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American Idol Charity BS |
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Today on American Idol they were running a charity event called “Idol Gives Back” to collect money to “benefit young people in need.” Let me tell you, it was awful. Why?
First, the event was kicked off by the crowd giving a big hand for the donating “sponsors” (read: advertisers). AT&T, Coca-Cola, and News Corporation were all given huge rounds of applause. Thank you giant corporations! Thank you so very much!
Next, a two minute video was aired showing host Ryan Seacrest and judge Simon Cowell journeying to an unspecified country in Africa and observing the local living conditions. Cowell is shown saying things like, “Awful, just awful,” commenting on the squalor he has witnessed just like he was judging another diva on his show. All this is backed by the requisite Coldplay tear-jerker music. Somebody needs to upload this clip to YouTube, it’s priceless. It won’t be quite the same, but play the song below and continue reading so you get the idea…
Then, the audience was informed that for every vote the show received that night, $0.10 would be donated to charity, up to $5 million. Huzzah!
Now why is this a terrible idea? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for helping the “young people in need” (even though that description is pretty vague…I’m young, I have needs…help me!). However, this event furthers the worst kind of giving, foregoing forming real connections with people in other countries for the quick satisfaction of helping the underprivileged without actually doing anything. This pseudo-giving is exactly the kind of charity championed by Bono (who also appeared on Idol) and is exactly the kind of charity that makes the American people arrogant and out of touch. Come on, all you are doing is throwing money at the problem! If you really want to understand how you can help, you need to get your hands dirty.
Real charity is about connecting with and helping people. If you actually remove your ass from your couch and go out into the world to help, you will form lifelong connections with the people you meet. Not only that, but you will be much more likely to stay interested in developments in the community you worked in and more likely to continue to give back throughout your life. If I volunteer with an NGO in a small village in Malawi, you can be sure I will be more receptive to giving my money and time to causes benefiting Malawi for the rest of my life! This is the kind of charitable giving we should be trying to foster.
Furthermore, once you’ve given something of yourself to a community of people, they will forever be in your mind. You will have made lifelong friends. As a man I volunteered with in Japan in 2005 said, “We work together so we can form friendships, because friends do not go to war against each other.” Working with other people creates bonds of friendship, understanding, and peace.
The form of charity practiced during American Idol does none of this. People are not asked to alter their lives in any way. Instead, they can vote for American Idol contestants (like they do every week) and feel good that they are helping a worthy cause. They will wake up tomorrow in their nicely furnished home, drive their expensive car down paved streets, and enjoy the society they live in without another thought towards those living in poverty. They will never meet the people their dime helped and they will continue to ignore the beggar on their own block, someone who they have a chance to connect with and who lives in their own community. They have “done their part” and they can now push the problems of poverty safely from their minds. What Idol is sponsoring is a moral shortcut. People who “contribute” during Idol’s charity event have no right to feel good about their “contribution.” They did nothing to help and they didn’t even pay any money out of their own pocket. Sorry.
Instead, why can’t Idol sponsor a charity event that rewards involvement? Instead of giving $5 million to a bunch of charity organizations, why not sponsor 1,000 Idol viewers with a $5,000 grant through the same organizations to go out and actually make a difference. Or have the Idol contestants and judges each go to a different city on the same day and work with a charity there, with all viewers invited to come down and participate. With the ratings and exposure American Idol gets, I’m sure they could have devised a charity show involving real participation and actually spurred people to action, creating lifelong givers in the process! Instead, they wasted their opportunity, allowing viewers to contribute a paltry sum to a charity they know nothing about without leaving their living rooms.
Sure, the “Idol Gives Back” charity event is a highly mainstream American form of charity, half-assed and superficial, just like Idol itself. I’m not surprised this kind of charity event has emanated from the cess pool in our cultural landscape that is American Idol, but I am going to call them out. American Idol, this charity event is complete bullshit!
Well, what’s your form of preferred charity? Do you think we should simply give money and leave the work to the professionals? Or do you like to go out there and make a difference yourself?
I actually don’t see why people can’t do both. Time and money are both valuable resources that you can give to help other people. Throwing money at problems is bad, yes - but there are some things that only money can help. I can’t build you a new hospital with my hands.
What you’re getting at here, it seems to me, are certain attitudes - a certain frivolity about giving, about charity and philanthropy, that really does cheapen the whole thing. I think this is why a lot of people (rightfully) have a problem with celebrity activism: it seems so superficial, and it deprives the “helped” of their dignity. If you don’t get to know the people you’re trying to help, then there is a risk that they could all start looking the same to you - ie, helpless victims, hollow-eyed children on the TV commercial, etc. And I think that dignity is a critical human need, following extremely closely on the heels of food, clothes, shelter, and proper medical care.
Of course people can do both, and should. But the American Idol program did not mention doing both (though the website alludes to it). Instead, they were encouraged to vote as always. It just seems hollow to me to tell people that by living a normal American life you can also help those in need. To be perfectly honest, America helped create some of the problems these charities are trying to solve. Of course recommending lifestyle changes isn’t a popular option, but how long can we keep deluding ourselves?
Ok stop wasting time complaining and do something yourself. I am sick and tired of ALL anti-political organizations claiming they are better than the rest of the people. So what if idol isnt doing what YOU want then to do. ALL the people voting are donating. plain and simple $0.04 is $0.04 more than they had yesterday. Please pick better battles cause what you are saying is. ‘ I don’t want to give any money cause you are not raising money the way i would.”
A couple quick points:
I am not anti-political.
I’m not saying people should not give to this charity. There were no calls for boycott. My criticism is mainly aimed at the way the charity was run. I wish they would have called for increased participation instead of simply calling for people to vote.
Lastly, I have, and will continue to do something myself. Volunteer work is important, and I prefer to do it with my own two hands.
Recently I went through some hard times and started collecting cans and bottles out of the trash.
I became more disgusted with the community in general than I was with myself.
The waste of food in this country is obscene !I
would go behind the markets and find everything from 12 packs of soda that got thrown out because one can was dented to produce with only slight bruises or small imperfections, things past their shelf date , but not past the consumption date.
And then go to the other side of the island and see people homeless and hungry.The markets would chew me out for digging through their trash . I in return told them to arrest me if you want , proceded to fill my trunk with food, and took it to the people that needed it.
This is like j-ro says the real kind of charity that needs to start taking place instead of these fashionable charities of choice that American idol and movie stars adopt.
Buy that guy a burger and sit down and talk to him for while. Instead of just throwing a couple dollars at him.