Dane Swan is an ex-AFL player and podcaster with really bad taste (if you know, you know). He’s been the face of betting giant Sportsbet for a while now, and he’s taken a swipe at Israel Folau for his recent GoFundMe plea/saga/national battle that’s been the talk of the nation this past week.
Swan, a self-confessed ‘servant to the sesh’, wants to raise a couple of mill’ for his upcoming Las Vegas bender apparently.
“I believe it is my duty, as a servant of the sesh, to set the standard on the circuit through Instagram and Snapchat,” he says in the short video posted to Facebook yesterday.
“The last three day bender I went on put a strain on me financially. Whilst I can’t remember much of it, I was told it was pretty exxy.”
“Here I am looking to secure $3 million for my upcoming trip to Las Vegas.”
And here’s the thing, right. I get it. This is pretty on-brand for Sportsbet. They’re the first to take a stab at something that’s worthy of a good laugh. And yeah, aren’t we all. But the devil is in the detail here.
Despite the fact that Folau boasts a net worth of millions of dollars (before his recent anti-LGTBQI+ crusade, anyway), we’ve all come to know about his desperate plea for more money to fund his legal battle against Rugby Australia. All of which came about because he breached a signed contract by uploading a slew of homophobic, anti-LGBTQI+ insults across his socials.
But here’s the thing. Obviously Swan/Sportsbet are taking the piss at Folau’s plea and is begging us to all have a laugh over it. Whilst there’s no legitimate GoFundMe page for this ‘Vegas bender’, the cheap shot is still there, clear as day. My issue with Swan’s mockery is that it’s fundamentally tasteless and honestly, just a cheap shot at the thousands of honest and genuine GoFundMe donation pleas that sit on the site each day.
I’ll just leave this here. pic.twitter.com/TaseKE9HjJ
— Mark Evans (@markje4) June 27, 2019
Whether it be for life-saving surgeries or emergency flood and drought relief, even for business ambitions, GoFundMe has fast become the place where honest Aussies make genuine pleas for help. Their pleas are a signal of strength amidst what is generally, a very tragic time. Amidst the campaigns and causes, you’ll also find quite novel requests for help of all different kinds – including one set up to help Israel Folau study contract law (lol yeah, they have a point there).
But I feel like Swan’s plea takes an extra, unnecessary stab at GoFundMe. The mockery paints the site as a wild ‘free for all’ where anyone can just rock up and raise a few easy bucks for whatever they deem important. Yet for all the honest pleas for genuine causes, Swan’s mockery is extremely undermining.
So can we stop drawing attention to the apparently ‘funny’ GoFundMe campaigns when there are legitimate, desperate pleas for assistance that will actually go toward an honest cause?
And with that, I leave us all with a truly thought-provoking suggestion.
What if hell is actually just listening to people debate the Israel Folau issue over and over again for eternity? https://t.co/jNxeWdHmA2
— Ellen Fanning:Journo (@ellenmfanning) June 27, 2019
Sources: Sportsbet Youtube.
