Long before the advent of reality television, the popular game show “ Queen for a Day ” thrilled American audiences by giving women who told heartbreaking tales of financial struggles a chance at winning expensive items that could help solve their problems. Throughout its 1956-1964 run, each episode featured contestants describing a misfortune that had struck them or their families, such as polio, rheumatic fever or hunting accidents. They asked for everything from bunk beds to beauty school tuition to improve their lot.
Eventually, a clap-o-meter would appear, superimposed over each woman’s face. The winner would be chosen based on the volume of the audience’s applause. She was crowned Queen for a Day and lavished with dishwashers, sewing machines and sofas, while the losers – and the millions of Americans who had tuned in on their TV sets – watched.
Today, something like that black-and-white TV show plays out nonstop, but on different devices. It’s the plot of GoFundMe , the world’s largest crowdfunding website for personal causes. The privately owned company says it helped people raise over US$30 billion in donations between 2010 and early 2024.
While that total sounds impressive, GoFundMe’s success leaves behind a trail of failed campaigns and disappointed users – a reality that the platform is designed to hide. The ‘Queen for a Day’ show obliged contestants to air their needs publicly. Behind the success stories If you open GoFundMe’s Discover page, you’ll find a cascade of misfortunes.
People from many walks of life use the platform to tell the public about the cancers and diabetes cases , house fires and other tragedies that have beset them or their loved ones. They ask for help paying for everything from medical treatment to college textbooks. A fundraising meter appears, usually next to a photo of the person seeking help, and gauges how the appeal has resonated with website visitors.
Winners go viral, blow through their goals and raise tens of thousands of dollars . Others hope the crowd will choose them next. We are political sociologists interested in how people across North America use digital technologies to cope with the high cost of health care and higher education.
As part of our research , we conducted 50 in-depth interviews and surveyed over 600 crowdfunding users between 2018 and 2021. We also analyzed data from nearly 2 million GoFundMe campaigns. In “ GoFailMe: The Unfulfilled Promise of Digital Crowdfunding ,” our book based on this research, we explain that behind GoFundMe’s winners, whose stories are paraded on the site’s front page and its podcast – “True Stories of Good People” – stands a long line of also-rans.
They raise almost no money this way but are put through an emotional roller coaster and give up a considerable amount of their privacy and personal data. Digital hurdles When these platforms emerged in the 2000s, crowdfunding companies promised to use the internet’s networking capabilities to remove gatekeepers and democratize fundraising , so that anyone with a worthy cause could access the money they needed. Far from this techno-optimistic vision , we find striking inequalities throughout GoFundMe’s fundraising process.
First, there’s the digital divide . Many low-income people simply don’t ask for help using crowdfunding because they don’t know about it, can’t reliably access the internet, or are too intimidated by technology. For those who can get in the virtual door, crowdfunding rewards users who already have many economic advantages in the offline world.
Wealthier people are more likely to be able to use online services, while poorer and less-educated users have a harder time marketing their misfortunes with compelling narratives, eye-catching photos and engaging videos. And crowdfunding works best when there’s a crowd willing and able to help, which usually begins with family, friends and acquaintances. But if your family and friends are broke, like you, then there’s little help to be had , no matter how good your campaign is or how deftly you promote it.
GoFundMe’s invisible majority We estimate that only about 17% of U.S. GoFundMe campaigns for health care and emergency costs meet their goal.
We’ve also found that most of the funds raised are concentrated among a very small group of campaigns. We saw in the data we analyzed that the top 5% of highest-earning campaigns claimed about half of all dollars raised on GoFundMe. Because relatively well-off users tend to be more successful at crowdfunding, such a disparity is likely to only worsen already high levels of economic inequality in the U.
S. Despite the company’s assurances that every worthy cause has a place on GoFundMe, most of its users simply don’t get the funds they need when they use the platform. But you wouldn’t know this from browsing GoFundMe.
Failure doesn’t sell. The droves of campaigns that never get off the ground are largely hidden by an algorithmic recommendation system that promotes the most successful cases to prominence while sweeping the rest into the platform’s search results. This appears to be highly profitable for GoFundMe, which earns revenue from fees and tips added to donations but leaves many users feeling disappointed and some even duped.
One user we interviewed, whose campaign for help with medical costs ended up not receiving a single donation, likened the experience to “shouting into that well of sadness, hoping people will see and hear you.” Asked for comment, the company said our book was “rife with misconceptions,” but GoFundMe didn’t provide any details about what the people who don’t meet their stated fundraising goals get from the platform. “We are constantly innovating our product to ensure more organizers achieve greater success,” GoFundMe added.
‘Queen for a Day’ 2.0? People have always asked for help, and every era has its way of deciding who gets it. In the 1950s, media companies experimented with new combinations of charity and entertainment and invented the TV game show.
We agree with critics who consider “Queen for a Day” to be among the genre’s worst exploiters of hardship for profit. The possibilities for companies like GoFundMe to use technology in new ways to improve people’s lives have never been greater. At the same time, the opportunities to profit from a crisis are also growing.
To fulfill crowdfunding’s democratic promise, we believe that GoFundMe should be far more open about the success of all its campaigns, including those that flounder. It could also do much more to make the platform more accessible to the people who are experiencing the most economic distress. Until it takes those steps, its users would be wise to proceed with caution – recognizing that behind every viral success lie countless untold stories of unmet needs.
Martin Lukk , Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology, University of Toronto and Erik Schneiderhan , Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
Read the original article . Since Donald Trump chose Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate , it’s been widely noted that Vance once described Trump as “ reprehensible” and “cultural heroin .
” However, the day after Vance won his own Senate race in 2022, he reportedly made it known that he would support Trump for president in 2024 . Given this dramatic change, what does Vance’s selection mean for the Republican Party and conservatism, the political philosophy that the GOP once claimed to embrace? I am a political scientist whose research and political analysis focuses on the relationship between Trump , the Republican Party and conservatism . Everyday citizens define conservatism in different ways, but at its root it is a philosophy that supports smaller and less-centralized government because consolidated power could be used to silence political competition and deny citizens their liberties.
Since 2015, Trump has tightened his grip on the Republican Party, moving it further away from its professed conservative ideology . The choice of Vance as Trump’s running mate – and the competition that preceded it – are the latest steps in this process. Political columnist George Will describes how Trumpism has steered the Republican Party away from traditional conservative views.
Vance came from a small pool of contenders that included other noteworthy politicians who likewise once vehemently opposed Trump. By examining their trajectories, we can see how the Republican Party has abandoned conservative values to serve a single man. Elise Stefanik Elise Stefanik ran for Congress in 2014 from a district in upstate New York as a mainstream Republican who admired Rep.
Paul Ryan of Wisconsin . Ryan was a traditional conservative who had run for vice president alongside former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012.
Romney endorsed Stefanik for Congress , saying that she was “a person of integrity. Every campaign is different, but values don’t change.” But Stefanik’s values did change.
When forced to share the ballot with Trump in 2016, she couldn’t even “spit his name out,” according to Republican consultant Tim Miller . But early in Trump’s presidency , she became a vocal ally, eventually replacing Rep. Liz Cheney as chair of the House Republican Conference in 2021.
House Republicans ousted Cheney from that position after she criticized Trump’s refusal to support the 2020 election results and his actions during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S.
Capitol . Cheney justified her opposition to Trump by highlighting her respect for the rule of law and support for limited government – even when those positions meant opposing her own party leader. These are foundational conservative principles, centered in aversion to consolidated government power.
This switch was a significant moment in the party’s ideological transformation. Stefanik’s rising star subsequently landed her in the mix for vice president, which she called “ An honor. A humbling honor .
” Marco Rubio Florida Sen. Marco Rubio challenged Trump for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. During that race, Rubio issued a news release calling Trump a “ serious threat to the future of our party and our country ,” and blamed him for ushering in a climate of violence .
Statements like these made sense coming from a serious conservative whose worldview was defined by his family’s Cuban heritage and who opposed communism, tyranny and excessive government power . Eventually, though, Rubio became a Trump ally. He voted to acquit Trump in his second impeachment trial in 2021, which centered on charges that Trump had incited an insurrection .
In line with Trump’s wishes, Rubio opposed establishing an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 events. In early 2024, Rubio was asked in an ABC interview if he really wanted to be vice president even though Trump had defended calls by Jan.
6 insurrectionists to hang former Vice President Mike Pence for certifying the 2020 election results. “When Donald Trump was president of the United States, this country was safer, it was more prosperous,” Rubio responded. “ I think this country and the world was a better place .
” This refusal to acknowledge and challenge Trump’s apparent support of lawlessness by his followers was an abdication of fundamental conservative values. Sen. Marco Rubio called Donald Trump ‘a con artist’ and a threat to conservatism in 2016, but sought to be his running mate in 2024.
Tim Scott South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott has touted his conservative values and principles throughout his political life. It was logical for him to endorse Rubio as Trump gained momentum in the 2016 Republican primaries.
In 2017, Scott insisted that Trump’s failure to condemn white nationalists after violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, compromised his moral authority . Not long after, however, Scott met with Trump about his comments and was convinced that Trump had “ obviously reflected ” on what he said. When Trump refused to flatly condemn white supremacists a few years later in a 2020 presidential debate, Scott suggested that Trump “misspoke ” and should correct the comments, but added, “If he doesn’t correct it, I guess he didn’t misspeak.
” After dropping out of the Republican primaries in 2024, Scott endorsed Trump as someone who could “ unite the country .” Why Vance? These converted Trump allies still hold modern conservative stances on issues such as abortion and health care . But in seeking to become Trump’s running mate, they tacitly endorsed an executive’s attempt to overturn a democratic election and subvert the liberties of U.
S. citizens. Such a shift violates the spirit of conservatism.
These politicians have also moved away from conservative principles in areas including U.S. foreign policy and immigration .
But the fundamental shift that is most profound is in their attitudes toward abuse of government power. What should we make of Trump choosing Vance, who once privately compared Trump to Hitler but now says that he would not have readily certified the 2020 election if he had been in Pence’s shoes? Many considerations affect the choice of a running mate. But Vance doesn’t represent a swing state .
He probably won’t appeal to MAGA-skeptical independent voters who have yet to make up their minds about who to vote for. Instead, people close to Trump call the 39-year-old Vance the new heir to Trump’s MAGA movement. Vance is more than a protegé, though; he embodies Trump’s influence on the Republican Party’s evolving relationship with government power and insists his political conversion is genuine .
If there was any speculation that Republicans would revert to some form of traditional conservatism after Trump leaves politics, the prospect of a JD Vance presidency makes clear that the answer is no. Karyn Amira , Associate Professor of Political Science, College of Charleston This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .
CONTINUE READING Show less Majdal Shams (AFP) – Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday vowed to "hit the enemy hard" after rocket fire from Lebanon killed 12 young people in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and again raised fears that the war in Gaza will spread. Iran warned Israel any new military "adventures" in Lebanon could lead to "unforeseen consequences". Israel's army called it "the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians" since the October 7 attack that began the war in Gaza and triggered regular exchanges of fire across the Lebanese border.
Israel blamed Lebanon's Hezbollah movement for the rocket fire but the Iran-backed group -- which has regularly targeted Israeli military positions -- said it had "no connection" to the incident. It came hours after officials in Hamas-run Gaza said an Israeli strike on a school housing thousands of displaced Palestinians killed at least 30 people. Israel said it was targeting "terrorists" operating from the school.
Netanyahu cuts short trip An AFP photographer saw medics carrying casualties on stretchers at the scene of the rocket strike, where dozens of residents had gathered in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights © Jalaa MAREY / AFP The rocket fire in Majdal Shams prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to return early from the United States to convene his security cabinet. "Israel will not let this murderous attack go unanswered and Hezbollah will pay a heavy price for it, a price it has not paid before," Netanyahu said. The Israeli foreign ministry said Hezbollah had "crossed all red lines".
Israel's military said later Sunday it hit Hezbollah targets "both deep inside Lebanese territory and in southern Lebanon". An Israeli drone fired two missiles at the village of Taraiyya in eastern Lebanon, destroying a hanger and a home without causing casualties, a Lebanese security source told AFP. Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant visited the site of the rocket strike, which the army said killed 12 young people at a football pitch © Menahem KAHANA / AFP Hezbollah has said its cross-border fire is an act of support for Palestinian Islamists from Hamas who have been fighting Israel' military since October 7 when they attacked southern Israel.
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead. Israeli forces near the site where the rocket fell in Majdal Shams © Jalaa MAREY / AFP Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,258 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.
The rocket strike on the Druze town of Majdal Shams hit a football pitch and killed young people aged 10 to 20, Israel's military said. Gallant visited the scene early Sunday, standing with security forces beside the mangled fence and abandoned scooters. Call for restraint In the wake of the strike, an AFP photographer saw medics carrying casualties on stretchers at the scene, where dozens of residents had gathered.
Intensifying exchanges of fire "could ignite a wider conflagration that would engulf the entire region in a catastrophe beyond belief," they said. The United States National Security Council condemned what it described as a "horrific attack" in Majdal Shams. The rocket fire on Majdal Shams came after an Israeli strike killed four Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon, prompting the militant group to announce a flurry of retaliatory rocket attacks against the Golan and northern Israel.
Lebanon's government called for "an immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts". Rhetoric on both sides escalated once again following the rocket strike. Palestinians following an Israeli strike on a school housing displaced people in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza © Eyad BABA / AFP "Any ignorant action of the Zionist regime can lead to the broadening of the scope of instability, insecurity and war in the region," said Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani.
Israel's Foreign Ministry called the incident in Majdal Shams a "massacre" that "constitutes the crossing of all red lines by Hezbollah" which the ministry accused of deliberately targeting civilians. Majdal Shams is a Druze town where many residents have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967. Druze traditionally follow an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
The violence since October has killed at least 527 people in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally. Most of the dead have been fighters but the toll includes at least 104 civilians. On the Israeli side, 18 soldiers and 24 civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.
'Madness' Most of the Gaza Strip's 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once during the war © Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP Tens of thousands of residents have been displaced from the border areas in both southern Lebanon and northern Israel. In a speech to the United States Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu said Israel will do "whatever it must" to secure its northern border.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said this month that if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza his movement would stop cross-border attacks. In central Gaza, the school strike on Saturday was at least the eighth on a school since July 6. It prompted European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell to call for a "political solution" to end the "madness" in Gaza, while Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said: "Targeting an area populated with displaced families is inhumane and despicable.
" Further south in the Khan Yunis city area, around 170 people have been killed "and hundreds wounded" in an Israeli operation since Monday, Gaza's civil defence agency said. CONTINUE READING Show less Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear drew standing ovations from the crowd Saturday at the Iowa Democratic Party’s Liberty and Justice Celebration event.
Beshear said the upcoming election would be vital to protecting Americans’ rights and keeping former President Donald Trump out of office. “Women’s rights are on the line, our economic recovery is on the line, the Senate and the House are on the line and the future of our sacred democracy is on the line,” Beshear said. Beshear, who is one of several high-profile Democrats being vetted to be Kamala Harris’s running mate, also took shots at GOP vice presidential nominee J.
D. Vance for his lack of conviction and his comments about his “origin story.” “He ain’t from Kentucky.
He ain’t from Appalachia. And he ain’t gonna be your vice president,” Beshear said. Vance’s book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” recounts his upbringing in Middletown, Ohio, largely by a grandmother who moved away from the Appalachian region of Kentucky.
Outside of the keynote speaker, Iowa Democratic leaders who took the stage bashed Iowa Republican policies. Officials criticized changes to the Iowa Area Education Agencies (AEA) and the anti-abortion law that will take effect Monday. Iowa Democratic Chair Rita Hart vowed that the November election in Iowa would be different, and that Democrats would flip many seats both at the state Legislature and in Congress.
State House Minority Leader Jennifer Konfrst blasted Iowa Republicans over their leadership of the state and said the crowd would change Republicans’ attitude. “Republicans feel like they’re going to be in charge forever. They vote like it and they act like it,” Konfrst said.
“It’s our job to tell everyone that that’s not true. We’re going to flip the Iowa House.” SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST.
DONATE Iowa Auditor Rob Sand criticized efforts by state leaders to reduce the power of state auditors and repeated his colleagues’ assurances that Democrats would win big in the upcoming election. “We’re going to move on and continue to build the power of the Democratic Party in the state of Iowa so that we can restore checks and balances and make sure that we have transparency and accountability and justice rising in the state of Iowa,” Sand said. Iowa GOP spokesperson Luke Wolff said in a press release shortly after the event ended that a “radical speaker” like Beshear did not belong in Iowa.
“He is a privileged, out of touch Governor with an awful track record, and his policies have absolutely no place here. It makes sense the Iowa Democrats look to him as an inspiring figure who fits their radical agenda,” Wolff said. Other speakers at the event included state Senate Minority Leader Pam Jochum, and congressional challengers Ryan Melton, Lanon Baccam and Sarah Corkery.
Beshear ended his speech with a call for unity and reiterated his endorsement of Harris. “This November, we’re gonna win and get back to being each other’s neighbors. We’re gonna get back to being Americans before we’re Democrats or Republicans.
We’re gonna get back to working together,” Beshear said. “What [Harris] will do as president is not move the country to the right or the left. She will move it forward.
” Beshear is expected to speak again at another rally near Atlanta, Georgia on Sunday. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUBSCRIBE Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence.
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