This is probably going to be a slightly controversial blog. Only because if you do not know me then it may sound like I am being disrespectful or unsympathetic. I am not; this is just how I view it, please do not take it as a negative account.
My first gripe is with charity advertisements.
Of course I understand why charities exist, and I do not envy people who stand on streets trying to raise money. I know that many members of public are rude and ungrateful and I always endeavour to be that sort of person. However, what charities do not always understand is that there are thousands of charities, millions of people, and not all all of those have money.
I am a student. I work hard, and any extra money I have I use to buy food, the odd item of clothing or presents for my friends and family. I also put petrol my my nearly new green Mazda 2 - which I bought with money I inherited from my Grandmother. As I mention whenever someone challenges me on affording my car - I would swap it for my Grandma any day.
I do not live excessively, I do not feel I waste money and I work very hard for the money I do have. Each year I volunteer at a Christian Camp in Swanage, where, since the age of 16 I have donated at year £60 to their chosen charity. I did once end up speaking to a lovely man on the highstreet who was so nice I did end up donating to a deaf children's charity, however I cancelled my direct debit as at the time it came out when I had run out of money and I ended up being charged £30 by my bank on two occasions, which I simply could not afford.
When I have a full time job, one of the first things I am going to do is research charities, and chose one that is important to me and I feel needs my help, and I will set up a money or weekly direct debit to them. I promise that. However I am not financially secure enough to commit to this, especially as there's no predicting water bills or electricity bills when you're renting as a student, and you need to have spare cash in case (touch wood!) something integral, such as my laptop, decides to die.
So why on earth so I feel like I am picked on and victimised when I am in my own home? What right to television advertisers (particularly charity ones as they last longer and are more emotive than others) to make me feel like I am a terrible person because I am not giving a pound a week to a donkey charity, £3 a week to Water Aid and £5 a month to some sort of cancer charity? It's not because I don't care, it's because even if I did have the money I couldn't possible support ALL the charities.
Yes I realise the irony that I am in my own home with a television and such. But I am not going to live like I do not live in a Western society just because there are some people who do live in poverty. Nobody with the opportunity does that so it doesn't make it a bad person to do so either.
My second gripe is with Newsworthy-deaths reported in the press. Every single time a celebrity dies, a few people pipe up to say how everyone cries when one person dies, but when there's thousands of children dying in a third world country, or 6 soldiers die fighting for our country nobody cares.
This angers me for so many reasons. Firstly, when my grandmother died, I did not expect anyone who didn't know my grandmother to mourn her loss. Even if it had been in circumstances which had reached the press, I would not expect anyone to feel bad for her passing away.
The reason people publish about celebrities is because not only do they know them (not personally, clearly), but often their music/talent/presence has had a profound impact on somebody's life. Or even a small impact, because you like the song or you like a movie they were in.
Secondly, it's because these people are doing the same as the charity advertisers - making people feel like they are bad people. And worse still, people they actually know as well. I know a few people in the army, although no one I would consider a particularly close friend. However if someone I knew passed away or was killed, it would have an impact on me. I wouldn't necessarily cry, and I didn't cry when Heath Ledger or Stephen Gately died.
Humans are capable of empathy, but most of the time that is concentrated on parts of life you actually have a connection to. A girl was killed in a car accident round the corner from my ex-boyfriend, she went to a local grammar school and my dad knew one of her friends. I do not know her but I got a knot in my stomach when I heard the news. The same when sexual assaults happen in Southampton, I feel differently about those to ones that happen in other parts of the world.
This does not make me a bad person. It's just how human nature works.
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