“Change your default to a cartoon character from your childhood. Goal - To not see a human face on Facebook until Monday the 6th of December. Join the fight against child abuse & invite your friends to do the same.”
You might have seen a similar plea pop up in your Facebook feed over the past few days. It is the latest awareness-raising campaign to circulate the Face, and just like others of its kind its effectiveness is being called into question the more popular it gets. In the past two days the status updates of “How is changing your picture to a cartoon character going to end child abuse?” have begun to roll in.
My answer is: obviously, it’s not, wise guy. The fact that I am now represented on Facebook by Frosta, Queen of the Kingdom of Snows is not going to stop children all over the world from having shitty, abusive childhoods. But, as with all campaigns of this kind, the point is awareness.
I have no idea where the campaign started. I noticed the cartoon characters popping up on my feed, and when I saw what it was about I was like, “Yeah, sure. I hate child abuse. I love cartoons. Why not?” And then I got to spend half an hour trying to narrow down which character I would use and searching for a decent representation of her. It was fun.
Now, nearly my entire feed is filled with beloved animated faces from my childhood. People all over are aware of child abuse right now, even if only peripherally. Conversations about the legitimacy of the campaign lead to discussions of the real problems at hand. Yes, a large chunk of people who are now being repped by a cartoon character are just participating in the rampant bandwagonry that seem to be the fuel of social networking sites. I myself am a sucker for picture themes. But the fact that some people are just in it for the fad of it and many others will never go on to do anything else to prevent child abuse doesn’t negate the possibility that there are people whose awareness is stirred into action. Yes, active solutions and involvement are needed, but awareness is the first step to driving intention toward those goals.
Maybe one person will get started on a train of thought that leads them to work with abused children. Maybe someone will be encouraged to speak out about or get help for their own situation. Maybe not. But, what’s the harm in trying. Changing your picture costs nothing and harms no one. So if one person’s awareness is raised enough to spur them to action, how is the cost not worth it? And if absolutely no awareness was raised, what did we really lose? At the very least we’re participating in a global display of intention. We’re creating camaraderie, thought, debate and discussion simply by changing our pictures on a social networking site. And I just don’t see the harm in that.