O'Daighre's Tumblaighre

Today on Twitter, a number of high profile celebrities have announced that they will auction themselves out, and pledge to follow whosoever among their followers bids the most, all in aid of Comic Relief.

It’s all for charity, so perhaps we shouldn’t grumble, (I will grumble anyway, for reasons I will get into), but it all feels thoroughly ‘whuh?’. It seems like a very awkward arrangement, both for the celebrities involved, who will be forced to tolerate the presence of a stranger in their Twitter-stream, without having any right to choose who that stranger is, or even, supposedly, the right to get rid of them until a specific period of time has passed. But also for the people bidding, who are tacitly admitting that they are so uninteresting that they would never ever be able to form a relationship with a celebrity on their own without having to pay for the privilege. It must be a terrific ego-boost for the celebrities taking part, as they get to see rising before their eyes, in hard cash, how much their friendship is worth - so maybe that’s something?

But now I hear you saying, leave it alone Tom! It’s for charity! And maybe you have a point. But in response, I’d like to propose a simple rule that we might all be able to follow from now on:

Stop doing things for charity.

I really don’t see who it’s helping. If you think about it, the idea that people will only donate their money if someone else somewhere has to perform some kind of uncomfortable stunt is pretty dubious. I mean, let’s take two scenarios:

1) You are at work. Your co-worker comes up and says, “Hi [your name], I’m raising money for charity. Can you spare five or ten pounds?” After enquiring about the charity and deciding you approve of its goals, you happily hand over the money.

2) You are at work. Your co-worker comes up and says, “Hi [your name], I’m raising money for charity by wearing a silly hat and dancing around the shopping centre in my underwear for an afternoon! Can you spare five or ten pounds?” And then… what? Does the prospect of someone humiliating themselves make you more likely to donate? Or decide to donate quicker? Or donate more?

I can’t answer for you, but for me, the answer is a firm ‘no’. When I decide to donate to charity, I do so because I like to feel like I have helped to relieve some suffering elsewhere in the world. I don’t do so because I want to facilitate an acquaintance in making a prat of his or herself.

(Aside: I may wish to facilitate an acquaintance in making a prat out of his or herself, but I try to keep this separate from charity.)

Or what’s worse is when someone comes up to you and asks you to sponsor them for something that they would otherwise enjoy doing. For instance, I was once asked if I would like to donate to someone taking part in a Sponsored Go-Kart Race. And do you know what my response is now to people like that, I say, “I will sponsor you not to do that.”

And what’s worse still is when people seek to raise money by doing something that is actually damaging. I’m thinking here of sponsored sky-diving. Flying a plane up into the air just so that someone can jump out of it is not a wise use of our planet’s dwindling energy supplies, but this activity is clearly, somehow, profitable, no doubt in part due to the custom of charity fundraisers.

And I’ll just say it, people who do charity sky-dives are twats. Massive, attention-seeking twats. There is no justification for them wanting to jump out of a massive, kerosene-burning aircraft, and talking shite about how they are only doing it out of self-sacrifice just makes them even twattier twats.

But maybe I’m wrong, and maybe the parachuting attention-fiends are right. Maybe people as a whole are more likely to donate if there is some flashy stunt involved. And maybe they will donate even more the more uncomfortable or dangerous the stunt is. And maybe the reason why sponsored sky-dives are so popular is because people would much rather their money be spent of something that could potentially result in a person’s grizzly parachute-failure related death than on something that will solely be spent on helping someone across the world that they’ve never met.

But I’d like to think that people are charitable enough, and, indeed, intelligent enough, to see that donating five or ten pounds to a cause is just as worthwhile whether or not a man runs a marathon in a silly suit, or jumps from a plane, or mucks about in go-karts for an afternoon.

And if you ever feel the desire to raise money for charity, why not be straight about it? And just ask for money straight up and save us all a load of time and effort. And, if you really must get involved in some sponsored nonsense, remember my stock response:

“I will sponsor you not to do that.”