I'm sometimes a bit sceptical giving money to friends to do fund raising 'challenges' [0] that are in some beautiful part of Australia and require them to walk a reasonable 20km in a day. I would hope that they cover their own costs (flying, registration fee, accommodation, etc.) and any donations they receive go to the charity/cause.
A lot of times they aren't the greatest charities in the world either (in terms of outcomes). I'm pretty resentful of these requests--you pick your charity and let me pick mine. They are nowhere near as bad as what the article is talking about though, I've never gotten requests like that.
Yeah, I personally don't like this bundling of fun activities and charity. If you want to run a marathon, run a marathon. If you want to give to charities, just give. Don't make a pretence of charity to do what you find fun.
> "If you want to run a marathon, run a marathon. If you want to give to charities, just give."
I agree with the sentiment although lots of people run marathons and raise money for a charity as a motivational aid. I don't see anything wrong with this.
However, if someone wants to do a parachute jump, cycle the Great Wall of China, etc, then yes, they should just shut up and fund it themselves.
>I'm sometimes a bit sceptical giving money to friends
I'm a runner/biker and I know dozens of people that do these charity events. I even went to an informational session for one, since I was thinking about it... the way these charity events generally work, at least here in U.S. (not sure about that particular event in Australia and the fundraising requirement it imposes) is that the participant is required to raise a minimum of 3X the amount of the expenses for doing the event.
So for example, if the hotel/airfare, event registration, and other misc training costs (generally this is water/snacks for group training on the weekends, e.g. the classic long run on a Sat morning for marathon training) are roughly $1000, then the participant will be asked to raise $4000. And of that $4000, $1000 goes to letting them do the event and $3000 goes to the charity.
That was for the one I went to, not to name it specifically however it was a marathon in a foreign country. So airfare and hotel and the pasta meal the night before. A local event won't need so much diverted so the fundraising burden will be much lower. I've done local charity events which only required $250 (no fancy travel or lodging), so rather than bug all my friends I just wrote a check and submitted a matching form from my employer!
So on the one hand, if your goal is to donate to the charity, you are better off giving money directly. But that's true of most fundraising situations as well.
On the other hand, if you view the expense as the cost of getting donors, maybe that is reasonable. A mildly obscure disease might not have a better way of attracting donations other than aligning with a sports event. I'm just speculating here since the specifics probably vary hugely and I have zero experience on the race director side of the registration table or with the fundraising side of a charity. ;)
Basically, I can understand your skepticism - your donation money is more effectively used directly to the charity or on people doing local events. If the goal event involves travel and hotels, then a chunk of the money raised by the participant goes towards them doing the event.
right on.. I'll expand the question to this - Why does someone "run" for charity? What not just ask on behalf of the charity? Why is the endurance activity inherently tied to the charitable aspect?
Advertising and motivation I guess. You get to promote yourself (or in case of a group from an organization) as doing "good things", and putting it out there forces you to go through with it, because otherwise you look bad to all the people you told about it.
If a close friend's experiencing some incredibly tough times, and he sets his goal to $125 or something reasonable like that, I'd have no issue with pitching in. I'm a totally broke college student, but that's the truth.
However, this article really hits the mark. Begging your friends and family or the internet community at large is actually the last thing you should think of doing. And if you're asking for thousands of dollars, you'd better be buying food for a homeless shelter or something. Something that benefits, I don't know, more than a single person?
It's the digital version of panhandling, and it's unfortunate that the few on there who have (in my opinion) a legitimate need are so overshadowed by those begging for a new camera or to go on a trip.
I assume that much like people can disconnect vitriolic statements from reality when sitting behind a computer screen, so too can that screen disconnect people from the shame one would usually feel begging on the street for money.
I don't understand it, but people can be completely honest in their disconnect from shame when asking for money for completely unnecessary things.
The people asking for help with extremely difficult times, sicknesses, etc., those people that legitimately need help, probably feel enough shame for everyone.
I call it online busking. I live in SF and I'll often see fairly well dressed people sparechanging on corners. One guy, in his late 20s, would be out near O'Farrell and Mason listening to his iPod everyday as I went in for work. I never got his story, but he probably wasn't living on the streets - just "working" there.
I don't really have a problem with that, or people busking online. But before you plug in those credit card digits, you should ask yourself: "If I met this person on the street and they asked me to fund their {pet's surgery, vacation, novel}, would I do it?"
I had my "a-ha" moment for crowdfunding about 8 years ago. A friend-of-a-friend who was a promoter/bartender, whom I had just met, asked me to fund his Jewish contemporary art show. He seemed very passionate about getting it going. The total sum required was a few thousand dollars, so it seemed like an honest pitch. He friended me on Facebook and sent me the link to Kickstater. Later that night I was about to make a donation, but I stopped. "I don't even know his guy. Why am I giving him $50?" And that's when I linked the two behaviors.
Just because there's a nicely designed UI between you and the beggar doesn't make it something other than begging. I call it "busking" as opposed to "begging" because they are actually performing - they're (both the website and the person; they work in tandem) trying to make you believe they're not a beggar.
Disclosure - I published an award winning street paper and eventually received an award for my contributions to progressive politics for my work. I know many many panhandlers across the country and am deeply biased in their favour.
That said, panhandling is one of the more impressive sales accomplishments in our modern world. Good panhandlers understand the math - about 15% of people give, 15% of people call you a bum/tell you to get a job/otherwise insult you, about 25% just walk by and the remaining 40% say no. Consequently, they have learned that the only way to make enough money is to be relentless and keep asking, even if the last person threatened to kick your ass. Good panhandlers will make 200-300 contacts a day...
As a sales problem, panhandling has almost no compare. Your only 'product' is your humanity. And, unfortunately, since many of the people who panhandle have some rough years behind them they don't always look very good.
As a startup type, I have way more in common with panhandlers than people who work for the government. Their hustle both amuses and inspires me.
That's all a long, roundabout way of saying, "Seriously, don't use the word beggar. With all due respect, you don't know how much pain that word causes."
As for the well dressed fellow with the iPod, he may not live on the streets - truth is that many panhandlers have homes. But, I assure you that his clothing and iPod are part of his pitch. People are nicer to folks who look like them.
And GoFundMe, Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, Patreon are both the street corners AND the cups for the avant-garde beggar. An astute hustler would actively have pitches on all of them. I mean: a panhandler can only cover one physical street corner at any given time. It's better to cover all possible bases.
> That's all a long, roundabout way of saying, "Seriously, don't use the word beggar. With all due respect, you don't know how much pain that word causes."
Yes, I know how much pain it causes; so much pain that people are begging from behind technology now. Those people on Patreon/GoFundMe would never stand out on the street with a cup, because it's too painful for them. That's why I call it busking, which is begging with a performance.
I would like to understand why the word beggar is not equivalent to the word pan handler..
for some reason my brain is not making the jump here.
Is the word bum equally offensive?
Is pan handler preferred because it sounds like more skill is required? what about if there is no tact or pitch and someone is just begging for food?
my brain seems to think all variations of this act are not things you would want to be called, despite if your engaged in it. but is it not calling an apple an apple?
just curious, not disagreeing and would like to know more, thanks
This is what bothers me most about people who can't tell the difference between wants and genuine needs: the negative effect it has on the people who do need something that could save their life but can't pay for it, or are going to perform some virtuous service for others that they won't be paid for.
One of my friends, who has done a lot of writing and I can assure you has not made much money at all from being a writer while producing a lot of content for free (and has written a couple of legit books) recently had a stroke that paralyzed one side of his body. He's now in physical therapy and geting other serious treatment. He's 48 years old and has four kids; only the eldest one is out of the house. He's not wealthy by any means, and needs help paying his medical bills. A friend put up a GoFundMe page for his family, probably unbeknownst to him, all because of compassion and people are starting to donate (he's almost up to $1000, which is like a drop in the bucket when it comes to covering medical expenses in the US).
That's the kind of situation that GoFundMe and similar sites are for. Not for vanity projects, paying for your dream wedding, funding plastic surgery, throwing parties, interior design, and springing for fripperies that are not emergencies and are not virtuous.
These people are ruining the reputation of internet-based, crowdsourced funding. They have no shame.
> That's the kind of situation that GoFundMe and similar sites are for.
GoFundMe's website would disagree with you on that. And I don't think asking for money even if it is not an emergency is necessarily bad. And if people want to make an ass of themselves, well, now they have a new avenue to do so.
The juxtaposition of all these things on one site is weird though, I agree, and it would be bad if it stained the reputation of the "better" causes. A site specialized in "emergency" funds certainly could look more respectable and potentially add more value as a community. But would process less funds and make less money...
And that's not getting in the whole "privatizing risks that should be caught by society" (or not) discussion...
Well, yes. That's one kind of situation it's for. I wouldn't want to limit it to life-or-death issues. But I'm just saying that people shouldn't be using it to get skating lessons for their kids, or to fund their "personal development journey." Those things are extras.
Honestly, I think that's the whole problem with personal appeals (even worthy ones, like your friend's). There's a reason we have a society, with organized charities, to funnel money to the most deserving causes, instead of those with the most well-networked beneficiaries.
Ok..Ok. Question. Although it seems some people are on there for the wrong reasons, will it be fair to say they are exercising their first amendment rights base on this article? http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/26/when-we... I know the key word here is "poor" but how do we know people asking for money for camera's aren't poor?
Exercising your first amendment rights doesn't mean it's a good thing to do, it just means it doesn't violate the most basic principles of our society.
I don't think anybody is claiming that asking for money online should be illegal.
The reason this is a problem is because needs should be fulfilled collectively by our society and unfortunately they're largely not so people are forced to beg for money to save the lives of people in their family on the same platform as college graduates who want to buy a new gadget.
Not sure the point of this article. Of course there are more or less deserving, more or less craven. It's a platform for anyone to use, that's the whole point. Don't want to give? Then don't.
Right. I don't see much difference between this and people who have asked for money over the years. Some have been totally worthwhile, others have been straight up fraud.
Same thing, on the internet. Someone should patent it.
As far as I can tell, the key takeaway is that the NYT has no trouble shaming the poor and middle classes for not having the support network the well-off can mobilize. I know executives who I wouldn't trust to run a bake sale without FTC oversight, but every time they fail there's another c-suite job waiting for them somewhere. Their panhandling is just done out of sight, over a good Malbec at the Capital Club.
I think the takeaway had more to do with the shift from "man life really threw me a curveball and I could use some help" to "my spewcial schnequflake needs a new violin and we renovated the kitchen last year, someone else please pay for it"
There is nothing wrong donating money for good cause. But when you are giving money when the intentions aren't good, then you are encouraging whoever set up the fund that sort of behavior is ok.
The article is spot on. Bunch of scams on there with few good people in between needing real help. I wonder if the admins/Mod on the site vet people out.
What does this really mean (and the list of random requests is just pointless):
Is it a sign of a breakdown of the traditional ways of making money (as a summary, the replacement of "working the farm" to earn money with "driving for Uber" to earn money)?
Is it the de-centralization of existing support networks? Asking your friends for money isn't new, maybe it's just that you talk to your friends over the internet that's new.
Is it the corporatization of personal budgets, where everything has to have some nice-sounding reason attached to it, even if it's obviously a waste of money? (unless you really believe that all the leadership summits in Hawaii are really cost-effective)
Most of the post is pointless, agreed. Trying to explain the phenomenon would be more interesting than simply listing dumb requests.
> Is it a sign of a breakdown of the traditional ways of making money (as a summary, the replacement of "working the farm" to earn money with "driving for Uber" to earn money)?
I don't see how funding campaigns compare to "driving for uber". Driving for uber is an actual job, while putting up a nice page saying "I want to go see the pyramids, give me money" is different.
I think it's an internalization of the "It's always okay to ask" mentality, which itself is a symptom of a transition from a society built around a few common cultural institutions to one based on a pluralistic conception that different people may have different values. It used to be that there were common norms of behavior, and you didn't step outside those norms unless you wanted to risk strong social censure. Now, the norm is that anything mutually agreed upon by two parties is fine.
On the whole, I think this is a good trend - it makes the economy more efficient, it encourages people to celebrate diversity instead of shunning it, and it's how the upper classes have operated for a long time, which is the source of a major power imbalance where corporations & rich people feel entitled to ask for anything and then working-class people feel ashamed to refuse. This is just the same attitude filtering down to formerly middle-class people, likely fueled by desperation as the traditional social compact breaks down and their previous income stream dries up. It'll take a period of adjustment as people realize that "No" is a perfectly fine answer that you'll have to give the majority of the time, though, and many people are very uncomfortable at the breakdown of unspoken norms (hence the article).
I want to know if these people are getting gofundme requests from people they know. If so, what are they doing differently from me?
Because if you're getting gofundme requests from people you don't know, we've all been getting hit up for money from shady "charities" forever; it's just that the internet has democratized the technologies used to ask randoms for money. This isn't really a change, in my mind.
I'll accept that it's a cultural change when I get these sorts of requests from people I know, rather than from random strangers.
> ...it's just that the internet has democratized the technologies used to ask randoms for money.
You hit the nail on the head.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time. Services like GoFundMe simply make reaching "some of the people" much, much easier.
Is anybody really surprised by this development? If you create a platform where people can ask for money, a bunch of people are going to ask for money they don't really need.
In my experience, GoFundMe enables it more than other platforms, since they really don't give you a good way to complain. (I've received spam from someone with a campaign there)
> What about the girl seeking $600 for her “personal development journey”? (Not much to ask, but she was so beautiful, I didn’t understand why she didn’t develop herself into a model and make a whole lot more than that.)
Totally amateur models can easily make $50 or $100/hr for gigs. If you have a natural gift that gets paid like that and want some spare cash, why would you not use it?
You can't really compare the two because modelling isn't a consistent gig. You can easily make $50-100/hr doing it (assuming, of course, you are blessed with model looks), but you can't easily do it 40 hours a week.
I think it sets off the misogyny alarms, but I think the point remains: someone with a quality that could conceivably be used to meet a financial need opens up a valid criticism. We'd say the same if it were a developer asking for money, or a homeless person panhandling when they appear physically fit. I think there's a resistance when it's based on appearance, not skill, but I think there's plenty of models who would take exception to the idea that there isn't work and skill involved.
The article doesn't make the claim that it's her most employable asset, it's highlighting a trait that's visible from her page requesting donations, and would potentially remove the need to seek donations.
How is this "dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women." You don't know what misogny is.
There are true misogynists out there doing real damage to women. But conflating real misogyny to what the author said, which is nowhere even close to misogyny, is actually undermining all the work people are doing to make people aware of real misogyny.
I think it's an example of the "backlash" mentioned later in the article, "the sneaking suspicion that someone of considerable (or at least ample) means and/or connections is asking for help." Given that context, I can't tell if it was a serious remark.
FWIW, the article's author is named "Judith", presumably a woman, and unlikely to actually be a misogynist. That doesn't mean she doesn't have some annoying assumptions about gender and such, I dunno… Maybe she felt something like, "you'll probably be getting funded because your good looks help your campaign, and I wish you would just be transparent about it and just go be a model…" who knows?
The ones I see are not for vacations. They are for school supplies for kids that need them, medical expenses, that sort of thing. Guess we have different friends!
I'm in organizing a major fundraising as well, not for me, but for supergravity.org. Seeing that some people collect 100ks, I'm curios how much the world will be willing to pay for their rescue - and I'm not kidding about this. Research and development is expensive and I'm not seeing anything on the horizon on conventional research that could save our current doomed path. Anyway, back to work :)
At the moment the barriers to asking a bunch of people on the internet for money is effectively 0 so why the hell wouldn't you do it? the worst case scenario is you don't get any money and you're no worse off.
At some point (possibly right now with this article) a backlash will develop and there may be some social costs to doing this because of the numbers of people doing it have created a tragedy of the commons.
I think there's been a social cost from the start, it's just hard to tell since you, as the beggar, have no way of really seeing it. When I think poorly of you for making an illegitimate request, I'm probably just going to pass it over—there's no personal and immediate repercussion.
The damage in the long-term is though: I'll definitely think less of that person and won't respond to their otherwise legitimate requests.
This article was probably written by a well off NYT journalist who doesn't need and therefor doesn't understand the need for these kind of campaigns, sounds like a "let them have cake" kind of statement.
Lol. Just saw this trend on HN after my friend messaged me to help fund his Kickstarter. I really wonder how many Ks projects wouldn't be funded minus family and friends.
I used to get upset about these endless ill-deserving requests.
Then I realized I have a simple option of just not giving. Much like reality television, I find it pathetic and am unlikely to be friends with someone who uses it for long, but it doesn't pose an existential threat to society.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 140 ms ] thread[0] http://www.humacharitychallenge.com/Charity-Challenge/Austra...
I agree with the sentiment although lots of people run marathons and raise money for a charity as a motivational aid. I don't see anything wrong with this.
However, if someone wants to do a parachute jump, cycle the Great Wall of China, etc, then yes, they should just shut up and fund it themselves.
I'd be much more willing to support these sorts of events if the participants underwrote the costs themselves.
I'm a runner/biker and I know dozens of people that do these charity events. I even went to an informational session for one, since I was thinking about it... the way these charity events generally work, at least here in U.S. (not sure about that particular event in Australia and the fundraising requirement it imposes) is that the participant is required to raise a minimum of 3X the amount of the expenses for doing the event.
So for example, if the hotel/airfare, event registration, and other misc training costs (generally this is water/snacks for group training on the weekends, e.g. the classic long run on a Sat morning for marathon training) are roughly $1000, then the participant will be asked to raise $4000. And of that $4000, $1000 goes to letting them do the event and $3000 goes to the charity.
That was for the one I went to, not to name it specifically however it was a marathon in a foreign country. So airfare and hotel and the pasta meal the night before. A local event won't need so much diverted so the fundraising burden will be much lower. I've done local charity events which only required $250 (no fancy travel or lodging), so rather than bug all my friends I just wrote a check and submitted a matching form from my employer!
So on the one hand, if your goal is to donate to the charity, you are better off giving money directly. But that's true of most fundraising situations as well.
On the other hand, if you view the expense as the cost of getting donors, maybe that is reasonable. A mildly obscure disease might not have a better way of attracting donations other than aligning with a sports event. I'm just speculating here since the specifics probably vary hugely and I have zero experience on the race director side of the registration table or with the fundraising side of a charity. ;)
Basically, I can understand your skepticism - your donation money is more effectively used directly to the charity or on people doing local events. If the goal event involves travel and hotels, then a chunk of the money raised by the participant goes towards them doing the event.
However, this article really hits the mark. Begging your friends and family or the internet community at large is actually the last thing you should think of doing. And if you're asking for thousands of dollars, you'd better be buying food for a homeless shelter or something. Something that benefits, I don't know, more than a single person?
I don't understand it, but people can be completely honest in their disconnect from shame when asking for money for completely unnecessary things.
The people asking for help with extremely difficult times, sicknesses, etc., those people that legitimately need help, probably feel enough shame for everyone.
I don't really have a problem with that, or people busking online. But before you plug in those credit card digits, you should ask yourself: "If I met this person on the street and they asked me to fund their {pet's surgery, vacation, novel}, would I do it?"
I had my "a-ha" moment for crowdfunding about 8 years ago. A friend-of-a-friend who was a promoter/bartender, whom I had just met, asked me to fund his Jewish contemporary art show. He seemed very passionate about getting it going. The total sum required was a few thousand dollars, so it seemed like an honest pitch. He friended me on Facebook and sent me the link to Kickstater. Later that night I was about to make a donation, but I stopped. "I don't even know his guy. Why am I giving him $50?" And that's when I linked the two behaviors.
Just because there's a nicely designed UI between you and the beggar doesn't make it something other than begging. I call it "busking" as opposed to "begging" because they are actually performing - they're (both the website and the person; they work in tandem) trying to make you believe they're not a beggar.
That said, panhandling is one of the more impressive sales accomplishments in our modern world. Good panhandlers understand the math - about 15% of people give, 15% of people call you a bum/tell you to get a job/otherwise insult you, about 25% just walk by and the remaining 40% say no. Consequently, they have learned that the only way to make enough money is to be relentless and keep asking, even if the last person threatened to kick your ass. Good panhandlers will make 200-300 contacts a day...
As a sales problem, panhandling has almost no compare. Your only 'product' is your humanity. And, unfortunately, since many of the people who panhandle have some rough years behind them they don't always look very good.
As a startup type, I have way more in common with panhandlers than people who work for the government. Their hustle both amuses and inspires me.
That's all a long, roundabout way of saying, "Seriously, don't use the word beggar. With all due respect, you don't know how much pain that word causes."
As for the well dressed fellow with the iPod, he may not live on the streets - truth is that many panhandlers have homes. But, I assure you that his clothing and iPod are part of his pitch. People are nicer to folks who look like them.
> That's all a long, roundabout way of saying, "Seriously, don't use the word beggar. With all due respect, you don't know how much pain that word causes."
Yes, I know how much pain it causes; so much pain that people are begging from behind technology now. Those people on Patreon/GoFundMe would never stand out on the street with a cup, because it's too painful for them. That's why I call it busking, which is begging with a performance.
for some reason my brain is not making the jump here.
Is the word bum equally offensive?
Is pan handler preferred because it sounds like more skill is required? what about if there is no tact or pitch and someone is just begging for food?
my brain seems to think all variations of this act are not things you would want to be called, despite if your engaged in it. but is it not calling an apple an apple?
just curious, not disagreeing and would like to know more, thanks
One of my friends, who has done a lot of writing and I can assure you has not made much money at all from being a writer while producing a lot of content for free (and has written a couple of legit books) recently had a stroke that paralyzed one side of his body. He's now in physical therapy and geting other serious treatment. He's 48 years old and has four kids; only the eldest one is out of the house. He's not wealthy by any means, and needs help paying his medical bills. A friend put up a GoFundMe page for his family, probably unbeknownst to him, all because of compassion and people are starting to donate (he's almost up to $1000, which is like a drop in the bucket when it comes to covering medical expenses in the US).
That's the kind of situation that GoFundMe and similar sites are for. Not for vanity projects, paying for your dream wedding, funding plastic surgery, throwing parties, interior design, and springing for fripperies that are not emergencies and are not virtuous.
These people are ruining the reputation of internet-based, crowdsourced funding. They have no shame.
GoFundMe's website would disagree with you on that. And I don't think asking for money even if it is not an emergency is necessarily bad. And if people want to make an ass of themselves, well, now they have a new avenue to do so.
The juxtaposition of all these things on one site is weird though, I agree, and it would be bad if it stained the reputation of the "better" causes. A site specialized in "emergency" funds certainly could look more respectable and potentially add more value as a community. But would process less funds and make less money...
And that's not getting in the whole "privatizing risks that should be caught by society" (or not) discussion...
I don't think anybody is claiming that asking for money online should be illegal.
But they're thousands...
Thankfully, GoFundMe obliges.
Same thing, on the internet. Someone should patent it.
You likely were downvoted since your comment doesn't add much ("The article is spot on" doesn't count as having a conversation)
Did you read my first response? Or are you confusing me with someone? I asked a question if you saw my first response about the mods/admin.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10525159
If you're upset about missing karma, it's just luck of the draw.
Is it a sign of a breakdown of the traditional ways of making money (as a summary, the replacement of "working the farm" to earn money with "driving for Uber" to earn money)?
Is it the de-centralization of existing support networks? Asking your friends for money isn't new, maybe it's just that you talk to your friends over the internet that's new.
Is it the corporatization of personal budgets, where everything has to have some nice-sounding reason attached to it, even if it's obviously a waste of money? (unless you really believe that all the leadership summits in Hawaii are really cost-effective)
> Is it a sign of a breakdown of the traditional ways of making money (as a summary, the replacement of "working the farm" to earn money with "driving for Uber" to earn money)?
I don't see how funding campaigns compare to "driving for uber". Driving for uber is an actual job, while putting up a nice page saying "I want to go see the pyramids, give me money" is different.
On the whole, I think this is a good trend - it makes the economy more efficient, it encourages people to celebrate diversity instead of shunning it, and it's how the upper classes have operated for a long time, which is the source of a major power imbalance where corporations & rich people feel entitled to ask for anything and then working-class people feel ashamed to refuse. This is just the same attitude filtering down to formerly middle-class people, likely fueled by desperation as the traditional social compact breaks down and their previous income stream dries up. It'll take a period of adjustment as people realize that "No" is a perfectly fine answer that you'll have to give the majority of the time, though, and many people are very uncomfortable at the breakdown of unspoken norms (hence the article).
Because if you're getting gofundme requests from people you don't know, we've all been getting hit up for money from shady "charities" forever; it's just that the internet has democratized the technologies used to ask randoms for money. This isn't really a change, in my mind.
I'll accept that it's a cultural change when I get these sorts of requests from people I know, rather than from random strangers.
You hit the nail on the head.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time. Services like GoFundMe simply make reaching "some of the people" much, much easier.
I get these ridiculous GoFundMe requests from people I know (including relatively close friends) on a pretty regular basis.
It's different from the classic "charities" in that the pressure is much higher when it's a personal appeal from a friend.
What a bizarre comment.
There are true misogynists out there doing real damage to women. But conflating real misogyny to what the author said, which is nowhere even close to misogyny, is actually undermining all the work people are doing to make people aware of real misogyny.
If you haven't heard about this yet, check out this video from Last Week Tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y1xJAVZxXg
"Many on her mailing list where taken aback"
At some point (possibly right now with this article) a backlash will develop and there may be some social costs to doing this because of the numbers of people doing it have created a tragedy of the commons.
Except your dignity, maybe?
The damage in the long-term is though: I'll definitely think less of that person and won't respond to their otherwise legitimate requests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/fashion/gofundme-gone-wild...
Then I realized I have a simple option of just not giving. Much like reality television, I find it pathetic and am unlikely to be friends with someone who uses it for long, but it doesn't pose an existential threat to society.