December 18, 2009

• The Youtube Project For Awesome 2009: Charity Promotion

  

  The Youtube Project For Awesome is a now annual collaborative Youtube vlogger project to promote charities.  And it’s happening RIGHT NOW.

  #p4a is one of the top trending topics on twitter.
  A live chat is taking place here.
  And here’s the initial announcement video.

  And here’s the video here too:
  

  Basically (for those too lazy to watch but prefer long winded text based explanations) it works like this.  A bunch of vloggers post videos promoting their favorite charities. Then ALL of those vloggers and ALL of their followers, viewers support each others videos by commenting and rating them.

  The idea is that through collaborative effort, the group can institute a day or two youtube “takeover” of sorts. They get all the videos to rise to the top of youtube becoming the most viewed, most commented, and highest rated videos from around the world. And as a result every video gets more attention and hence all their charities ALSO get more attention.

  It’s an interesting concept in terms of collaborative community power on the internet. The strength of the masses to create change. Mainly it works because of the viral nature of the project. People who stumble across a highly rated/commented video get curious about the project, then THEY get excited and then THEY join in. And it grows and grows.

  Now it’s possible that nobody actually acts upon any of the charities, but if the numbers start to grow large the greater viewership and greater awareness helps the charities even if they don’t get much in the way of new donations.  I’ve contributed to several charities and learned about numerous charities I’ve never heard of thanks to the Project for Awesome. It might seem like a silly idea, but when you see the power of the Project for Awesome in action you’ll see as I do that’s its really just, for lack of a better word, well, AWESOME.

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  I’m not a vlogger. Chances are good I’ll never be a vlogger. However, I believe this idea of collaborative promotion is extremely powerful. You see it all the time when a blogger on Xanga asks for Recs. They get tons of recs and lots more comments. Each new rec exponentially increases the blog’s reach. Soon it’s on the top blogs and at least nominated to be featured on the front page.

  Turning that kind of viral power toward good causes is just an amazing thing to do. So I wrote this blog entry to contribute. It’s not the same thing as a video of course, but hopefully people will read this and then go to youtube and start watching, commenting, and rating the videos. And hopefully people will support the charities too and make the world a bit more awesome, or as they say amongst nerdfighters “reduce world suck”.

  And I think the deal is I’m supposed to promote something too. Okay that’s fine too.

  I’ve got two really incredibly important charities I’d like to promote.

  The first isn’t really a charity per se, but it’s a cause that matters a lot to me.    PBS recently announced that it is going to cancel two shows: NOW and the Journal. This was announced by FAIR (Fairness and Acccuracy in Reporting, not to be confused with the anti-illegal immigrant FAIR).  Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting is an awesome group altogether that is totally worth promoting and contributing to. And they definitely need money. But they aren’t who I’m promoting.

  No, I’m asking people to go to FAIR’s site and sign their Petition. In this petition they ask PBS to either NOT Cancel NOW and the Journal OR replace them with shows that are equally as hard hitting and of the highest journalistic quality.

  I can’t tell you how important this is. Losing these shows would be a TRAVESTY. In these days the media is not very good. There aren’t a lot of shows that ask hard questions and provide meaningful interesting information to people. NOW and the Journal DEFINITELY do. Both shows are heavily influenced by Bill Moyers former host of NOW current host of the Journal who is one of the better journalists on television. They are the best shows on PBS bar none.

  To give you an idea of the kind of stuff on the Journal that are amazing consider the last few shows:
  Historian Howard Zinn -  A discussion of citizen protest and The People Speak movie
  George Gale and Heather Booth – Discussion with two major activists fighting for financial reform, one of whom was one of the major organizers behind the Showdown in Chicago anti-banking protest.
  Director Oliver Stone – A detailed interview with Oliver Stone about his views on war and current US war policy
  Dr. Jane Goodall – An impressive interview with Jane Goodall about environmental activism and saving endangered species and inspiring the young to become active
  LBJ’s Path to War – An entire show devoted to reviewing the LBJ taped phone conversations that chronicle his historical path to escalating the war in Vietnam and the kinds of pressures he was under at the time. A great analog to the struggle President Obama must have faced when trying to decide whether or not to escalate the war in Afghanistan.
  Anna Deavere Smith – An extraordinary show about a now famous broadway play on Health Care in America. It’s a play she wrote after interviewing 300 people and picking 20 people to tell their stories on Health Care in their own words.
  Judge Richard Goldstone – An interview with the man behind the recent report on the 2008-2009 war in Gaza.
   
  He’s also had insightful interviews with Glenn Greenwald, David Frum, Robert Reich, Cornel West, David Simon, Wendell Potter, Jeremy Scahill, Karen Armstrong, Russ Feingold, James K. Galbraith, John Grisham, Jeremiah Wright, Jon Stewart, and many more.

  But some of the best of the show is just stuff featuring the host Bill Moyers himself. He’s a thoughtful intelligent man whose experienced perspective gives him insight both from inside and outside of the power structure of Washington. He served several presidents since the Johnson administration. He’s not an ideologue and he’s a person of faith. But he’s open to toher perspectives. He hosts historians, conservatives, and liberals. And he gives his own opinions in his own commentary apologetically without pulling any punches and he’s not afraid to call out anyone for dangerous or shameful behavior.

  Really EVERY episode of this show is good. Some of them are inspiring other times they can move you to tears. Bill Moyers picks the most powerful accounts and gives us some of the most detailed information about what’s actually happening in the world. If I hadn’t had Bill Moyers’ Journal I would just know and understand a lot less about the world than I do now. Losing his show would be a travesty.  I know that Bill Moyers himself has chosen to step down as host, but that’s why it’s imperative that another host be brought in who can do as good a job a disseminating the truth. I believe that the culture he started has power to persist beyond the loss of him as host and the show can continue to inform and enlighten generations of people in the future. As it did with NOW which continued to be a very good show even after Moyers stopped being its host.

  So PLEASE Sign the Petition. Help support independent Journalism. It’s something the world desperately needs today more than ever.

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  The second charity I want to support, and I’ll make this one much more brief, is the ACLU.  You probably know who the ACLU are so I don’t have to explain. But basically for the unenlightened amongst you, they are simply a group of the baddest ass civil and human rights defending, constitutional lawyers on the planet. Basically they are the group most likely to cause Presidents and congress the most grief for engaging in activities that restrict human rights. They’re the ones that have been on Bush AND Obama’s ass from the beginning about extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, and a host of other dangerous and illegal crimes. Basically they are, in my opinion, probably one of the biggest barriers right now stopping our society from slipping into a world of tyranny and oppression. They defend YOUR rights to life, liberty, property, and full protection under the law no matter who you are and where you’re from. Basically they are in a word, AWESOME.

  But right now they’re in financial trouble. Many of their donors including their very biggest donor had to stop providing funding because of the recession. With these revenue cuts they are being forced to operate at 2/3 or less of their normal budget. That’s not good new for anyone.

  So if you do have a little money to spare I highly recommend you DONATE to the ACLU.  It will be much appreciated and it may one day save your life and freedom.

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  OK, that’s it for me for Charity Promotion. If you like this video, please REC it and add to the comment and eprop counts.  AND feel free to post your own charity promoting blog over the next two days. Let me know about it and I’ll be sure to comment and rec it.

  And of course don’t forget to support the real Project For Awesome over on youtube! Doing something good that only requires a little of your time is definitely always worth the effort.

   

  • 10:27 am
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