Author's Note: I'm not trying to insult any of the sites that advertise on Whyville. They are all fun and pretty cool. I'm merely trying to make a point, please remember that.
Hey everyone, it's me, tfk again. Haven't written in a while, but when I noticed this, I had to share it. Have you noticed the ads lately? Sure, there's still the animated cartoon ones for Miss O and that one calling out to you to "send a dudemail". But recently, there have been some advertisements that caused me to think, are we maturing? And even more surprising than that idea, does Whyville notice and is Whyville trying to give us some opportunities to start a time of change? I'm not sure, but let's make this fun and put some lab coats on. Once you've disinfected your hands and put on your latex gloves, come with me and let me give you the evidence on file:
Exhibit 1A: Advertisement for Miss O and Friends
Exhibit 1B: Advertisement for the odd and yet strangely appealing Dudemail
Exhibit 1C: Advertisement for Code Lyoko
Okay, those are the exhibits for subsection 1, the ads we've had for a while. Let's see what we notice about them. Where's my clipboard? Ah.
- They are cartoons.
- They are colorful and cutesy and . . . well, immature. Nothing wrong with that, these sites are all pretty cool, but that's what I notice when I see them.
- Miss O? Dudemail? Cutesy x2. Wooow.
Now let's take a look at subsection 2, the newer ads that have been popping up. (Note: this is just a sampling. Not all of the newer ads were included in our study.)
Exhibit 2A: Advertisement for Boost Up
Exhibit 2B: Advertisement for Save the Wolves
Exhibit 2C: Advertisement for World Vision
Exhibit 2D: Advertisement for Women's Health
Now, let's get our our laptop. Who needs a clipboard. I did a little research on some of these sites, and they are in no way cutesy, kiddy, or cartoons. These are the real deal, guys, and Whyville wants us to be aware. Let's take a look at each of them in order:
Boost Up: Boost Up is a project to start talking to teenagers about high school graduation. A look at their web site says that four out of ten high schoolers do NOT graduate. What Boost Up is trying to do is raise money to help teens get what they need to stay in school, whether that be a home, support, a mentor, or whatever.
Save The Wolves: This is an organization that is trying to stop the massacre of wolf killing in Alaska. The Board of Game has given their consent to let hunters kill wolves in order to protect the caribou and other prey of the wolf, but in the mean time, the wolf population is quickly losing its numbers.
World Vision: World Vision is an organization that allows people to sponsor children in third-world countries who are living in the lowest of poverties. By donating monthly through them, you can support a child who is extremely poor and living off of virtually nothing.
Women's Health: The ad on Whyville is to promote particularly the study of migraines in order to prevent them, but Women's Health also does many other things. Basically, they are a group dedicated to studying diseases and illnesses in women in order to find out what causes them in order to create a solution.
Now, back to our good old clipboard. Let's review these things and compare them with our previous ads.
- Cartoons? No. These ads show shots of poor children, dwindling wolves, and other things that make you want to reach out and help.
- Colorful? Maybe, but not in the same way. Cutesy? Not at all. Immature? Most definitely not. These are the real problems in a real world.
- Helping poverty-stricken children, signing petitions to save the wolves, funding scientists to create solutions to women's diseases, and "boosting up" the percentage of high school graduates are noble and very mature steps to take. Let's do it!
Well, you can take off your lab coat now, we're done with our scientific studies . . . what is our conclusion? Yep, Whyville is giving us the opportunity to help, and they're offering us the potential to make a difference. They're giving us a chance -- are we going to take them up on the offer?
~tfklover
Author's Note: Credits: boostup.org, worldvision.org, womenshealthresearch.org, http://action.defenders.org/, whyville.net
