From 2006, when Li Yuchun's fans established the first fan public welfare fund in China, the "Love Corn Fund", to the "Fan Circle Girls" who jointly rushed to Wuhan during the new crown epidemic, the energy brought by "fan public welfare" is praised.
However, as the scale of "fan charity" grows larger, some problems have gradually surfaced, such as traffic personalization, credibility issues, and commercialization tendencies. In the past few days, the incident of "millions of fans and Internet celebrities accused of doing public welfare and collecting money" has also attracted attention from many parties.
As a vital force in social governance, how to guide the fan ecology and maintain the positive role of "fan public welfare" is a question worth exploring.
1
Fan charity, as the name suggests, refers to public welfare activities initiated or participated in by fan groups. Based on the fan group, it transforms the enthusiasm and strength of fans into public welfare actions and brings positive energy to the society.
The operation mechanism of fan public welfare is to transform the emotions of "idol-fans" into the dissemination of public welfare concepts and behavioral practices, and the goal is to establish the public image of idols. On the one hand, it reflects the attitude of fans to support idols and transmit positive energy through their own actions, and on the other hand, it also reflects the fan group's concern and sense of responsibility for social issues, which objectively spreads the concept of public welfare.
The power of fan philanthropy lies in its broad participation and strong cohesion. This strength comes both from a highly organized character and from a strong emotional identity.
Highly organized and spontaneous. Through social media, forums and other platforms, fans spontaneously form a public welfare team to jointly plan and implement public welfare activities. They have a clear division of labor, each performing its own duties, from event planning, fund raising, publicity and promotion to implementation, forming a complete set of operation system. This highly organized feature enables fan charity to quickly respond to social needs and effectively play a public welfare role.
At the same time, out of love for idols and concern for public welfare, fans spontaneously participate in public welfare activities, contributing people, money, and efforts.
Innovation and diversity. Fans not only pay attention to traditional public welfare fields, such as poverty alleviation, education assistance, environmental protection, etc., but also actively explore new forms of public welfare, such as online fundraising, public welfare live broadcasts, public welfare challenges, etc. These new forms of public welfare are more interesting and interactive, attracting more young people's attention and participation.
Emotional resonance and social value. It can not only express support and love for idols, but also dedicate love to convey positive energy, so fan charity can often arouse a wide range of emotional resonance. This emotional resonance will further strengthen the cohesion between fans and inspire more people to participate in public welfare causes. At the same time, fans can also continuously improve their sense of social responsibility and citizenship by participating in public welfare activities.
2
Recently, a blogger broke the news that Zhang Luwen, an Internet celebrity with millions of fans, used the public welfare activity "Guardian Flower Bud Plan" to defraud donations to collect money, which caused an uproar for a while.
The incident opened a corner of the phenomenon of fan public welfare. In fact, there has always been a problem about fan charity, and if it is not handled well, it will even affect people's confidence in the overall social welfare.
Personalization of public welfare traffic. In cases such as crowdfunding for serious illnesses and helping the needy, individual individuals, as the main body of public welfare actions, advocate the concept of public welfare and implement fund recruitment through commercial and open public welfare mobilization software, so as to complete the privatization of traffic while achieving the relief goal. For example, some celebrity fans have accumulated a group of fans and become Internet celebrities by organizing and participating in public welfare activities.
There is an imbalance in the allocation of public welfare resources. The Internet has made comprehensive public welfare the norm, but not everyone has the ability to use online platforms to speak out and obtain social support, so there is a strong dependence on Internet celebrities, anchors, "Internet influencers" and other groups, and the result is that online public welfare resources are often tilted towards network capital and opinion leaders with online mobilization capabilities.
It is difficult to organize and manage. With a large number of participants in fan charity activities scattered across different geographies and communities, it was a huge challenge to effectively organize and coordinate these participants to ensure the smooth running of the event. In addition, due to the nature of fan public welfare activities, it often involves the use and management of funds, which also puts forward higher requirements for the financial management ability of organizers.
The issue of credibility cannot be ignored. Because some criminals may use the name of fan public welfare to carry out illegal activities, some people have doubts about fan public welfare. In addition, some fan charity activities may have opaque information and mislead the public in the process of publicity and implementation, which also affects the credibility of fan charity.
The line with business interests is blurred. In the current business environment, some brands and enterprises may use the name of fan public welfare to carry out commercial marketing, bringing about problems such as "performance public welfare", "traffic public welfare" and "selling miserable public welfare" with the goal of traffic production and marketing publicity, such as "selling literature to save women", "Internet celebrity posing" and "malicious marketing". How to clarify the boundary between fan public welfare and commercial interests, and ensure the purity and public welfare of fan public welfare, is an urgent problem to be solved.
Source: China Volunteer Magazine
3
Standardized operation. Standardized operation procedures can ensure the fairness and transparency of public welfare activities and enhance public trust. Therefore, fan public welfare organizations should pay attention to establishing a sound management system and operation mechanism to ensure that public welfare activities are carried out in an orderly manner, prevent moral kidnapping, comparative consumption, hype topics, and crowding out public resources in the name of public welfare, and guide the formation of a positive and positive public welfare public opinion atmosphere based on the "idol-fan" relationship, so that fan public welfare becomes a beneficial increment of social public welfare.
Moderate pursuit of traffic. "Traffic public welfare" often only focuses on short-term popularity and exposure, with the purpose of attracting attention, creating "advertising space", and gaining topic popularity. The essence of fan charity lies in the word "public welfare", and if you lose your respect and awe for public welfare, you will not get positive feedback from the public if you use public welfare as a tool to support idols.
Be wary of commercialization tendencies. Many "Internet celebrity philanthropy" often link public welfare activities with commercial interests, and enhance their popularity and commercial value through public welfare activities. This tendency towards commercialization can easily lead to public skepticism and distrust of public welfare activities. Therefore, fan charity should maintain the independence and autonomy of public welfare activities, avoid linking with commercial interests, and ensure the purity of public welfare activities.
Continuously innovate and expand the form and content of public welfare activities. With the continuous development of society, the scope of public welfare has also been expanding, in addition to the traditional perception of donations and materials for assistance and environmental protection, there are also public welfare classes, exhibition services, network supervision, agricultural assistance and other aspects. Fan groups are very active groups, like new things, and pay attention to the sense of experience, so fan charity should combine social hotspots and needs, and constantly explore new ways and methods of public welfare to attract more people to participate in it.
Pay attention to cultivating fans' awareness of public welfare and sense of responsibility. Fan non-profit organizations should not only focus on online, but also on offline public welfare activities, so that fans have more opportunities to experience the meaning and value of public welfare, which will help enhance their awareness of public welfare and sense of social responsibility.
Although fan charity has distinct spontaneous characteristics, the government, enterprises, and media can also make a difference in better guiding the development of fan charity. Through encouragement, participation, cooperation, etc., guiding but not leading, will help fans continue to release positive energy without deviation.