Larry David on Twitter? Bill Clinton Doing the Hokey Pokey? Check Out Charitybribes.org
Do you want Larry David to join Twitter? Or convince Bill Clinton to do the hokey pokey on camera? Or get a TV personality to wear an eye patch?
Now you can try to bribe your favorite celebrity to do something awkward for a good cause, thanks to Charitybribes.org, a new website in the business of "bribing celebrities to do a little awesome for a lot of good."
The premise is simple: you donate money to charity, but you only have to pay if the celebrity in question completes the challenge.
The website kicked things off with one bribe: to get Larry David to join Twitter.
"We're both big fans of Larry David and we both use Twitter and think it would really be awesome to have his sense of humor coming to us in 140 characters at a time," said the site's co-founder William Spencer.
So far 76 people have pledged over $9,600, which would benefit the Natural Resources Defense Council, if David does in fact sign up for Twitter. There's one day left for people to get in on the bribe and up the ante, and then David has a 30-day window to join Twitter.
"It's all an experiment, and the uncertainty is part of the fun for us," said Spencer.
The celebrities are not in on the bribe in advance.
Spencer launched Charitybribes.org with fellow freelance ad copywriter Chris Baker three weeks ago. It took nearly a year to get the site ready, but both were committed to the concept. "We thought that it was something that needed to be done. Someone needed to try this," Spencer said.
Thursday, the site will move on to the next bribe and this time, it's user-generated. Anyone can submit an idea for a bribe and choose the charity they want to benefit.
Almost 1,000 people want to convince Conan O'Brien to wear an eye patch and a turtleneck, and hold a pipe while interviewing a guest on his show, to benefit Autism Speaks. A close second is getting Morgan Freeman to spend an afternoon narrating user-submitted animal videos. That one benefits the Red Cross.
"I am really enjoying seeing the stuff that people are coming up with. It's stuff that we could have never thought of ourselves," Spencer said.
Other contenders, slightly lower down on the list, are to have Donald Trump post a picture of how his hair looks when he wakes up, and to get Bill Clinton to do the hokey pokey on camera. Most are silly and whimsical.
Spencer stressed that the best bribes are ones that are fun, creative and easy for the celebrity to do. They also must not be degrading or offensive, or else they'll be removed.
If the concept takes hold, Spencer said they'd like to expand and have multiple bribes running at the same time, rather than just one.
Will it work? A representative for David could not be reached for comment.
Time will tell if other celebrities are willing to play ball, but harnessing star power with the scale and drive of the internet for a philanthropic cause could be a winning combination. Not to mention entertaining in the process.