Carrie Bickmore doesn’t deserve this

CARRIE Bickmore was slammed by critics for promoting her charity on Monday night’s show. How dare people criticise her for that.

OPINION

“A flower does not think of competing to the flower next to it. It just blooms,” goes the old saying. Well, that flower obviously wasn’t on social media in 2017, where everything — and I mean everything — is a competition.

No story, no idea, no person, no issue can escape being jammed into “us versus them”.

Not even charity fundraisers are exempt.

Yesterday evening, as reported by news.com.au, it was the “battle” of the beanies on TV. On Channel Ten, The Project host Carrie Bickmore was promoting a new range of beanies that her charity, Beanies 4 Brain Cancer has just released.

Over on Seven, Neal Daniher’s annual Big Freeze was broadcast live from the MCG and bright blue beanies sold in support of the annual appeal to fund research into motor neuron disease.

By anyone’s measure this should be a gloriously good news story: Two charitable organisations were supported by (a) the might of major television networks and (b) the glamour of celebrity, to raise much-needed funds for potentially lifesaving medical research. How absolutely excellent is that?

But of course, that’s not how the internet reacted.

The concurrent sale of winter headwear was more than enough for social media users to pit the two charities against one another.

The critics largely took aim at Bickmore, who was accused of hijacking publicity for the Big Freeze, which is held at the Queen’s Birthday weekend match between Collingwood and Melbourne each year. Bickmore’s parallel fundraising efforts were variously called “disappointing”, “inappropriate”, “insensitive”, “arrogant” and even “disgusting”.

I mean, seriously. Carrie Bickmore is a person of impeccable character, with a heart roughly the size of a small planet.

Each week she delivers news with her trademark generous interpretation, regularly covering charitable causes that wouldn’t otherwise receive much attention. In fact, only a week earlier The Project team had covered the Big Freeze, encouraging their audience to attend and get involved.

For Bickmore to be pilloried for promoting a cause so close to her heart (her late husband Greg died of brain cancer in 2010) is awful.

Tonight, new @carriesB4BC beanies go on sale! Head to https://t.co/QNTq8qlMY8 from 6:30pm (AEST) to pick yours up! #TheProjectTV pic.twitter.com/OE7v6mztkv

— #TheProjectTV (@theprojecttv) June 12, 2017

To suggest that some sort of publicity-grabbing sneakiness was at play is laughable. Sadly, the online reaction is entirely reflective of our society’s current obsession with framing every situation as an artificial competition. Of making everything a zero sum game.

Whether it’s in the media, or online, at work or just sitting on the park bench watching kids play at the park, everyone seems to be talking in dichotomies.

We express ourselves in black and white, in either/or, as if choices and issues are absolute in their ‘rightness’ and ‘wrongness’. Truth and empathy are sacrificed in the pursuit of constructing two sides when there don’t have to be.

So while I am sure there are people out there who genuinely have a preference for Carrie’s pink beanie with a fluffy pompom on top, over the bright blue of the MND fundraiser (or vice versa) — that’s hardly the point, is it?

We’re not buying the beanies because we’ve got a commercial need that must be met. The beanies are simply vehicles for donating to causes we think are important. Purchasing one doesn’t mean you can’t purchase the other, and purchasing either one is still better than purchasing none at all.

Watching the beanies conversation unfold online last night was like being a spectator in the vicious Olympics of Heartbreak. It seemed like people were trying to one-up one another, claiming that their pain, their loss, their loved one, their cause was somehow more deserving than another and forcing anyone who would listen to choose.

Surely, it’s possible — even desirable — for more than one cause to be dear to you.

This isn’t to say that charitable organisations aren’t brands like any other. They exist in a crowded marketplace, where it’s hard to get attention. It’s hard to make a noise that can be heard above all the other noise.

Stunts, celebrity, media and viral videos are key to being a successful charity in 2017. And as philanthropic giving falls across the developed world, charities are fighting harder than ever for donations.

But just because they’re fighting, doesn’t mean they must therefore be fighting one another. Rather that considering donations to brain cancer research and MND research as mutually exclusive — surely we could be talking about how to grow donations as a whole?

The question shouldn’t be who copied whose campaign or who stole whose day or which disease is more worthy of research dollars. The question should be: how do we encourage more Australians to give to charity in the first place? And how do we encourage those who already give but are in a position to give more, to do so?

Or, put another way, how do we plant more flowers for us all to enjoy?

You can donate to Beanies 4 Brain Cancer here or for the MND Big Freeze here (or why not support both?)

Jamila Rizvi is writer, radio presenter and news.com.au columnist. Her first book, Not Just Lucky is now available for pre-sale. You can also follow her on Facebook and Twitter.