Celebrities & Kick-starter

             Recently, I have noticed an interesting trend that has been developing in the entertainment industry. On March 13 of this year, actress Kirsten Bell launched a kick-starter project to raise $2 million, which instead exceeded her expectation by reaching the highest kick-starter fund in history with a nearly $6 million-dollar funding. Yes, a celebrity took the initiative to seek over a million dollars from her fans, and now her project has been picked up for a movie deal. Now, only if she knew that her kick-starter success would cause controversy, maybe she would have taken a different approach. Before I move further, Incase you are not familiar with Kick-starter, it is basically a fund-raising promotion that provides social media tools to raise funds for creative projects via crowd funding that seek financial help. So, here’s the question that has raised many eyebrows in the community, should celebrities use kick-starter to fund projects? Is it wrong?           
           Since the success of Kirsten Bell’sfund-raiser on kick-starter, other celebrities such as Zach Braff, Luke Barnett and Tanner Thomason have also joined the trend, and not too long ago I realized on my Facebook newsfeed, actress Andrea Lewis, raised a little over twenty-thousand for her new web-series project. So, what’s the issue? Well, if you ask me, I think it can become a bad habit for society. I am not going to argue that their projects are not important enough for funding, but let’s be real, do they really need the money, or is truly a selfish and manipulative way to earn a little extra cash in their pocket? The questions can go all day long. I feel that instead of raising money for film and video projects, these celebrities should be using that money to help others instead. Why not launch a project for hurricane victims, poverty, charities, or just simply launch a project that can benefit someone that really needs the funding.
            Being the realist I am, I would say that it would be a huge risk; To be honest, people would rather fund a project like a comedy film sequel before even thinking to fund a project for a celebrity that wants to raise money for cancer research, and that’s just the reality of the situation. Now, this does not mean celebrities still should think its right to use their status to raise money for projects that really do not need funding. Celebrities must realize that they are role models for this society, and if people continue to follow this kind of funding trend, like the saying goes, the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer.