for Animals would also “like” the Children one. They’re both cute, aren’t they? And, just from my point of view, I would think that improving the health and literacy of our children would go a long way towards not only fighting breast cancer, but a lot of other problems by raising a generation well equipped to deal with them. I say we get some “Raise Better Kids Awareness” campaigns going maybe and try our hands at making a difference at it.

Of course, in reality it is entirely likely that people who “liked” the pages on Facebook just “liked” one as a means of “liking” the group, or even just “liked” one because somebody sent them a link and they’ve never even bothered going to the page. Basically, it isn’t a highly scientific way of me getting my informations, but hey, I’m just brainstorming here. Lemme alone.

  1. The Literacy one gives kids a book to read and treasure. How come I never got treasure when I was a kid?

  2. Because of the economy, I guess. I hate the economy so much.

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