There is a good reason why there are Cartoon Characters on Facebook.

You may have noticed lots of people changing their profile pictures on Facebook to cartoon characters and are wondering why. I must say almost all of my friends are now anything from Daffy Duck to Captain Caveman.

I'd be surprised if you haven't seen the message that is going around yet, but here it is -

Change your Facebook profile picture to a cartoon character from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same, for the NSPCC. Until Monday (December 6th), there should be no human faces on Facebook, but an invasion of memories. This is a campaign to stop violence against children.

This doesn't seem to be anything official, its just something that has gone viral by Facebook users themselves.

I was shocked that some users on Facebook have said "What good is it?" "Its just spam." And the most ridiculous one that it was started by paedophiles and you are going to get kicked off Facebook if you leave the picture up! How crazy are people to believe that! Never heard of Internet hoax library Snopes?

It's brilliant, it is actually raising awareness of the charity the NSPCC! Some people have added the links to the NSPCC donations page or other official organisations.

The best one I've seen so far is this one where someone has created a justgiving page and has already raised £3000 in just a few days!

http://www.justgiving.com/fbcartoon/?fb_ref=fundraising-page-top&fb_sourc...

So yes, it is doing good. Its making people think about how we can help our children.

The NSPCC's vision is to end cruelty to children in the UK. We campaign to change the law, provide ChildLine and the NSPCC Helpline, offer advice for adults, and much more.See what’s new with our work – or make a difference by volunteering or donating.

So, stop whining saying that changing your profile picture is just a waste of time, that it will do nothing and join in our fight for awareness. Also you could actually do something yourself and donate directly to the charity here.

Dec 05, 2010

Paul said...

It originally WAS a waste of time - the addition of the NSPCC to the meme has only really been in the last 24 hours, and has been in response to the number of people pointing out that simply changing your profile picture did nothing at all, not even raise awareness. The first people to mention the NSPCC (in Britain - in other countries they have gone for equivalent charities) were in fact those who were saying it was a waste of time, and countered with "rather than change my profile picture, I've made a donation to a charity, I challenge those who have changed their profile pic to a cartoon character to do the same". The meme then changed, possibly out of shame that up to that point it hadn't actually been doing any good.

So the brilliant viral campaign is only brilliant because of those "whingers" who pointed out that without focus, and without harnessing momentum towards a cause, then it was all so much digital hot air. As of now the campaign is doing good. But when it startered? Not so much.

Michelle Harris said...

Thanks for the comments - I didn't realise it was out there without the mention of the NSPCC although I seem to remember something from last year which was similar.

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