Celebs kills their digital selves

DIGITAL NEWS BITE: Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Usher yesterday signed off their respective social media profiles as part of a fundraising effort for Alicia Key’s chosen charity Keep A Child Alive. The deal is they won’t return to Facebook or Twitter until $1 million has been raised. I wonder if we donated $2 million if the c’lebs could be persuaded to stop incessantly rambling on Twitter for ever?

The charitable social media boycott was timed to coincide with World AIDS Day. Participating celebrities also recorded videos where they lay inside a coffin and announced their (albeit temporary) ‘digital deaths’. Keep A Child Alive co-founder and president Leigh Blake said the videos were tongue in cheek, but posed an interesting question, saying: “We’re trying to sort of make the remark: ‘Why do we care so much about the death of one celebrity as opposed to millions and millions of people dying [from AIDS and HIV]’”.

Posted Thursday December 2 2010 by Chris Cooke