Michael Morones Foundation Pony Statue

[Simon 4,557]

I have to say, for the first time I'm actually appalled at the behavior of some people in the fandom.  The Michael Morones Foundation, which is run by Michael's family, put up an indiegogo page to collect money for a new project.  In addition to providing continued support for Michael's medical expenses, and funding the Michael Morones foundation, they are using part of the money to pay for materials to build a large 3D printed pony statue which they would be able to take to various speaking events.  The idea is that when they go to something like a school to talk about bullying, they can take the statue with them and kids can take photos with it to get them involved and interested in the anti-bullying campaign and Michael's story.

 

You can read more about what they're doing here: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2014/06/micheal-morones-foundation-pony-statue.html#IDComment838142389

 

Anyway, if you look at the Equestria Daily page, the announcement has received almost nothing but hateful, insulting comments saying that the statue is stupid and even going so far as to insult the family and accuse them of trying to milk the fandom for money they don't need.

 

I have never seen so many bronies make such hateful comments about people supporting a charitable cause.  This is a fandom that spends hundreds of dollars for plushies and custom figures of our OC's, and yet the notion of people donating that money to provide Michael's family with money to pay his medical bills and build a statue so they can get kids interested in an anti-bullying campaign is horrible?

 

Anyway, the reason I'm posting this on here is because I really want to know that I'm not alone in thinking that the fandom shouldn't toss its values in the toilet and quit supporting Michael's family because they don't like the idea of the statue.

 

I absolutely get why people would prefer to donate to his medical expenses than this project, but I don't get insulting others for donating to it and telling people not to donate because you disagree.

 

Anyhow what are the rest of your thoughts on this issue?  Is the fandom being ridiculous or is it just me?

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1430656950536945&set=vb.1375376559398318&type=2&theater

Edited June 2, 2014 by Simon

[Clarity 3,094]

People may flame me for this, but they actually have a point. I'm all for donating money for Michael's hospital bills, but asking people to give money for a statue is pretty ridiculous. Medical bills are so much more important than something that costs that much money but has about as much value as a paper napkin. 

 

If they're going to use the statue to represent anti-bullying when they go around giving talks on it, it's not going to help. Why not just give talks without an expensive pony statue standing behind you? Poor Michael already got enough attention already for something he may not want attention on. This likely may make it worse.

 

With all that said, you can donate if you want to. I won't stop you. But this is just my take on it. 

[Mars Caramel 319]

I'm just mainly afraid of vandalism. This fandom is still quite a large target to haters, some of them are going to deface this statue in some way. Of course, there's also Michael's hospital bills, but I would happily be in support of this if we've done all we could to help Michael.

[Simon 4,557]

If they're going to use the statue to represent anti-bullying when they go around giving talks on it, it's not going to help. Why not just give talks without an expensive pony statue standing behind you? Poor Michael already got enough attention already for something he may not want attention on. This likely may make it worse.

 

Well first off, they're not going to give talks without giving Michael attention.  That makes no sense at all.  The whole reason the Michael Morones foundation started is because the family wants to spread his story and use it to inspire people to be themselves and not give in to bullying.  You can disagree with that, but that's what the family wants, so giving him attention isn't an issue at all, it's the goal.

 

And the point isn't to just slap a statue on stage and have it sit there and rot.  The idea is that when  a bunch of little kids walk in and see a giant pony they can get their picture taken with, suddenly they're going to care about what Michael's family has to say.  Doesn't anybody in this fandom remember McGruff?  The guy in the giant dog suit that we all loved to take pictures with and run up and hug in Elementary school?  That dog got a ton of kids interested in safety because they weren't just sitting in a chair listening to a lecture about a horrible tragedy to scar them, they were actually having fun while they learned something important.  This is the same idea... the kids can go up and get their picture taken with a giant pony, have fun, and then Michael's family can explain the significance.  It even adds a big impact to what they're saying... Michael got bullied to the point of attempting suicide for liking ponies, so when all the kids like the statue and get their picture taken, and then find out about Michael's story, they're going to understand that he was bullied for no good reason... for liking something that anybody can like.

 

 

 

I'm just mainly afraid of vandalism. This fandom is still quite a large target to haters, some of them are going to deface this statue in some way. Of course, there's also Michael's hospital bills, but I would happily be in support of this if we've done all we could to help Michael.

 

It's not going to be put outside anywhere that it could be vandalized.  As far as what they've said so far the statue is going to be used at speaking events, and nobody is going to vandalize it in the middle of a speaking event...

Edited June 2, 2014 by Simon

[M'aiq the Liar 5,804]

Well first off, they're not going to give talks without giving Michael attention.  That makes no sense at all.  The whole reason the Michael Morones foundation started is because the family wants to spread his story and use it to inspire people to be themselves and not give in to bullying.  You can disagree with that, but that's what the family wants, so giving him attention isn't an issue at all, it's the goal.

 

And the point isn't to just slap a statue on stage and have it sit there and rot.  The idea is that when  a bunch of little kids walk in and see a giant pony they can get their picture taken with, suddenly they're going to care about what Michael's family has to say.  Doesn't anybody in this fandom remember McGruff?  The guy in the giant dog suit that we all loved to take pictures with and run up and hug in Elementary school?  That dog got a ton of kids interested in safety because they weren't just sitting in a chair listening to a lecture about a horrible tragedy to scar them, they were actually having fun while they learned something important.  This is the same idea... the kids can go up and get their picture taken with a giant pony, have fun, and then Michael's family can explain the significance.  It even adds a big impact to what they're saying... Michael got bullied to the point of attempting suicide for liking ponies, so when all the kids like the statue and get their picture taken, and then find out about Michael's story, they're going to understand that he was bullied for no good reason... for liking something that anybody can like.

And remember how ineffective that whole mcgruff campaign was? The areas that campaign visited had no decrease in crime rates or bullying. While they can build this statue if they want, I find it a waste of resources. Instead of paying for a statue, they could be bringing in kids that have been bullied, helping with foundations that give aid to children who have been abused and significantly bullied, and using the money they spent on the statue to get to more places to speak about how much this effected their son. To me, it just seems like a miss use of resources. Instead of a statue, they could have sent aid to children who didn't get on national TV when they tried to kill themselves.

[ghostfacekiller39 23,860]

While the people over at EQD could certainly be handling the situation better, I don't think a statue is something that we should pay for. They do have a point there.

 

Of course, it wouldn't hurt them to realize A.) the cause it stands for and B.) that they're being insensitive to a boy who tried to end his life at 11 years of age because he was bullied for being a part of the fandom - something that a lot of them have probably caught shit for at some point, whether it be over the internet or in real life.

 

Of course, it's Equestria Daily. The people at EQD are just insensitive and I honestly can't say I'm surprised at their reaction.

 

My condolences to the Morones family, though. They nor their boy shouldn't really have to deal with this sort of behavior from the fandom, even if asking them to fund a statue is taking it a bit far, in my opinion.
 

Edited June 2, 2014 by ghostfacekiller39

[RubyVesper 100]

Guys, we are talking about the internet here. No matter what fandom you are in or what it is about, there will always be some people that just don't agree and those are almost always vocal. It's that simple and I've learned to deal with it.

[Simon 4,557]

 

 

And remember how ineffective that whole mcgruff campaign was? The areas that campaign visited had no decrease in crime rates or bullying. While they can build this statue if they want, I find it a waste of resources. Instead of paying for a statue, they could be bringing in kids that have been bullied, helping with foundations that give aid to children who have been abused and significantly bullied, and using the money they spent on the statue to get to more places to speak about how much this effected their son. To me, it just seems like a miss use of resources. Instead of a statue, they could have sent aid to children who didn't get on national TV when they tried to kill themselves.

 

Okay I'm going to do you a huge favor and spare you my long rant on trying to use crime statistics like you just did... the short version is that crime has such an infinite amount of variables and are so astonishingly inaccurate that you can't put them in a vacuum with a single variable and try and find a correlation.  You're never going to see overall crime or even a single type of crime have any noteworthy downward or upward change because of any one single variable.  Remember back when you did a science project, and your science teacher said a thousand times why you can only have one independent variable to have a successful experiment... well imagine having thirty billion variables in your science experiment and trying to convince your teacher that your conclusions are accurate.  (And yes this is the short rant, criminology is my livelihood, I could write you a thesis on this point)

 

The important thing we learned from McGruff isn't that it lowered crime overall, it's that it increased children's interest in safety. They did a study shortly after they started McGruff in the 80's and well over 90 percent of kids said that they tried to follow what McGruff said.  A more recent study found that 93% of kids recognize McGruff and associate him with crime prevention and safety awareness.  What those statistics tell us is that the use of that character caused kids to be more interested in listening to what they had to say about crime, and this statue has the same type of use.

The thing is... this statue will probably be seen by a lot of people once its made, and it only has to get a single person interested in Michael's story and ultimately not make the same choice Michael did to be worthwhile.   We may never know if it did have an impact, but I don't think trying is such a bad thing.

 

If nothing else think of it this way... most large charitable organizations take out a huge percentage of every donation for operating expenses and salaries completely unrelated to actually doing any good for anybody... if the Morones foundation can take that same percentage of this one group of donations and put it towards something that might not work, what's the harm in that?

[Nulln 755]

Well first off, they're not going to give talks without giving Michael attention.  That makes no sense at all.  The whole reason the Michael Morones foundation started is because the family wants to spread his story and use it to inspire people to be themselves and not give in to bullying.  You can disagree with that, but that's what the family wants, so giving him attention isn't an issue at all, it's the goal.

 

And the point isn't to just slap a statue on stage and have it sit there and rot.  The idea is that when  a bunch of little kids walk in and see a giant pony they can get their picture taken with, suddenly they're going to care about what Michael's family has to say.  Doesn't anybody in this fandom remember McGruff?  The guy in the giant dog suit that we all loved to take pictures with and run up and hug in Elementary school?  That dog got a ton of kids interested in safety because they weren't just sitting in a chair listening to a lecture about a horrible tragedy to scar them, they were actually having fun while they learned something important.  This is the same idea... the kids can go up and get their picture taken with a giant pony, have fun, and then Michael's family can explain the significance.  It even adds a big impact to what they're saying... Michael got bullied to the point of attempting suicide for liking ponies, so when all the kids like the statue and get their picture taken, and then find out about Michael's story, they're going to understand that he was bullied for no good reason... for liking something that anybody can like.

 

 

 

 

It's not going to be put outside anywhere that it could be vandalized.  As far as what they've said so far the statue is going to be used at speaking events, and nobody is going to vandalize it in the middle of a speaking event...

The guy who played McGruff actually got arrested for drugs 

 

But anyways, I really think the statue is kind of unnecessary.  The only kids who would care about it are the ones that like mlp already.  It'd be kind of weird to take an anti-bully speech seriously with a big pony from a cartoon behind them the whole time.  But then again, people can donate to whatever they want, it's THEIR money.  As long as the hospital bills are completely paid off before they go spending money on the statue, of course.

[M'aiq the Liar 5,804]

Okay I'm going to do you a huge favor and spare you my long rant on trying to use crime statistics like you just did... the short version is that crime has such an infinite amount of variables and are so astonishingly inaccurate that you can't put them in a vacuum with a single variable and try and find a correlation.  You're never going to see overall crime or even a single type of crime have any noteworthy downward or upward change because of any one single variable.  Remember back when you did a science project, and your science teacher said a thousand times why you can only have one independent variable to have a successful experiment... well imagine having thirty billion variables in your science experiment and trying to convince your teacher that your conclusions are accurate.  (And yes this is the short rant, criminology is my livelihood, I could write you a thesis on this point)

 

The important thing we learned from McGruff isn't that it lowered crime overall, it's that it increased children's interest in safety. They did a study shortly after they started McGruff in the 80's and well over 90 percent of kids said that they tried to follow what McGruff said.  A more recent study found that 93% of kids recognize McGruff and associate him with crime prevention and safety awareness.  What those statistics tell us is that the use of that character caused kids to be more interested in listening to what they had to say about crime, and this statue has the same type of use.

 

The thing is... this statue will probably be seen by a lot of people once its made, and it only has to get a single person interested in Michael's story and ultimately not make the same choice Michael did to be worthwhile.   We may never know if it did have an impact, but I don't think trying is such a bad thing.

 

If nothing else think of it this way... most large charitable organizations take out a huge percentage of every donation for operating expenses and salaries completely unrelated to actually doing any good for anybody... if the Morones foundation can take that same percentage of this one group of donations and put it towards something that might not work, what's the harm in that?

Statistics that say the recognize the character does not mean they took the message of the campaign to heart. Unless you can find me a study that shows that kids enrolled in more CJ and criminology classes after the event had begun, then all you are saying is that McGruff became a semi-known character. Children can often just associated and recognize a character, but not learn the works intended morals and goals. So all that study is saying is that kids knew McGruff as an identifiable brand.

 

And it is a risk, that they do not have to take. Why risk making a statue, that doesn't even have a character basis behind like like DARE or McGruff? When you could be using the money and time you put into the statue and help people in proven ways that are far more effective. Building a statue may or may not help to stem the tide of bullying. But giving resources to victims, and using that money to allow them to appear in more locations to speak will help. It is a risk that they do not have to take.

[Banul 3,831]

I won't say that people should have reacted in the way that they did. However, I really don't see the point of building this pony statue as a means to fight bullying. Honestly I think the most effective thing they can do is tell the kid's story. Having kids take pictures with a statue isn't going to hammer home the anti bullying message like a personal tale would. I doubt the statue would really accomplish anything.

 

I just feel like the money could be spend more effectively.

[[NULL] 906]

Look, I know the whole Michael Morones incident was tragic, but...

 

Does Michael really need to have all this attention centered around him? Why are they spending money to build a statue of him, when they could be using that money for his recovery? Why is his sob story special, when many other people have committed suicide over being bullied as well? Because he likes MLP? If Michael wakes up, wouldn't he grow up to hate MLP and the fanbase for putting him in the center of attention? Wouldn't Michael end up even more overwhelmed and miserable than he was before? Wouldn't all this attention make him even more of a bully target? And how are the comments on EQD hateful or insulting?

Edited June 2, 2014 by SpaceOnion

[Simon 4,557]

I won't say that people should have reacted in the way that they did. However, I really don't see the point of building this pony statue as a means to fight bullying. Honestly I think the most effective thing they can do is tell the kid's story. Having kids take pictures with a statue isn't going to hammer home the anti bullying message like a personal tale would. I doubt the statue would really accomplish anything.

Yep, and really I largely agree with you and a lot of other people... I think there are better uses for the money, but the thing that struck a nerve with me is how negatively people reacted to it.  Comments like yours and all the ones on here are fine, they're just expressing a viewpoint, but saying things like "we helped Michael already, this is milking it" and attacking people for supporting this campaign are just ridiculous.

 

 

 

Does Michael really need to have all this attention centered around him? Why are they spending money to build a statue of him, when they could be using that money for his recovery? Why is his sob story special, when many other people have committed suicide over being bullied as well? Because he likes MLP? If Michael wakes up, wouldn't he grow up to hate MLP and the fanbase for putting him in the center of attention? Wouldn't Michael end up even more overwhelmed and miserable than he was before? Wouldn't all this attention make him even more of a bully target? And how are the comments on EQD hateful or insulting?

 

You're kidding right?  First of all, calling it a 'sob story' is pretty damn degrading and offensive, so I can understand how if you thought that was appropriate, you'd think the things on EQD were perfectly fine.  But making comments accusing the mother of using Michael's story to make money, accusing this of being a scam, calling Michael and Michael's family names are all completely insulting comments and the fact that you can't see that is pretty sad...

Edited June 2, 2014 by Simon

[M'aiq the Liar 5,804]

Yep, and really I largely agree with you and a lot of other people... I think there are better uses for the money, but the thing that struck a nerve with me is how negatively people reacted to it.  Comments like yours and all the ones on here are fine, they're just expressing a viewpoint, but saying things like "we helped Michael already, this is milking it" and attacking people for supporting this campaign are just ridiculous.

I can understand that. I do not agree with the way that the commenters on EqD attacked it, and said that his mother was "milking the tragedy for her 15 minutes of fame". But at the same time, I really feel like the 35,000 they are asking for to build the statue could be better spent. That money could help a lot of victims, and help them spread their message further to reach more people. They could even use it to get in some people that had done the same thing as Michael to speak publicly, and try to add a face to the consequences of bullying. But the way that those people reacted to it was just appalling.

[Simon 4,557]

 

 

I really feel like the 35,000 they are asking for to build the statue could be better spent.

Oh God if it was all going to it, i'd absolutely agree.  Now I think I understand your viewpoint... it's not all going to the statue.  The $35,000 goal is to provide the funding they need for the foundation to do its speaking engagements and other plans, it'll cover needed costs for Michael's medical bills, AND it'll cover the building materials for the statue... the person building the statue is a volunteer and isn't charging anything for the labor.  Only a little part of that is going to actually build the statue. 

[M'aiq the Liar 5,804]

Oh God if it was all going to it, i'd absolutely agree.  Now I think I understand your viewpoint... it's not all going to the statue.  The $35,000 goal is to provide the funding they need for the foundation to do its speaking engagements and other plans, it'll cover needed costs for Michael's medical bills, AND it'll cover the building materials for the statue... the person building the statue is a volunteer and isn't charging anything for the labor.  Only a little part of that is going to actually build the statue.

 

I knew they wouldn't be using all the money to fund a statue. But I do still feel like it is a miss use of resources. The Statue may not accomplish anything, and may just become a fixture and target for those who are opposed to what they are saying. The money they are using for the materials for the statue could be used to help out children who are victims of abuse and severe bullying. To me, it just really seems like an odd choice for a message as well. Our son tried to kill himself due to bullying, and people allow bullying to occur because they often do not see their targets as people who have feelings all the same as the aggressors. So lets build a pony statue to show em how wrong they are. I personally feel that doing more to add a "face" to the victims of bullying would be far more effective.

[Simon 4,557]

I knew they wouldn't be using all the money to fund a statue. But I do still feel like it is a miss use of resources. The Statue may not accomplish anything, and may just become a fixture and target for those who are opposed to what they are saying. The money they are using for the materials for the statue could be used to help out children who are victims of abuse and severe bullying. To me, it just really seems like an odd choice for a message as well. Our son tried to kill himself due to bullying, and people allow bullying to occur because they often do not see their targets as people who have feelings all the same as the aggressors. So lets build a pony statue to show em how wrong they are. I personally feel that doing more to add a "face" to the victims of bullying would be far more effective.

I can respect that... my main issue like I said is with the way people are handling it.  I mean, less than 60 percent of money going to the American Cancer Society actually goes to Cancer programs, so I think donations there are misplaced as well, but I don't run around screaming at people for buying all that pink merchandise that gives a small percentage of money to them.  Regardless of where you donate to, there's always going to be somewhere that would be able to do more good with your money, but sometimes you just have to donate to what you feel like donating to.

 

Update:

 

Michael's mother just came out with a really heartbreaking video message addressing all the hatred they're receiving:

 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1430656950536945&set=vb.1375376559398318&type=2&theater

Edited June 2, 2014 by Simon

[Argumedies 1,748]

I don't let the haters get to me. I donated because of Michael and that was good enough reason for me.