Why do Aid Bloggers get Snarky
Posted on April 29, 2010 at 10:38 am
I will admit to having an occasional snarky post and a few uber-snarky tweets that I usually end up regretting and deleting later (unfortunately now they’re immortalized in the Library of Congress). Yet in real life I’m not a particularly snarky person. So where does the snark come from? Tales from the Hood, Alanna in a UN Dispatch post, and Texas in Africa have all hit on many of the reasons for the snark. But in general it comes from frustration and the need to get your point heard.
The 1 million shirts debate is the perfect example of this problem. I have blogged about the problems of donated goods repeatedly over the last year. In fact my very first post ever was about donated sports equipment. I have written about problems with donated medicine, baby formula, and shoes. I’ve even held a contest for the worst in-kind donation and created a set of questions to ask before donating goods overseas. I have linked to industry standards as well as the recent PSA contest. And I’m not alone in these efforts. AidWatch, Blood and Milk, and Tales from the Hood have all posted repeatedly about the problems with donated goods.
My articles on donated goods have been linked to on CNN, The New York Times – twice, Foreign Policy, Money Sense, and The San Francisco Chronicle, just to name a few. I’ve also blogged about donated goods for The Huffington Post. I have written about the problems of donated goods so many times that it’s almost physically painful to have to sit down and write about them one more time.
Yet, despite all my time and effort spent calmly and reasonably educating donors and impromptu aid workers about in-kind donations, none of this has had the impact that a few snarky tweets and a blog post from Tales from the Hood has had on the public dialog. What I failed to do in 13 months of calm and reasonable dialog, J. managed to do in one day.
And this isn’t the first time that snark sparked conversations on aid problems. I wrote a calm and lengthy blog pointing out the bad donor advice that Nickolas Kristof was presenting to readers/donors. No response. Several months later I write a short, snarky post dissing his proposal for Teach for the World . From this I got mentioned in tweet from Kristof as well as a response on his blog. After trying several times to reach the Huffington Post on problems with their Impact section, I finally got fed up and wrote a four page annotated diatribe about all the misinformation in the Impact section. Because of this I was invited to blog for them.
So if we aid bloggers sometimes get snarky please realize that it’s not because we’re callous and don’t care. We’re actually getting snarky because we care so much. And no, we don’t think snark is the best way to change someone’s
opinion. But thus far it seems to be the best way, and sometimes the only way, to get the conversation started.
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hi!
I have been reading your website for quite some time and I very much agree with all the things you say. I am now writing a paper on the morality of in-kind donations and i am drawing inspiration from your website’s examples =)
I have always wondered what your opinion on microcredit would be.
microcredit is a total different approach to aid that encompass the idea that the people are the ones who know what they need and CREATE what they need out of their own hands. I find it fascinating how much of an impact microcredit could have to developing countries and i was just wondering your opinion on that.
thanks =)
Luna,
Microfinance has it’s own pitfalls, unfortunately nothing in aid is ever a sure bet. I’ve written two posts on microfinance http://informationincontext.typepad.com/good_intentions_are_not_e/microfinance/ I also suggest you read David Roodman’s Open Book Blog as it’s all about microfinance.
Cheers
“Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.” — Mark Twain
Katherine,
Great quote! Thanks
re: “snarkiness” – two points
1) The aid industry is a free-for-all made up by a continuum ranging from the very good to the very bad and the outright predatory. It should be a professional and regulated industry, as you correctly argue but at this point it is not and likely will not be in the near future. You are doing good work education-wise, but in some cases your message will never be received since you are challenging bases for existence and profit.
2) There is a a growing body of psychological literature about on-line discussions and the people who participate in them. One concept is ‘e-mail apnoea’. The argument is that when using the key-board people hold their breath and thereby restrict the flow of blood to their brain. This affects their judgement and will at times make them more aggressive in what is already a disinhibiting (due to anonymity and absence of in-person contact) situation. Based upon this, there is a tongue-in-check law (Gibson’s I think) that says that as an on-line discussion progresses the likelihood of a comparison being made to Hitler, or some other extreme straw-man, will approach one.
Dan,
I’m assuming there’s quite a bit of tongue in cheek about the apnea concept. I do agree that the anonymity of the internet does allow or lead people to say something they would never think to do face to face. Unfortunately, for the moment blogging is one of the few outlets I, and many others, have for getting donor information out there.
I quickly googled ‘email apnea’ (American spelling) and found plenty of hits. Huff Post has the following piece:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-stone/just-breathe-building-the_b_85651.html
Very interesting, I have to admit this is the first time I’ve heard of email apnea.