Greg Beato Asks, Are Slacker Gamers the New Philanthropists?

In the old
days, you couldn’t combat global hunger just by buying an imaginary
vegetable. Back then, if you wanted to make a trivial but virtuous
gesture of pop-culture consumerism you had to make a trip to Tower
Records and purchase a copy of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” or
“We Are the World.” Casual philanthropy required at least some
effort. Today, it’s a different story, writes Greg Beato. Log in
to FarmVille, shell out $5 for some cartoon corn seeds that
you can plant in your virtual field, and a genuine 3D family in
Haiti may get a chicken, goat, or micro-loan from one of several
nonprofit organizations that are partnering
with FarmVille developer Zynga.

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