So, what did the Facebook cartoon characters meme achieve, exactly?
With the Facebook cartoon characters meme now at an end, let’s see if it actually anything, shall we?
Facebook users will probably have noticed something strange sweeping the site late last week and over the weekend. Everyone was being asked to change their profile picture to that of a cartoon character from their childhood. The idea, according to the status update many people copied and pasted, was to create “a place with no human faces on Facebook, but an invasion of memories.” Why? To help fight child abuse, obviously.
People took to this idea in their droves, with around 80 percent of my friends having changed their profile pics to their favorite cartoon character by yesterday (Monday, Dec. 6). Facebook has hosted many memes in its time, but I’ve never seen one take off as rapidly or fully as this one.
Most people have now changed their pictures back to themselves, so it’s at this point I’d like to ask what the whole pointless exercise has achieved?
My guess is absolutely nothing. Were any of the people who changed their profile pic unaware that child abuse existed in the world? Did they suddenly learn the truth by seeing their friends list full of cartoon characters from the past? No, of course not. Will this meme have dissuaded someone from hitting a child? Or have affected a child’s life in any other tangible way? Doubtful.
Call me cynical, call me pessimistic, call me miserable. I don’t really mind. I actually consider myself a realist, and I’m sensible enough to realize that a half-hearted effort on Facebook isn’t going to do a goddamn thing to fight child abuse.
The only thing that will help fight child abuse is to give money to those organizations actually doing something to help stop it from happening. If a few people did so after having their consciences pricked by this meme then that’s great, but those who merely changed their picture for a few days, don’t kid yourselves.
http://www.childabuseprevention.org/
http://www.nspcc.org.uk/
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December 7th, 2010
Most people followed the trend for the fun of it. I agree that posting a cartoon as a profile picture has nothing to do with fighting child abuse, but to be honest, most of my friends who did it, did it to reminisce.
A lot of the people who start these know that there will be more participants following their “trend” if people think “What, if I eat a banana today it will help save men from prostate cancer? Well…a round of bananas on me!” instead of thinking “Heck yes I like bananas….a round of bananas on me!” Society is a sucker for pretending to be charitable.
Weird analogy…but you catch my drift.
September 28th, 2011
Spammers are such assholes, I ponder if anybody ever clicks on their hyperlinks?