How not to motivate people.

I was watching the news this morning and saw a story about this kid that's walking across Michigan (820 miles, for those interested) on a pair of stilts. He's doing this to raise money for cerebal palsy, a condition he actually suffers from.

Forgive me, but what the hell does walking on stilts have to do with cerebral palsy? Are people really going to see a man towering three feet above them with "Cerebral Palsy Fund" or whatever written on his pants and automatically pull out their checkbooks? Maybe I don't have the faith in humanity I should, but most people I know would probably think, "Huh. A guy on stilts. Shit, that reminds me. I need to get the hem taken out on my new pants." (Apparently, I only associate with other tall people.)

I sat next to this guy named Lewis on a plane from Cape Town to London. Lewis is a swimmer, and by that I mean, he swam across the English Channel as well as across the North Pole (in only a Speedo and swim cap). He's the first man to have completed long distance swims in all five oceans, and he once swam the entire length of the River Thames, hopping out only to run over to 10 Downing Street, meet with Tony Blair on how to move England towards a low-carbon economy, then hopped back in the river and kept on swimming.

(Quick side note: Lewis is enormous. I should also mention he was in the middle seat, which caused me to be crushed up against the window for twelve hours. It wasn't completely horrible because he was hot and interesting and has this retardedly sexy British/South African accent thing going on, but still. I don't care how charming you are, I have no desire to be smashed against anyone for that amount of time. The best part, however, was that his knees were jabbing into the seat in front of him, which was coincidentally occupied by none other than Lewis's college girlfriend. "You had better be thankful you had a friend sitting in front of you, Lewis," she said to him after we landed in this fabulously bitchy English accent. It was awesome.)

The point of all his swimming is to raise awareness of environmental issues that are affecting our planet's rivers and oceans. And again, I say, seriously? I'd be more likely to donate to his cause because he's hot and asked me to, than because he's doing all this swimming. Don't get me wrong, I think both the stilts and the swims are impressive in their physicality, as well as sheer idiocy. But there are other, better ways to motivate people to make changes. For example, I'd be more than happy to work on my carbon footprint in exchange for say...a brief make-out session with Lewis. Otherwise, why am I going to change a damn thing when the shitty state of our environment is keeping Lewis plastered across the internet in a Speedo? (Yes, kids, I'm just. that. selfish.)

And I'm speaking from experience. I used to drive a certain vehicle shaped like an enormous hot dog for the purpose of promoting a certain meat company. People would FREAK when they saw us, run up to the vehicle, look around, ask us for trinkets, etc. But did they immediately head to their nearest grocery store and load up on this certain meat company's products? They would...but only if we were giving trinkets away with a product purchase.

The bottom line is that Americans are lazy, selfish people. (Myself very much included.) So for the swimmers and stilt-walkers of the world, know your audience and put your efforts into things that will actually prompt change.

(You know, things like making out with me. Heh.)