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Enter a social contract with a needy child today! (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
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I got the ad pictured in frame 2 today and it made me sad, so I made this meme. So many levels of sad:

  • Sponsored ad for a charity, plausible but seems fishy.
  • The needy children are positioned as "earning" the food and education they will get by your donation by writing back to you. Just way too overtly transactional.
  • The advertising tactic seems to prey on the lonely.
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[–] 7 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Traditionally a lot of these sponsorship charities only had a few dozen kids' profiles that you'd choose from to "sponsor", since the logistics of cataloguing and maintaining every individual would have been completely impractical. So little Miggy would have ten thousand different people all thinking they were sponsoring him personally, but in reality he was only ever a stock photo to begin with.

I can only guess how much more insidious this will have gotten in the AI age.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Assuming the charity is managing the money appropriately and donating it, is it insidious at all to use a stock photo?

    Like it's insidious that we live in a world that to donate people feel like they need recognition from the hungry child. It's more insidious that there are hungry children at all of course

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