I've learned some interesting and hard truths about humanity after I started this GoFundMe campaign.
If you profess yourself as homeless and in need of help, many people won't believe you.
This is similar to the responses I've gotten to Poor Blog by people I call, 'bootstrappers' - those who find something, anything wrong that you've done and use that as an excuse to place the full blame on you; typically resulting in the clichéd call to pull yourself up by your boot straps.
It boils down to a lack of empathy. I'd like to think this cold hearted reaction is something of a defense mechanism. If everybody who is poor or homeless, is poor or homeless because of their own actions, then you don't have to worry about becoming poor or homeless, in part, because of circumstances beyond your control.
Worse than not believing me, is people ignoring me altogether.
This is the largest response to my campaign, which is nothing... literally.
Don't get me wrong, I have had some donors, who I appreciate immensely. When the GoFundMe campaign launched, I was quickly on pace to reach my goal in less than 2 days, but it quickly died. I have received many RT's, my retweet reach has been in the hundreds of thousands, yet the donations slowed to a trickle.
The retweets I get now are from just a couple people, who themselves are ostracized from their peers - so the impact of those RT's is pretty low.
I have learned that for some, political issues trumps the well being of people they would claim to care about. The people that picked up my homeless tweets are anti #GMO. For the record, I support #GMO, but I was in no position to turn down help, especially since I have resorted to what the bootstrappers call 'online begging'.
What I noticed was that the dedication of the much maligned anti-GMO tweeters far outpaced that of my own friends on the GMO side. Part of the reason is that the anti-GMO tweeter's RT's weren't seen by the GMO tweeters who already blocked them.
But that doesn't really explain it. I tweeted plenty about being homeless & will often tag my tweets with #GMO... and no response.
I'm $1,070 short of my goal. The reason I need to raise this money is that my job pays just enough to cover rent, but not the deposit, cost of turning on utilities, food and sundry items for the apartment, and costs associated with getting my things(and cat) from Cincinnati up to Columbus.
The longer I have to wait to save up the money, the less likely I am to find an affordable apartment.
What I need from you is 1. money.., not gonna lie and 2. promotion. I need people who don't follow me to see my homeless tweets or your tweet about my homelessness with the GoFundMe link. To get 10 donors, I need thousands of tweets/shares/etc.
Please help.
gofundme.com/samvance
p.s.
You can still donate to my PayPal by using the link on my Twitter profile.
Sam, sorry this is not going well. I'm in hot water these days and my employer monitors my social media interactions. I've been told to not RT anything unless it falls into specific areas. The whole smear campaign against me now affects you, as I do have some reach that could be helpful, and I'm glad to promote. I'm not sure of the easy trick here, but maybe break it down into bites that people could sponsor. Put up a blog with an itemized list of the expenses, and maybe someone will cover specific items. That always works better than amassing a pile of dollars. Give that a shot. I was glad to put into your last campaign, I just am handcuffed in how I can amplify. -- and FN is not a real person. We know who 'he' is, she probably donated to you, not FN.
ReplyDeleteYou have had months to help the man...and did absolutely nothing! If each member of GMOLOL pitched in $1, Sam would have had his apartment in an hour! It is hilarious watching you blather on about helping the indigent in Africa, while you can't come up with $1 each to help one of your own...since it doesn't serve your promotional purposes. You, Kevin, belong to the most corrupt, egotistical, self serving bunch of money grubbing Chemical poison supporters ever gathered anywhere--there aren't any humanitarians in your midst. You have no trouble collecting thousands for a silly squirrel experiment...but can't come up with a measly thousand dollars when it doesn't serve your industry purposes. GMO promoters are a shameless pathetic lot of egotists and narcissists. Disgusting!
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