New Yorkers Now Being Terrible For Charity

“The societal pressure forces you to get on board because it’s considered a good cause. It would be such a faux pas to say no to it — you don’t want to be the one guy who doesn’t save the puppies. I know everyone thinks it, but no one wants to be perceived as cheap.”
 — Is there a real trend going on where “more altruistic New Yorkers are insisting on throwing birthday bashes with mandatory charity donations”? On the one hand, now that we’ve decided government isn’t going to do anything but funnel more and more money to people who are already well off while leaving an ever-increasing slice of the neediest to fend for themselves, I can see annoying New Yorkers making a point of forcing their friends to cough up dough for a collection of causes that don’t actually alleviate poverty but do make birthday celebrants feel better about themselves for raising funds to, for example, “foster Jewish identity among young internationals.” On the other hand, I can’t for a second imagine the mindset of someone who would expect their friends to shell out every time someone in the group turns another page on the calendar.Then again, I am rarely invited to anything and people are pretty universally terrible, so it probably is a thing. I blame millennials, what with their overactive sense of entitlement and their belief that throwing a few thousand dollars at something makes you a better person. Ugh, I’m so glad I’m not going to be around much longer.

Photo by YanLev, via Shutterstock