Sadonecroequusism

Blessings, Darlings!

I'm anti-cancer.  I've lost friends and family to it, and am sort of phobic about it. That said...

That whole "Tweet #beatcancer and PayPay will donate 5 cents to stop cancer" had to be one of the weirdest, and probably least useful, campaigns I've ever seen. 

Yeah, it got retweeted. A lot. For days. Because virtually no one understood that it was a one day thing, it ended Saturday night.  It's STILL being retweeted.  I can't find any announcement of how many times it was retweeted - but any retweets over 400,000 don't matter.  Paypal said from the get-go that they were donating up to $20,000 total.  Addenum - as I have been typing this post, Paypal JUST announced that altho' they didn't get the amount of tweets they were aiming for, they'd still donate the full $20K.

$20,000 for a lot of free publicity for Paypal.  I doubt that even .05% of those retweeting  know where the money is going to, or what aspect of the 'war on cancer'. Is the money going into basic cancer research?  Is the money going to treatment? Prevention? Education?  Support? Any particular cancer?

I looked hard enough to find the organization - but even I can't find any rating of it on Charity Watch, or how it spends its money (like, how much is spend directly on services vs administration). 

So, some hundreds of thousands of folks, over the past 3 days (I'm typing Monday evening) have tweeted a phrase that makes them feel good.  But might it have made more impact if the tweet had a bit more substance? What if instead of focusing on a hashtag, it has been a series of tips on cancer prevention? What about if folks had retweeting a pledge to change one risky habit, or work to stop one environmental risk?

Personally, that seems more useful than tweeting a hashtag that gives publicity to PayPal and money to a charity I can't find financial info about.

But I'm just into Sadonecroequusism.

Frondly, Fern