Cartoon characters flock to Facebook

Campaign to End Violence Against Children

If you have logged onto Facebook recently, you would have noticed a bunch of your friends have changed their profile pictures to cartoons characters. This trend is part of the “Campaign to End Violence Against Children”.Will you be changing your profile picture?

The “Campaign to End Violence Against Children” has asked users to change their profile pictures to their favorite childhood cartoons to raise awareness about “Worldwide Violence Against Children and Child Abuse”. To ensure that friends get the message, the cause also asks that users post the status below, along with the change:

“Change your FB Profile Picture to a Cartoon from your childhood. The goal is to not see a human face on FB till Monday December 6th. Support the fight against child abuse by copying and pasting this as your status and joining this group to support this sometimes over looked cause! Invite friends to join and do the same.”

The roots

The non-profit campaign launched by an unnamed volunteer aims at raising awareness on the ‘Worldwide Violence Against Children and Child Abuse’. The origins of this campaign remain a mystery, as it does not seem to be affiliated with any official organization.

Success

Despite wide-spread skepticism over the impact of this social media campaign in the real world, the movement took over the World Wide Web completely. Besides giving many on Facebook a rude awakening to the prevalence of child abuse, the campaign managed to gain momentum as the international media started covering it and the search engines were set on fire with cartoon-related searches.

The lowdown

While thousands changed their profiles, skepticism was inevitable with several questioning the effects of the gesture.

“Changing your profile pictures is only the first step. To make a real difference, DONATE to your children charity or organization of choice,” asserted the description on one Facebook campaign page.

The campaign is set to end today. However, the persisting popularity of the movement has indicated that the campaign has, managed to create, a trendy buzz over the issue of child abuse. It has succeeded in getting people to talk about a social cause which is a very big step forward for any campaign.

Unfortunately, question arises as to how this effort helps the campaign in any physical sense.

Some Facebook commenters have pointed out that the “misdirected” effort of posting messages has no tangible outcomes.

Yeah…like this is gonna help end violence against children…” one commenter wrote.

Regardless of the campaign’s effectiveness, the Childhood Cartoon Faces campaign is catching on.

Social Media for Social Causes

Ever since the advent of the social media, internet has emerged as a key marketing tool not only for profit-making organizations but also for non-profit interests. Social media has time and again emerged as favorite to fuel social causes. The recent ‘digital deaths’ of celebrities such as Lady Gaga, Usher, Ryan Seacrest and Justin Timberlake, who signed off from their Twitter and Facebook accounts to raise $1 million for Alicia Keys’ charity for AIDS (Keep a Child Alive), is an example of this. This unique way of taking part in social causes is fast becoming a phenomenon.

Will you be changing your profile picture? And what do you think about Facebook awareness campaigns?

Source: ibtimes.com