[ Note- YouthAIDS has since corrected some things on the blog.........]


New York Times Article on ThinkMTV


In the world of business, a company can use another's design, approach, membership, and just about anything else, with little redress.

However in the world of non-profit, especially non-profit that seeks to eradicate poverty and embrace global activism, we work collaboratively toward common objectives.

Therefore it's quite sad that MTV has morphed from its once progressive, underground, and radical youth beginnings, into just another corporate giant focused on global advertising, consumerism,
and competition. It's dishonest that they copied TakingITGlobal and even proposed to collaborate with them in order to gain information on how they operate, and then built their own new, for-profit site, ThinkMTV. (As if we need another social networking site!)

No doubt MTV, especially Staying Alive Foundation, has done great good in the world, especially regarding AIDS. However time and again we see that it's going down the road of self-serving, competitive initiatives that proliferate in the youth world.

Such groups may have a lot of money, but some know next to nothing about the issues they champion (for example, see YouthAIDS Executive Director's blog in which she claims "throughout Africa there is a 30% prevalence rate")

Kate Roberts' blog

I'm tempted to ask, what type of "civic engagement" can MTV really produce? The image I have in my mind is of superfluous paris-hilton type beauty queens who are hoping for "world peace." Is this
for-profit site going to achieve anything besides its advertising dollars?

The site is clearly geared toward US students who think it's cool to talk at the very most superficial level about global issues. To "Save" the Africans... It seems to have been written by Americans/ Westerners for Americans, yet claims to have a global scope. Their buzzwords that appear on the site are a dead giveaway- "Minority" presumably alludes to non-white populations (a.k.a. the majority of the world?) And the snippets from other sections focus on American celebrities such as Kanye West and on the health section, a feature on Jay Z.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of the site is the "Get Rewarded" section. It is an uniquely American ethos that material gain is the only incentive for looking outside of oneself. The site does little to promote sharing or community, but rather promotion of the individual in a meaningless world of interactive media overload.