L’affaire déplorable du méprisable papa haricot would be the marquee exemplar of how graceless social media has made us that I would pick; alas not everyone is the same flavor of podcast geek that I am so perhaps this would not be something to which everyone could relate. (But it would dovetail nicely back to the thorny and as-yet-unresolved question of the Questionable Adequacy of Ken Jennings’ Apology.)
However, I think we’ve explored the topic well already recently (re: J.K.-Rowling-IP-derived-media-products-Rowling-didn’t-actually-participate-in and the Alloyed Motives Of MrBeast’s Charity). So I don’t really feel an imperative to write the essay. Sorry, folks.Report
To tie everything together in a nice little bow, there were a number of complaints about Buddy Christ 2023’s commercial during The Super Bowl that used Iscariot’s criticism:
Couldn’t you have used that money to help the poor?
Well, lemme tell ya: That criticism hits different after reading the criticisms of MrBeast.Report
Howso?
From my perspective spending that much money on evangelism is at best a waste, even (especially?) if it gains converts. Every penny of that well-but-very-delusionally-intentioned money would have been better spent on medical research (other good causes etc.).
But from a believer’s perspective, there are souls to be saved, souls in imminent and great peril. Evangelism is how those souls are saved from eternal damnation and hellfire. A few million dollars — temporary, ephemeral, inconsequential, earthly money — is a trivial price to pay in exchange.
And who the f[ish] am I to tell these people how to spend their money in the first place?Report
Eh. There are a lot of people out there with a hole in what they think is their soul and long for a community that they feel they ought to have.
“Hey, come to church” works for some small amount of people and googling something like “loneliness epidemic” will get you a bunch of weird articles that alternate between “young people are lonelier than ever” and a bunch of articles that link to this Cigna survey saying that Gen Z is lonelier than older generations are.
That’s really nuts because the younger generations are the ones that get forced into rooms with a couple dozen other people their own age (within a year, anyway) and that just pretty much stops happening after college.
So if you want to make friends and become part of a community… what do you do?
Well, don’t tell me. I’m part of one. The ones out there that don’t know? Well… here’s a commercial. Show up at church. We can get you started.
Lots of kinds of charity needed out there. Lots of needs being overlooked.
And there are a *LOT* of people out there who see stuff like “people trying to help other people” and get really, really pissed off about it.Report
Bean Dad’s great great grandfather.Report
L’affaire déplorable du méprisable papa haricot would be the marquee exemplar of how graceless social media has made us that I would pick; alas not everyone is the same flavor of podcast geek that I am so perhaps this would not be something to which everyone could relate. (But it would dovetail nicely back to the thorny and as-yet-unresolved question of the Questionable Adequacy of Ken Jennings’ Apology.)
However, I think we’ve explored the topic well already recently (re: J.K.-Rowling-IP-derived-media-products-Rowling-didn’t-actually-participate-in and the Alloyed Motives Of MrBeast’s Charity). So I don’t really feel an imperative to write the essay. Sorry, folks.Report
To tie everything together in a nice little bow, there were a number of complaints about Buddy Christ 2023’s commercial during The Super Bowl that used Iscariot’s criticism:
Couldn’t you have used that money to help the poor?
Well, lemme tell ya: That criticism hits different after reading the criticisms of MrBeast.Report
Howso?
From my perspective spending that much money on evangelism is at best a waste, even (especially?) if it gains converts. Every penny of that well-but-very-delusionally-intentioned money would have been better spent on medical research (other good causes etc.).
But from a believer’s perspective, there are souls to be saved, souls in imminent and great peril. Evangelism is how those souls are saved from eternal damnation and hellfire. A few million dollars — temporary, ephemeral, inconsequential, earthly money — is a trivial price to pay in exchange.
And who the f[ish] am I to tell these people how to spend their money in the first place?Report
Eh. There are a lot of people out there with a hole in what they think is their soul and long for a community that they feel they ought to have.
“Hey, come to church” works for some small amount of people and googling something like “loneliness epidemic” will get you a bunch of weird articles that alternate between “young people are lonelier than ever” and a bunch of articles that link to this Cigna survey saying that Gen Z is lonelier than older generations are.
That’s really nuts because the younger generations are the ones that get forced into rooms with a couple dozen other people their own age (within a year, anyway) and that just pretty much stops happening after college.
So if you want to make friends and become part of a community… what do you do?
Well, don’t tell me. I’m part of one. The ones out there that don’t know? Well… here’s a commercial. Show up at church. We can get you started.
Lots of kinds of charity needed out there. Lots of needs being overlooked.
And there are a *LOT* of people out there who see stuff like “people trying to help other people” and get really, really pissed off about it.Report