When Charitable Giving Is Not Charitable Giving.

I remember when people over on YouTube started doing the “YouTuber giving money/food to the homeless” among many other things (1). Why, yes, it was a trend where people where raking in lots of views. Now you must ask yourself “did they do it for the views and monetization or the homeless?

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It really warms the aging heart strings seeing those who have done well give back to the community. Oh wait a moment many of those YouTubers puts out scummy clickbait videos doing whatever current trend it is for money. Oh that was not charity at all. Wait a moment is that a paid actor? Did they just hand someone $1000 in fake $100 Hollywood bills made for movie production? That’s greed and taking advantage of homelessness.

Greatness from sharing life experiences

Sharing a teachable moment on the blockchain

Encouraging others to go out and help their community

Leading by example

Showing others how easy it is to give back

How it’s not done

Expecting financial reward from doing “good” that far outweighs what was put into it.

Taking advantage of people’s goodwill nature for personal gain.

Finding endless excuses to tell everyone you once gave $20 to Greenpeace and you are such a wonderful person.

Endlessly referring to Steemit as some magical “gift economy” unicorn where what you put in you get back 100 times. Now if you plant this seed in this god church of Steemit it shall grow and reward thy self a hundredfold! Just image if you gave $1000 to your local church and they gave you back $100,000 every time. Why everyone would be doing it. Till hyperinflation killed whatever goodwill was supposed to be the point of giving in the first place. Seems to defeat the purpose in the first place.

In our day and age

We seem to be so hell-bent on endless needing to tell everyone we are some kind of superhero and how great everything we do is.

Charity is not this thing you go out and do so you can lord it around and treats it like a printing press. In fact it can often times suck doing- I’m just being honest. Yes, it can help fill your heart and maybe replace a void in it by giving back. It should also not have to be Christmas just for you to do it. There are many times a year where there are shortages in needed help.

@denmarkguy wrote a little less than two weeks ago in part about how “authentic philanthropists” do not go on the rooftops and shout out about it (2). They are just grateful they can help give back to community’s that gave so much to them in the first place. I highly recommend you giving it a read—Virtue Signaling and Social Justice Warriors. It speaks volumes and really points to some of the issues. It addresses and points out our endless need to be recognized and reward for doing “good.”

At end of the day most of us can at least admit we are guilty of at least once over-embellishing our “great deeds” to help society as a whole be better. It just seems to be in our human nature to want attention for doing the “right thing.” I’m more than guilty of doing that a few times in my life.

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Written by @enjar on my viewpoints of people taking advantage of charity for personal self-gain; rather then, doing it just to help people in need out.

1. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=giving+homeless+people+money
2. https://steemit.com/society/@denmarkguy/virtue-signaling-and-social-justice-warriors-not-exactly-new-concepts