Geeks, Charity, and the impact of Reddit

When Digg migrated to Microsoft for advertising a few years ago, I took a personal stand and left. I was desperate to find a home on the internet again and came across reddit.com The site spoke to me! Clean, unobtrusive, geeky, and best of all…open source. In 2007 there wasn’t as many of us around and while the community was great it pales in comparison to 2010. The diggv4 snafu has increased the communities size and the old-timers made sure to welcome them. Posts were created outlying the type of culture fostered here rather that from which they were coming. To all who joined this year…thank you…the threads below epitomize your willingness to join us in being Good Geeks. We often get a bad wrap, but for the most part we are a cheerful crowd. Here is some proof from 2010, but this isn’t even close to being the full list. Feel free to leave me comments here or on the intertubes where you found this:

• Poor sister bought me games for Christmas for a System that I do not have. Don’t have the heart to tell her that she bought something I can’t use.
  • Not only did a redditor send him a GBA system, but the team pitched in and got them a tree too!
• Please help me reunite with my family for the holidays. – A redditor PAYS for his flight home
  • A redditor pays for his flight home to see his family
• Redeeming Myself: I AM a kidney donor. I always will be. My father-in-law is sick and I only wanted to boost his spirits. I did not lie. Not one bit. Here’s the proof.
  • Over 5000 dollars donated to the American Cancer Society and it spurred the next on my list…
• The same anonymous Redditor who donated $3700 to the American Cancer Society just donated $5000 to r/atheism’s Doctor’s Without Borders fund! – 45k total raised at last count!
  • 45,000 dollars raised is no small amount. What really makes me excited about these threads are that the donations are almost always anonymous.
• Redditor bails out student jailed for filming police.
  • Say what you will about the situation, but the kid did not need to be in jail. The reddit.com community agreed and one great guy bailed him out.
• Can we please make this guy the happiest person ever for a day?
  • Joint 4chan/Reddit effort. A grandchild of a 90year old WW2 vet made a poster stating “WANTED – People for Birthday Party.” Someone took a pic with their camera phone and started Operation: Strangelove. They found the family and the community decided to send cards and throw this guy a super party. After they successfully filled the awesomeness quota for this guys party, they began donating to local VA charities.
• For every upvote I’ll donate $1 to charity (please read inside)
  • 2280 upvotes and dollars submitted :) Childreach.org.uk the chosen charity
• Reddit- Help me find her killer, please.
  • People don’t realize how many digital traces of themselves are online. This thread exposes every single one of them. Through the hard work of reddit and law enforcement the guys is in jail.
• I need some help from Colorado Redditors. Westboro Baptists intends on protesting my friend’s funeral tomorrow…
  • A Brother in Arms was killed by a rocket attack in Iraq. She was on her last month of duty. The Westboro Baptist Church decided to be douche bags again and protest this girls funeral. A redditor who served with her and who was still in Iraq made a call for help. Coordination FTW
• Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria! r/Atheism and r/Christianity have a friendly competition up for a holiday charity drive that is spilling over into other subreddits. Please check out the details inside.
  • EvilSchwin sums it up best: “Finally, a holy war I can get behind.“

My Personal Favorites:

• Breaking! Colbert Rally is confirmed for October 30, 2010. Just announced by Jon Stewart!
  • Over $500,000 donated to Schools and Students. That my friends is the real story. The next runner up after we wiped the floor with everyone was Hillary Clinton with 35k. What made me smile about this story was the fact that to get Stephen Colbert’s attention we didn’t hack his website, hunt him down in the middle of the night, or humiliate him for fun and pleasure. Nope we raised so much money it became a news story, one worthy of Truthiness and Coverage.
• REDDIT: I own a toy store near the 7-year old being taunted by her neighbors…
  • This poor girl was TORMENTED this poor girl who was dying of Huntington’s Disease. They were posting pictures on her facebook of “skull and crossbone” and went as far as to hitch a coffin to a pick-up truck in front of her house. If there is one thing you don’t do is piss off a group of geeks. Reddit jumped into action and a few weeks later a limo showed up with toys for her and other sick children. In addition the community reached out to vendors and local companies to pitch-in. The list is too long to put here, but stop by the thread to see what all was given. She had the best day ever.
• Look who is going to Haiti to aid today … nice effing job reddit! More than 77k donated already!
  • End result was over 125k donated to a charity that gave 98% of the money to Haitians in need. Also the thread is fricken hilarious remind us all that our cynicism and cheesy humor are okay to display even when helping.
• $100 Paypal offer. I just returned from a deployment to an empty house. My son is away with the ex-wife. My immediate family is scattered around the globe.
  • This one just hit close to home coming from a long-line of military men. The thread was a display of class as the guy took what was a horrible situation and gave.