Perhaps you may have heard about a 12-year-old girl on Twitter who is battling stage 4 cancer and looking for 100,000 followers by the end of this year?
Many people have pressed the follow button to become followers of this little girl. Now she has already amassed more than 112,000 followers, including attention-seeking celebrities expressing themselves with tweets of a “How wonderful it is to be part of this” nature.
As for me, it brought certain questions to mind: “Are they sincere?” “Are they doing this to make the poor girl feel better OR to make themselves feel better?” When it comes to celebrities, most issues are related to publicity. Public image. Although there are a small number of celebrities who have made generous donations to worthy causes, would the majority ever think of sharing a small amount of their millions to help this girl to get the best treatment? We all know the answer to that one.
It would, no doubt, be hard to make a 12-year-old understand that collecting 100,000 followers is not, in essence, a true achievement or indication of support. It does not bring actual benefit to have 100,000 virtual people on her followers’ list. They would not be there, in the flesh, if she wanted their help. It is immensely tragic that she may believe by having so many Twitter followers it makes her feel loved or cared for.
I would not follow her because I do not want to deceive her or myself. I live so far away from her and I believe no amount of tweets in the world would benefit her. All I can do is pray for her to get better and stronger, both physically and emotionally.
It is painful to see celebrities seeking publicity through other people’s suffering, whatever justifications they may deceive themselves and other with. From her photo, the girl looks happy and that is wonderful. But that manifestation of happiness brings about a sad realisation: would those 112,000 followers (many of them appear to be adults) have followed her if she had been well?
I sincerely hope her family, friends and those who are close spend as much time as possible to her give her all the love, care and support she needs to warm her little heart. May God remove her from this plight by curing her and giving her a bright future ahead. 🙂