WARNING – POTENTIALLY HYPOCRITICAL BLOG POST BUT I HAVE TO GET THIS OUT.

I love attention. If I didn’t love attention I wouldn’t have a blog; I wouldn’t post on Facebook; and I wouldn’t go to my son’s class where I walk in and get hugs from a room full of sweethearts 🥰

But a trend I absolutely despise are the videos of people doing nice things for others and publishing it under the guise that they did it because they are kind and not because they want attention.

For instance:

You come across a video on Facebook with the clickbait “Look what these generous kids did!” or something to that effect (affect? Idk.)

A classroom full of kids chip in to buy the “poor” kid a pair of Air Jordans. Scrolling across the screen are captions about how the poor kid had been wearing the same beat up shoes for years. The background music is soft & slow to tell your brain that this isn’t a happy video, it’s a video that is supposed to tug at your heart strings (a la the show This is Us – sorry, TIU fans, you’ll never not hear that music in the background now. It’s kind of infuriating.)

The “nice” kid who came up with the idea presents the poor kid with the Jordans. The class gathers around with their phones out, waiting for the big moment while the nice kid makes a little speech. The poor kid opens the box and starts crying and thanking them. Everyone cheers and they all go in for a hug with the poor kid.

Let’s break this down, shall we?

It’s likely the nice kid saw one of these videos already – maybe even one where the participants didn’t know they were being recorded, and noticed that it got a million likes and shares.

Hmmm … so if I do the same thing, I will get a million likes and shares AND look really great while doing it? I’m in.

He starts telling everyone his plan but leaves out the attention part because he’s just a nice guy. They all chip in $6.00 ($150/20=$6) or part of their allowance that would normally go toward two 40s of St. Ides to drink behind Cheap John’s with their friends on a Friday night. (Oh wait, that was me in high school. Sorry, I’ll continue) …

Nice guy goes to the mall with his mom who is oh so proud of her son.

Yesss … brownie points with mom!

The next day, nice guy tells his teacher the plan. How can she deny nice guy the chance to do this benevolent act? She scraps her lesson for that period and sits back to watch the plan unfold.

Yesss … easy class today, no work! Just niceness! My classmates will love me even more.

They give the poor kid the shoes. He’s so ecstatic that he starts crying. Everyone is so happy! So nice!

Then the video goes viral.

The nice guy is lauded as the hero. But what about the poor kid? I can tell you with certainty that if I was in high school and there was a video of me going viral because I was too poor to afford a pair of shoes, I’d want the floor to swallow me up. And if ONE person witnessed me crying in high school, much less the whole world, I’d never leave my house again.

And what about his parents? Are they happy to now be known as the poor family that needed a classroom of students to chip in and buy their kid a pair of shoes? Maybe they’re not even poor! Maybe the parents were just like, “Hell no we’re not buying you a pair of $150 sneakers!” And this little fool went to school whining about it every day making the rest of the kids think he was poor.

Maybe I’m wrong about the whole thing. Maybe everyone is happy about the situation and I’m just a terrible, skeptical person. But my point is – if you really want to be kind, do it to make the person feel good and not so it gets you attention.

Of course there are exceptions, like when you’re trying to create an entire movement like Pay It Forward. If you didn’t tell anyone, it wouldn’t become a movement. But I don’t see a “Videotape me giving Jordans to poor kids so all poor kids can have Jordans movement” sooo…

I started off saying this blog post might be hypocritical because I’m sure after I hit publish I’ll think of all the things I’ve ever done that can be viewed the same way. But rest assured, if I’m buying Jordans, they will be for ME.

I’m already working on my next blog post: “Why am I so selfish?”