What is common to these videos is that these people try to act humble whilst acting generously to those in need. A well-known example of this is the ice-bucket challenge, where people had to nominate three of their friends to dump a bucket of ice-cold water on their heads and subsequently donate money and raise awareness for the ALS charity.Īnother good example is this 3-minute video where a man gives the waiter a $300 tip, after he asked the waiter how he’s doing. In these popular stories people who’ve met a person in need help them out but before they leave, take a selfie and post it online (Cummings, 2016). Recently, there’s been a new trend of social media users posting online how they’re performing good deeds. Examples are George Clooney addressing the UN, Nicole Kidman who spoke to the US Congress and perhaps the most famous example, Bono in Glasgow, intriguing his audience on stage by repeatedly clapping his hands together between songs and stating how every time he claps his hands, “a child in Africa dies." The term humanitainment is used to describe celebrities who perform attention-grabbing acts of generosity (Kapoor, 2012). Wishing your mom a happy Mothers day, even though she's not on social media It might be that social media, where people more and more often act and behave like they are celebrities, fulfill the job of humanitainment. Think of the bizarre phenomenon of people wishing their mom a happy Mother’s Day even though she isn’t on social media. Every life event, however irrelevant to their online audience, becomes a source of self-promoting content (Eror, 2017). They create an alter ego, the person that they wish they were, rather than who they really are (Maag, 2014).
Masses of people are exploiting generosity as a means to project an idealized version of themselves into the wide open. While the original goal of social media was to socialize and to maintain contact with others, people nowadays are more concerned with competing with each other for followers, likes, and retweets (Maag, 2014). From searching for the right angle to appear more attractive on Instagram or having it appear as if you're having more fun than you actually are, social media triggers the narcissist in almost everyone. Making a list of all the ways that social media has transformed our world would take ages. However, is it really kind-hearted charity or a humanitainment spectacle? Or, perhaps, both? I am a lean mean social media machine As a matter of fact, with his new music video for “God's Plan" Drake seems to try to achieve a new level of generosity. Nothing new, as we have seen how Good Guy Drake has performed numerous acts of kindness many times before, like when he bought a recording studio for an underserved school in Philadelphia. On Friday February 16, Drake delivered his highly anticipated "God's Plan" video, taking a nearly one million-dollar budget and giving it all to those in need in Miami.