You've Been Punked!

A Hollywood movie theater gave patrons an unexpected bonus. Courtesy of TheWaterProject.org, each person was given a water bottle upon entrance. What they didn't know, is that they were about to get punked for a cause. After spending three times what they paid for their ticket on salty popcorn, they were good and thirsty. This is what activists were banking on. Yet when they tried to open their water bottle, it was impossible to open.

This was done on purpose to dramatically prove a point--what it feels like to be without water. After becoming severely dehydrated (by American standards), and extremely frustrated, a PSA was played to hammer the point home of how many in our world struggle to get clean drinking water:full video here. I love the idea behind this, but holding an audience captive based on a personal agenda could set a dangerous precedent.

What's next? Take away everyone's snacks to raise awareness of world hunger? Don't they realize the threat of real violence that could occur by taking things away from American's ? Like their coca cola and nachos with plastic cheese sauce? Let's weigh the true benefits here. FYI--here are the ingredients in the 'cheese' sauce:

Cheese Whey, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Modified Food Starch, Cheddar Cheese (Cultured Milk, Salt, Enzymes), Jalapeno Puree, Sodium Phosphate, Salt, Natural Flavors, Monosodium Glutamate, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Vinegar, Color Added (Including Caramel Color, Yellow 5 and Yellow 6), Oleoresin Paprika.

 The Water Project is an amazing organization, but I doubt this little stunt did much if anything to raise awareness. I'm sure this small group of movie-goers had a new sense of appreciation for the privileged lifestyle they live, but did it inspire them to cut down on consumption? Or do missionary work in these ailing Third World countries? Doubtful. If anything, they probably drank twice as much and had longer showers than ever because of their 5 minute deprivation experience.

Effort would be better spent raising money for these causes. The theater could have just donated a large portion of their concession stand profits. They could have asked patrons to donate what they WOULD have spent on theater food. That surely would have been enough to fund the building of multiple wells.