Numbers Don’t Lie: Celebrities Are Effective Messengers
Celebrities have been backing charitable and social causes for decades, frequently prompting critics and doubters to question the famous folks’ motives and who the true beneficiaries of their involvement are.
If the numbers are any indication, the causes and charities are the true winners.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Emma Watson have appeared in countless headlines this week, not for their acting prowess or upcoming film projects, but for their personal involvement in United Nations-related projects.
The Hollywood heavyweights are the most recent celebrities who have put causes, in this case reducing our carbon footprints and feminism, at the forefront of their agendas and in turn, have successfully raised awareness by making them household terms and the subjects of countless water cooler conversations.
To put their impact into perspective: A Wednesday Google News search of “Emma Watson women’s rights’’ returned 117,000 results; “DiCaprio climate change’’ pulled up 84,200.
When he isn’t acting, DiCaprio is one of the world’s most vocal and visible champions of climate change solutions. He even established a namesake charitable foundation in 1998 which devotes efforts to “providing grants to innovative, results-driven initiatives and media efforts that inspire the public to make a difference in the fight to protect our planet for future generations.’’
This summer, the first-ever LDF gala raised more than $25 million to protect “Earth’s last wild places’’ and to implement “solutions to build a more harmonious relationship between humanity and the natural world.’’
This week, the Academy Award-nominated actor has been in New York for the UN Climate Summit, where the recently-dubbed United Nations Messenger of Peace spoke in his first official UN role on climate change.
On Sunday, DiCaprio marched through the streets of Manhattan with a People’s Climate March group measured at 400,000 people — quadruple the originally estimated turnout.
That night, he was given a Clinton Global Citizen Award for his philanthropic efforts to protect and preserve the planet, where World Wildlife Fun CEO Carter Roberts said, “Now more than ever nature needs a voice. Leonardo DiCaprio is that voice.’’
In August, the “Inception’’ actor narrated “Carbon,’’ a nearly nine-minute documentary about carbon-based forms of energy which “cause climate change’’ urging people to “fight to keep carbon in the ground.’’ The video which uses only his voice has been watched close to 60,000 times on the Green World Rising YouTube channel.
DiCaprio invited some of his “friends from Alberta’’ to partake in the ALS Ice Bucket challenge with him on Aug. 25, before challenging the Candian Prime Minister to join in, too. He was at Canada’s Lake Athabasca to learn about Canadian tar sands and its impact on the climate, lands, water, and health of the indigenous communities that live there.
The #IceBucketChallenge video was liked more than a quarter million times. Imagine how many of those quarter million people were familiar with Canadian tar sands before watching DiCaprio’s video. Now imagine how many searched for them after.
Watson is effectively raising awareness for another cause entirely: women’s rights.
On Saturday, the actress and UN Women Goodwill Ambassador kicked off the HeForShe campaign at the U.N. Headquarters in an effort to “fight the inequality women face globally.’’
During her speech, she told the crowd (and eventual viewers of a video of her appearance): “I want men to take up this mantle so their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human, too and in doing so, be a more true and complete version of themselves.’’
The nearly 12-minute speech has since been watched more than 324,000 times on YouTube.
Since Watson put a face to the campaign, the #HeForShe hashtag has flooded Twitter with tweets about women’s rights from users writing in different languages, from foreign countries, and from a slew of backgrounds.
Watson’s own Facebook post about the campaign, which contained a link to the speech video, garnered more than 116,000 likes and was shared more than 22,000 times.
Proving that the campaign was a spark for conversation, Slate’s Phil Plait responded to the campaign with a post titled “I Stand With Emma Watson,’’ and picked up more than 2,000 comments and more than 10,900 shares on Facebook.
The numbers don’t lie. From the funds rasied to fight climate change, to the folks sharing Watson’s Facebook post, it’s evident that celebrities are effective voices for causes and organizations which they personally champion.
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