Because we don’t want to take away from the original point here, read up on The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the top-ranked pediatric care center in the United States. And if you’re able, give back like Matt Carle.
Remember back to last week when Matt Carle joined up on Twitter. He decided to use his new venture into social media for good, announcing that if he reached 10,000 followers, he’d donate $10,000 to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Great cause, right? Awesome thing to do, right?
Apparently, some people don’t think it’s so great, and on Monday evening on Twitter, a good number of people went off on Carle, blasting him for “using the guise of giving to charity to increase his followers.”
Those are the words of @DHSpeedwagon, a contributor at Scarlett Ice, a Senators blog. He’s been one of the loudest on this subject, and it spawned an entire blog post last night.
Yes, I’ll repeat, because it’s so inane you probably still don’t believe it: People are mad at Matt Carle for his method of donating to charity. I can’t even believe I have to write this. More after the jump.
To be fair, the writer here did state a few times that “giving money to charity isn’t a bad thing” … before going on to voice his displeasure with Carle’s entire little scheme here.
Now let me start off by saying, in no way do I think donating money to charity is a bad thing. Mr. Carle wants to do something good in his community, and he should be commended for it. I do however, take issue with the fact that Matt uses the guise of giving to charity as means to increase his followers.
The guise of charity. Yes, the whole point in this is so Matt Carle can increase his Twitter followers. Because, you know, a guy who’s Tweeted a whopping 16 times in the six days he’s been on the network is just so obsessed with his online ego that he needs to come up with a ridiculous plot to gain followers.
Hell, I’ve Tweeted more than 16 times today.
(I should point out Matt isn’t the first player to do this and my opinion isn’t focused on him but rather NHL players, and celebrities in general who use this kind of ploy. Matt’s just the most recent example. I’m sure he means well, even if he is a Philadelphia Flyer.)
Now again, I’d like to repeat, giving money to charity isn’t a bad thing.
Fair enough. Carle even said he got the idea from his buddy Ryan Jones of the Edmonton Oilers, who did something similar.
Oh, and there’s the obligatory qualifier.
According to NHL Numbers ( http://www.nhlnumbers.com/ ) Matt makes $3.5 million this season. That makes his donation approximately 0.0029% of his salary. When I mockingly tweeted I would give that much of my salary to charity in exchange for 10,000 followers I was pretty much blasted for being a complainer who is against charity. (It was pointed out that if my donation is about $145 then I might as well just go follow Matt Carle. Silly me, I didn’t realize all donations aren’t created equally. Oh right, when I follow Matt it’s not really my money. I get it now. FULFILLING!)
Yes, this is an actual argument.
The median income in the City of Philadelphia is $37,090. At that rate, if everybody donated 0.0029 percent of their yearly salary, they’d donate about $110. How many of us can honestly say we donated $110 to charity in the last year?
I might just be a horrible person, but I certainly didn’t. I maybe gave about $50 bucks…. maybe. And that includes the $5 I gave to a guy last week at the Maryland House rest area on I-95 because he needed to get to Elkton and was out of gas and dollars.
But yes, because Matt Carle’s a professional hockey player, we should expect him to give all kinds of money to charity. He’s RICH! A measly 10 grand? Pffft, that’s nothing!
People love to lambaste me and anyone else who dares share an opinion about Matt and other players like him who’ve pulled this act before. “What’s wrong with you?” “Stop complaining!” “He’s trying to do a good thing!”
Yes, that’s exactly what we’re saying. You know why? Because it’s not an act. It really is just a good guy trying to do a good thing without some bullshit, manufactured, cynical reasoning behind it.
This is the part where he goes on a long rant about why he uses Twitter. We’ll spare you.
Furthermore, I don’t resort to self serving gimmicks (albeit good intentioned ones) in order to increase my follower count. I don’t need to be bullied, guilted, or coerced into following someone and I don’t plan on doing the same. I expect the content of my feed, and the feed of others to drive the counts.
Okay, well we didn’t save you from all of his personal reasons behind why he uses Twitter, but this is the only relevant part. Again, why do we have to think this is a gimmick solely meant to increase the guy’s Twitter account? Do we really think Matt is so egotistical that he’d think that way? Oh, I’ll use the Children’s Hospital and people will think I’m a good guy! Yeah, that’ll be great! *rubs hands together*
He’s a quiet guy from Alaska who likes to fish [from the sky –BR] and play hockey.
In fact, the entire reason he set up his Twitter account was to do something FOR charity. He saw what his buddy Ryan did and wanted to do something similar. If Mr. Speedwagon did the research, maybe by reading this story at Philly Sports Daily, he would’ve figured that out.
“In setting the whole thing up I just wanted to do something for a charity and I thought that was a good idea,” Carle told PSD’s Steve Whyno. “We kinda went [to CHOP] over Christmas and got to go cruise around and meet some of the kids. It’s a good opportunity to kinda go there and see what they’re all about. I wanted to get involved in a local charity here, and I thought that was a good way to do it.”
AND THERE WE HAVE IT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. HE JUST WANTED TO GET INVOLVED.
Oh, wait. The complaint continues.
What would be wrong with Matt Carle tweeting he donated $10,000 to charity and telling everyone about it after the fact? Why do I have to commit to listening to his rambling about Superbowl bets or what he’s watching on television in order to feel better about myself and ensure he gives money to charity? If Matt doesn’t get his 10,000 followers should I feel guilty about the sick kids who won’t get their money because I didn’t follow him? Why should the onus be put on me and others when Matt can easily just give the money? If Matt doesn’t get 10,000 followers and donate to charity it isn’t my fault for not following, it’s his for coming up with the dumb idea in the first place.
We’ll ignore for a second the fact that Carle had at least 7,000 followers (in five days!) when this post was written on Monday, thus all but assuring he’ll hit his 10,000 mark by the end of the current week, let alone the trade deadline or the end of the season.
Let’s just go with the assumption that Carle didn’t reach 10,000 followers. Does anybody seriously think he’d say “oh, well, the conditions weren’t met. I’m not donating.”
Um, yeah. He’d be booed out of town. And every other town. But we can just be disingenuous about it and ignore the obvious truths in our criticism. That’s fine.
Oh, and to answer the original question. If he simply jumped on Twitter and said “hey guys, I donated 10,000 to CHOP” people would find a reason to bitch about that too. WHY COULDN’T HE JUST DO IT QUIETLY HE’S SUCH A SELF-CENTERED JERK.
One of the biggest rebuttals from people is “he’ll probably give the money anyway”. If that’s the case then why the big charade? You’re admitting that more than likely the whole thing is a rouse so that Matt can pad his follower count and you, him and the sick kids can all feel better.
Just for posterity’s sake, making sure we print the ninth time Mr. Speedwagon makes the same argument.
Obviously Matt isn’t going to renege (I hope) if he doesn’t get the 10,000 followers (unless he has really bad PR advisers) and he will more than likely donate the money to charity regardless.It seems disingenuous …
Hey, we already used that word!
… to me to wrap up a gift to charity (which is good!) with a gimmick to increase your following. In the end I’d rather Matt makes his good gesture and tweets something that makes me want to follow him rather than pandering to the masses with a sense of guilt or obligation making them feel like they have to.
Again, and I feel like a broken record here, this wasn’t a gimmick. Or a charade. Or one of the nine other adjectives he used. If Mr. Speedwagon did the real research (meaning, not just using Thesaurus.com), he would’ve figured that out.
Instead, this comes off as just another case of somebody looking to complain about that something that doesn’t deserve to be complained about. Just another example of trying to find the negative in a story that has no negative qualities.
Matt Carle and all the other guys who have done similar things are just good dudes who want to have a little fun while giving back. Stop making them seem like rich frat boys who just want to boost their own persona. It’s not true.
Oh, wait. Damn. Matt’s up to 19 Tweets in the time it took to write this. What an egotistical asshole.
