Editorial: Celeb charity campaign narcissistic

When you see advertisements of your favorite celebrities in coffins, don’t panic. The… When you see advertisements of your favorite celebrities in coffins, don’t panic. The advertisements are meant to signify the celeb’s digital deaths as part of a new campaign called Digital Life Sacrifice.

According to the Associated Press, entertainers like Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Ryan Seacrest will sign off social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter on Tuesday — World AIDS Day. They will sign back on when the campaign has raised $1 million for Keys’ Keep a Child Alive charity.

To us, the Digital Life Sacrifice campaign comes off as very narcissistic. We wouldn’t bank on raising money by refusing to print The Pitt News until we came up with $1 million, but the Hollywood stars are convinced that their fans will greatly mourn the loss of their life-changing Tweets.

And the fans probably will.

Lady Gaga alone has 7.2 million followers on Twitter and nearly 24 million fans on Facebook. She would likely raise the money herself.

It seems interesting that the celebs are asking their fans to donate money when they could just as easily come up with it themselves. For example, Lady Gaga has a net worth of $60 million, Justin Timberlake of $70 million and Ryan Seacrest of $75 million, according to celebritynetworth.com. Although we acknowledge that many celebrities donate to charities, this campaign in particular makes celebrities look like they are forcing their fans to donate.

In addition, the Digital Life Sacrifice doesn’t seem likely to provide continued support for the HIV/AIDS victims because it puts the focus on the celebrities and not on the issues. People aren’t going to donate money because of the severity of the AIDS epidemic, but they will because they care about what their favorite stars are Tweeting.

Leigh Blake, the president and co-founder of Keep a Child Alive, told the Associated Press, “We’re trying to sort of make the remark: Why do we care so much about the death of one celebrity as opposed to millions and millions of people dying in the place that we’re all from?”

We definitely don’t get this message from the upcoming Digital Life Sacrifice campaign. In fact, we think it says the opposite. After all, if you really care about supporting HIV/AIDS victims, you probably don’t need prompting from a celebrity to donate. And those who do need prompting to donate are just celeb-obsessed.

In the end, we wonder if Perez Hilton will end up donating the entire million himself. After all, his job depends on the lifestyles of the rich and famous.