Kylie Jenner is set to become the world's youngest self-made billionaire. In fact, she is on the cover page of Forbes August edition this year. As reported by Ladbible over the weekend, people are so desperate to see her achieve that milestone, they are donating hard-earned cash to help her get there. What's more, there have been 13 thousand Facebook shares.
I seldom write opinion pieces because no matter which side you side with, there is a lot of lashback on social media these days. But hardworking people who can ill afford to make a rich person even richer, by donating their hard-earned funds simply blows me away.
Kylie Jenner donations mean her last hundred million won't be self-made
The worst thing about these donations is that if people donate money to help Kylie Jenner become a "self-made" billionaire, it's not "self-made." Have any of those people donating to the weirdest fundraiser in history understand that? The report on this came from a non-mainstream media article. Sadly, because it is not mainstream, there will likely not be a lot of coverage on it. (No thanks to Facebook with their shadow banning and even worse, bias against independent news sources).
On the Ladbible site a couple of days ago, writer Jess Hardiman noticed that a GoFundMe page had been set up to help Kylie Jenner reach her target of being the youngest female self-made billionaire in history.
Even so, they pointed out that she was hardly self-made through her association with the "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" reality TV show. But whether she gets the accolades from people who actually care about these things or not, it's shocking to see people who are breadwinners that are donating money.
The Go FundMe to make Kylie Jenner a billionaire
Thanks to Ladbible, we now know the GoFundMe fundraiser was set up by someone called Fat Jew, who seems to be based in New York. The fundraiser reads, "Kylie Jenner was on the cover of Forbes Magazine today for having a net worth of 900 million dollars, which is heartbreaking.
I don't want to live in a world where Kylie Jenner doesn't have a billion dollars. WE MUST RAISE 100 MILLION DOLLARS TO HELP HER GET TO A BILLION, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD, THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT."
As a person who realizes that there are actually more important social issues in the world than the size of a Jenner wallet, I laughed it off. But then I checked it out again, As Ladbible so diligently notices, people are actually donating funds to this campaign. (Ok not millions), but when you work hard for your cash, even a few dollars or pounds can hurt the pocket.
The Kylie campaign looks like this is the first one for the fundraiser
What makes this even worse, is that it seems to be the first fundraiser done by Fat Jew.
Are people so trusting that they can afford to fling money at someone with no evident track record? According to Fat Jew's profile, they have never raised or donated even one US$ and this is their first campaign. While people are mainly donating US$5 (£3.80), or ten, around £7.00 there is one donation for a thousand US dollars (£750). According to uniteforsight.org, it "costs just $10 (£7.00) to feed a boy in Kenya’s refugee camps for 3 weeks."
This means that with the amount of close to $2,000 (£1,500) raised in a few days, that 200 boys could eat for three weeks, or one boy would not go hungry for 200 days. It's a sad indictment on how culture has evolved in the days of social media. Even more astonishing, is that these donors live in a world where cons and scams are common.
Does Kylie endorse it? I doubt it.
£1,500 could mean the difference between life or death for dogs in shelters
The target is 100 million and so far only a fraction of that has been raised. But what boggles my mind, is that anything was raised at all. £1,500 could mean the difference between life or death for dogs in shelters. It could pay a game scout's salary for at least two months to save the rhinos. It could be far better used to raise funds for something cultural or humanitarian. The concept of paying money to a dodgy fundraiser to make a near-billionaire even richer is beyond my understanding. Sometimes, it's a good thing to be able to say, "thank goodness I live in Africa where perspective still remains in focus." For all the crime, the racial hatred, the politics, and double standards, at least Africa knows what matters and what is unimportant fluff.
