The stars of the YouTube channel "Simple Pickup" were denied the right to donate to a breast cancer charity after their means for raising the money sparked a major backlash.
The three male stars of the YouTube channel raised over $2,000 in donations through a controversial video entitled "Motorboating Women for Breast Cancer Awareness." In the video, the men approach random women at Venice Beach in California and ask them to put their faces in their breasts. For every woman that agreed, the men would donate $20 to their campaign fund.
Although their strategy for raising money was meant to be innocuous, it sparked a huge outcry, and eventually, the charity refused to accept their donation.
In response, one of the leading stars released a video refuting criticism that their original video was inappropriate. "Simple Pickup" also reuploaded the same video again to their channel, this time at a mere 73,000 views in comparison to the 4.6 million of the original posting. The original video is also still online, it's just "private" now - thereby retaining the view count in its overall ranking on the social network.
The group had promised to donate $100 for every 100,000 views the video received, totalling over $5,000. They have claimed they will donate a total donation of $7,00, including the refund of $2,000, and have asked their followers to leave suggestions for what charity they should donate it to.
However, after the video was posted, critics claimed that the men were sexualising women in order to raise money. Critics also said that the campaign for breast cancer objectified the women involved and was in bad taste.
Watch the videos below.
The re-uploaded video:
Criticism of the video:
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