This is not a meme

There is what looks like a meme going around at the moment that suggests we should all stop playing 'Whamageddon' every year because we're robbing charities of money. The meme makes the claim that radio stations may not play the song 'Last Christmas' for fear of people changing channels to avoid the song. 

Really? 

There are a few things to unpack here. 

Firstly, yes, the profits from 'Last Christmas' do get donated to charities in Africa. George Michael and Andrew Ridgley agreed to this because the single came out in the same year (and was kept off the #1 spot) by Band Aid and 'Do they know it's Christmas.' 

Secondly, the song has made millions for charity and continues to do so. It's been in the UK Top Ten six times and 15 times in the Top 40. It's the bestselling Christmas song of all time in Germany and spent 161 weeks on the singles chart in 2021 before hitting #1. It has been #1 in Sweden four times. It has become the UK's third-bestselling song of all time, with a combined lifetime total of 5.34 million chart units, comprising 1.93 million sales and nearly 413 million streams, according to Official Charts data. Until this year it was the best-selling single to never reach the top of the UK charts. But, of course, this year it did take the Christmas #1 spot, notching up 13.3 million streams and downloads. Has Whamageddon really affected any of that? 

Thirdly, I can find no evidence whatsoever of radio stations refusing to play the song - if you can find any proof of it, please let me know. The whole point of Whamageddon is for the player to avoid the song - radio stations should be playing it as often as possible to make the game harder! And the charitable causes will still get the money whether you are listening or not. So why refuse to play? 

Social media is full of memes that have no evidence to support them (Facebook own all your photos if you don't write a declaration denying them that right, your newsfeed is limited to 26 friends, people are being killed in India for eating beef etc.) and many are complete fabrications. And that's a problem because, in a recent study by The Pew Research Center, about two-thirds (67%) of Americans get at least some of their news from social media, with 44% getting news from Facebook. In addition, more than half (56%) say they get news from search engines like Google or Bing, and 32% say they get news from Twitter. I'm pretty sure the figures would be similar for the UK. 

So here's an idea for your New Year's Resolution for 2024. How about we all chack our facts before forwarding a meme, tweet (Xeet?) or TikTok video? We can all help to clean up social media and prevent disinformation, misinformation and downright lies by not recycling it. And with elections coming up in the UK and USA, this is more important than ever. 

And, yes I got sent to Whamhalla on the 18th December, dammit. 

P.s. This is NOT a meme.