Do Silly GoFundMe Pages Detract from the More Serious Ones?

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A GoFundMe page based on the the film The Martian was established to bring Matt Damon home from Mars

Do you wish complete strangers would chip in for your new Mustang? Are you stuck with an ancient PS2 when you’re entitled to a new Xbox One? Are you desperate to make money but too lazy to get a job? If you answered “yes” to any of the aforementioned, you’re not alone. In fact, there’s a platform called GoFundMe that can help you.

Many instances of GoFundMe “abuse” are a result of feeling the need for luxury products. For example, a page was started for a boy who was getting bored of his Playstation 2. He, most tragically, did not have an Xbox One like the cool kids. His friends wanted this to change. To end his sorrow, they started a GoFundMe page which actually raised at least a portion of the money needed to purchase the PS2.

In another instance, a man’s friends started a page to buy him a new hat. They stated that “his current headgear is, frankly, awful.” The purpose of this page is to rid him of his horrible accessory and get a replacement. The page was started on December 10, 2016 and has raised over $60.

Not all hope is lost, however. There are other instances in which the cause driven by the page is worthy, even if it has outlandish origins. There was a girl in Tennessee who was financially cut off by her parents. What could have been their reasoning? It was because they discovered that she had an African-American boyfriend. This was apparently enough to potentially stop her from attending college. That did not stop her. She managed to raise $12,000 to pay for her college tuition through GoFundMe.

A very worthy cause took the internet by storm through GoFundMe quite recently. Lazytown has been a very popular joke of the internet lately, thanks to the show’s goofy songs and its poor excuse for a villain, Robbie Rotten. Stefan Karl Stefansson, Robbie Rotten’s actor, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. A page was created on October 10, 2016 to raise money for his recovery. There have been over 20k shares to this page, due in large part to internet memes. The $100k goal was surpassed, helping Stefansson recover from his cancer treatment. Memes really do save lives.

Pages that seem unnecessary are certainly amusing to search through, but they can also be slightly damaging to the platform’s reputation. Despite the ludicrous causes that are given pages, GoFundMe can be a way for families to afford things that are necessary to them. It has been used to fund memorials, pay off accident expenses, pay for education, and so much more. However, people continue to look to the website for other reasons, earning lots of laughs from across the web.

One would not have to search far too find some pretty ridiculous pages. Would it make more sense to put tighter restrictions on the kinds of pages created, or is it more interesting to watch people self-indulge? It simply depends on what one is looking for from the platform. For this reason, GoFundMe remains a simultaneously helpful and hilarious site.