Kaylen Ward's "The Naked Philanthropist" Campaign

Submission 44,315

Part of a series on 2019-20 Australian Bushfires. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Kaylen Ward's "The Naked Philanthropist" Campaign refers to Twitter user @lilearthangelk, aka Kaylen Ward, offering to exchange nude pictures of herself for $10 donations towards fundraisers for wildfires in Australia. The campaign went viral, resulting in an estimated $700,000 worth of donations as of January 6th, 2020.

Background

On January 3rd, 2020, Kaylen Ward, aka @lilearthangelk on Twitter, began a campaign to exchange nude pictures of herself for every $10 worth of donations sent to a group of fundraisers aiding those affected by Australian wildfires. She wrote,^[1] "I’m sending nudes to every person who donates atleast $10 to any one of these fundraisers for the wildfires in Australia. Every $10 you donate = one nude picture from me to your DM. You must send me confirmation that you donated" (shown below).

Developments

In three days, the tweet gained over 72,000 retweets and 169,000 likes. It was retweeted by Keemstar, who gained over 2,000 retweets and 18,000 likes sharing the campaign^[2] (shown below, left). User @witchytwitchytv^[3] tweeted, "A woman @lilearthangelk raised $100k in a day for charity by sending nudes to people who had proof of donating to the Aussie wildfires and all I gotta say is not all heroes wear clothes," gaining over 4,900 retweets and 18,000 likes.

On January 5th, Ward^[4] tweeted that her Instagram was deactivated and her family had "disowned" her as a result of the tweet. The following day, she tweeted that an estimated $700,000 had been raised as a result of her tweet (shown below, right). The story was covered by multiple news outlets, including Buzzfeed,^[5] Brobible,^[6] New York Post^[7] and others.