Serena Williams digitally dead on Twitter, Facebook
In a move which had fans confused between pride and frustration over the former World Number 1, American tennis pro Serena Williams killed herself – or rather, killed her @serenawilliams Twitter and Facebook accounts.
While the purpose of such a move may disappoint many fans, especially those who are used to her normally regular updates, no one can deny the younger Williams sister’s generous spirit. Her charity work began almost a decade ago, when she was awarded a Celebrity
Role Model Award from Avon Foundation as a tribute to her work for breast cancer research. In the same year, she won the Young Heroes Award, presented to her from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater LA and Inland. The year after that in 2004, Williams was
awarded the Family Circle and Prudential Financial Player Who Makes a Difference Award.
In 2009, Serena Williams contributed to the education of young African children by funding the Serena Williams Secondary School in Matooni, Kenya. This year, after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Williams and many other players from the ATP and WTA gave up their
last day of preparation for the year’s Aussie Open to instead hold a charity event in which a hundred percent of the proceeds went to the earthquake victims of Haiti.
Now the tennis star, who won Wimbledon this year, has joined many other celebrities who have killed their online personalities. This is in order to commemorate and remind people of World AIDS Day, held on the 1st of December. Serena, along with
her other celebrity supporters, have stopped updating their online accounts until a total of one million US dollars is raised for victims of the auto-immune disease in Africa and India. The campaign is known as “Buy Life”, and fans may donate a minimum amount
of ten US dollars to the cause by texting “Serena” to the number 90999.
Other celebrities who are also contributing to the movement by shutting off their online lives are American Idol host Ryan Seacrest, R’n’B singer Sean "P. Diddy” Combs, heiresses and sisters Kim and Khloe Kardashian, Swizz Beats, Lord of the Rings' star
Elijah Wood, Justin Timberlake, Alicia Keys and revolutionary pop icon Lady Gaga. While some of these celebrities do not have much of a digital life to cut off, popular ones such as Lady Gaga and Serena Williams have been pulling in donations from all directions.
Williams currently has 1.8 million followers looking out for her online interactions with model Selita Ebanks, while Lady Gaga is a source of entertainment for her millions of Facebook fans.
One must commend the American tennis player for her multiple charitable efforts, despite the fact that the Keep a Child Alive campaign has not been a major success so far. This is probably because fans are in no hurry to see celebrities such as the Kardashians
texting again, and because they feel the ten dollar minimum is too high. As of yesterday, only $161,450 of the target had been donated. However, the campaign is still ongoing and will, with a little more advertising, be successful.
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