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29/08/2012

Alicia Keys: Digital Death as a way to Save Lives

Alicia Keys co-founded a campaign in December 2010 to raise funds for fighting HIV in Africa and India. The title: "Digital Death - Keep A Child Alive". The rules of the game: Alicia Keys and other artists "kill" their online presence, their fans donate funds for treating HIV positive children in India and Africa in order to "bring them back to life", and once the donations reach the goal of one million dollars, the celebrities are "resurrected" and go back online.

While the participants were digitally "dead", they didn't update their Facebook and Twitter accounts, and their fans were left without the flowing updates they're so used to having. The fans were also invited to take part, by "sacrificing themselves" and "killing" their online personas, in order to help raise further funds. 

Instructions about how to make the "ultimate digital sacrifice" can be found here, and the pictures of the artists who chose to "die" in this campaign - among them Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Lenny Kravitz, Serena Williams, Elijah Wood, Kimberly Cole and David LaChapelle - can be found here.  

The pictures which formed this campaign are indeed troubling and eye-catching: 



It worked: in 6 days more than $1,000,000 worth of donations were raised. 

Lady Gaga couldn't miss out on an opportunity to wear a costume, so she went shopping dressed as a corpse, with makeup to match, during her digital deathness period. You can read about it in the Daily Mail Online here


Further details about this campaign can be found in the press release

Although it clearly wasn't what the campaign was about, I hope it helped raise awareness to digital death in general: if we realize that others - and ourselves - have digital personas which are important and meaningful to us, so much so that we're willing to spend money to keep it "alive", perhaps we will also realize it's important to manage it. 
And if I take this line of thought one step further: perhaps such a campaign can be used in order  to raise awareness to the subject. 

22/08/2012

Crowdfunding

On October 6th 2012 an international conference (or to be precise: an un-conference) will be held in London - the 5th Digital Death Day. This takes place twice a year, once in Europe and once in North America. 

I wish to take part in it, and since I can't afford to pay for my flight and entrance tickets, I'm asking for your help. 

If 36 4 people will each transfer 50 NIS (=12.5 USD, = 10 Euro), and 72 people will each transfer 25 NIS (=6.2 USD, = 5 Euro), it will reach the sum necessary for covering the minimal expenses: 3,600 NIS (3,200 NIS have already been transferred - thank you!). Oh, and two more people are needed for covering the fees charged by PayPal for these transactions.  August 28th updateThe goal has been reached: 3,600 NIS were transferred - thank you! I am very grateful for your support and trust, and I'm moved by it.  

If you can afford to take part and support this blog and this trip, I'll be very grateful. The PayPal button is here on the left. When you type the sum it should be 25.00 or 50.00 (and not 25 or 50). You do not need a PayPal account to make this transaction, by the way: only a credit card. 

I will use the money collected by this crowdfunding solely for the purposes of financing this trip. I will block the possibility to transfer funds once the necessary sum for covering the travelling expenses will be raised.  
If this sum will not be raised, I will refund in full all the money which has been gathered by that point. August 28th update: As the goal has been reached, I am taking down the button. I thank you all very much. 

I wish to make it very clear that although the PayPal button says "Donate", this is not a donation in the sense that I am not formally a non-profit organization (although this blog is for non-profit purposes), and I can't supply any receipts, let alone any tax-deductible receipts.