“Long story short, in case you’re not current on the latest Facebook meme, people all over the world have been changing their profile pics to cartoon characters from their youth to “raise awareness” for violence against children.
I am completely with Urlesque on this one: How is this helping abused children? Folks participating in this meme aren’t doing a thing to raise awareness for actions their friends can take to support this cause, just merely pointing out the fact that children are being abused while letting everyone know they once had a thing for Snarf. Beatification, ho!
Here’s an idea: How about skipping the silliness and plugging an anti-child abuse charity instead? This is a good one. This is another good one. As is this one.
Facebook has the potential to be a powerful catalyst for social change. But these frequent Facebook charity memes are meaningless exercises in futility. People don’t need to be made aware that breast cancer exists or that child abuse is a problem. What they need are real things they can do to support individuals battling these scourges.”
The above article was used from The Daily What. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes about this because while I believe that some people have changed their profile pictures because they feel strongly connected to child abuse and have the intentions to spread this awareness, I believe that there are some that do not. Facebook is a very powerful tool, but we abuse it. Facebook has the ability to create a chain of trends, but are we using it the right way? That’s what this article is asking. How can we take something like this seriously after Doppleganger Week last year which served absolutely no purpose at all? How can we take something like this seriously when breast cancer awareness week involved Facebook statuses that instead of promoting breast cancer awareness, promoted promiscuity in the form of “I like it on the…” – but leaving out where you liked your purse to be on. If we want to be involved, we need to put ourselves in the position of being involved. Facebook isn’t going to do that for us. Changing your Facebook profile picture isn’t going to do that. This doesn’t end child abuse. The majority of users are changing their pictures to cartoons to be the person who reminded everyone what a great cartoon that was and completely missing the entire point.