Do you participate in these scams?

Ok, if you are not addicted to FaceCrack just skip this and move on to the next post.

If you do have a Facebook account perhaps you can explain something to me. Personally, I think it is a scam: clicking on some link a million times a day or putting a flower in someone’s pretend garden in an effort to make the world a better place. 

Seriously, I don’t get it. 

Sure, after someone sent me a gift whale I got a message to sent a sea creature “gift” back to save the sea, so I obliged. The next thing I know my facebook inbox is full of strange gifts from several friends that I needed to “accept” or “ignore”.

I like real gifts but fake tufts of grass and whales that look like stickers I collected in fourth grade (hey, whales don’t have teeth) really don’t make me feel special. In fact, I think a fourth grader made this stuff up.

Want to make me feel special for real and save the earth? Come over and cut the real tufts of grass that keep growing around my house with one of those old school blade mowers or take me out for sushi (I promise to only eat earth friendly fish). 

The second scam that perplexes me is all about “contributing” to causes like feeding starving people and reducing polution with a click, or two hundred clicks, of your mouse. A friend of mine signs up for a new cause to “donate” to every other day. She is super smart, works really hard, has a family and is a deeply compassionate person. She wants to do more to make our world a better place and clicking is easy and free-ish (only a slightly higher utility bill from additional time on the computer).

But I don’t get it! All I have to do to save the starving people in Darfur is click on a button I’ve added to my Facebook account? Will someone send them cans of Chunky stew and a can opener in a gift box? Hopefully, they don’t do an air drop.

Dishing out soup to the homeless (not my thing, actually) or mailing in my hard earned credit to a charity makes sense. “Making a difference” on facebook before, during and after dinner, by clicking on a drawing of a carrot to help feed the starving children in a country I know almost nothing about doesn’t make sense. Does it? 

The other day I am listening to NPR and they start talking about being able to donate with a click of the mouse. “Goodie!” I thought, they are going to do a news feature on this Facebook scam. Nope. They just wanted me to send money, my real money, and all it took was a click of the mouse. 

Everyday I feel like I am living a science fiction movie set in some bizarre twilght-zone-ish futuristic society. A society where we enjoy fake plastic plants (like the one behind our couch… you thought it was real, didn’t you?), fake twinkie food (sugar is one of my favorite drugs of choice), fake fires (ok the fire is real but the logs are fake) and fake donating (why have I been sending in real money?) just to make ourselves feel warm and cozy without any real benefits occurring. 

Speaking of, all this warm and cozy talk on a cool fall day has put me in the mood for one of those creamy International Foods flavored coffees, a fuzzy polyester fleece blanket and one of those modern fireplaces that I can hang on the wall. Maybe I should stop sending in real donations and get with the future of clicking. Click. Click, click for a friendlier, more beautiful virtual universe.