From silly to charity

A warm story to start the season

SOCIAL MEDIA has a dark side (been on Twitter lately?) but sometimes it’s all cat videos and birthday wishes. The other day, the Facebook story was all about a fight that didn’t happen in Arkansas, and a bunch of donations that did.

Northwest Arkansas has had more than a few laughs on Facebook as spoof pages for different cities have popped up over the last few weeks. It started with fake pages for the City of Bentonville and City of Fayetteville popping up to post silly jokes and trash talk one another. It didn’t take long before other fake city pages popped up to join in, with Spring-dale, Rogers, Avoca and many more all poking fun at each other.

Things really got going when the fake City of Bentonville page challenged the fake City of Rogers page to a Fight at the Water Tower. A Facebook event page was made, and before long, hundreds and even thousands of folks were promising to show up. The “fight” ended up being turned into a charity event for donated toys and canned goods.

Local television stations picked up the story of a social media prank gone viral—and being turned into a charitable event. This only attracted more attention, and the event ended up with more than 6,000 people saying they’d show up.

On Friday at noon, the fight kicked off, with Team Rogers and Team Bentonville each racing to collect the most items to show which was superior. People struggled to find enough parking at the old water tower on Northwest 2nd Street by R.E. Baker Elementary School. By the time we found parking across the street at the First United Methodist Church, a taco truck, doughnut stand, box truck for donations and more had all been set up for the event. Team Bentonville had the box truck, and Team Rogers had a couple of pickups.

We watched as several hundred people gathered around, taking pictures, cracking jokes and generally having a good time on a rather cold afternoon. There were some truly silly characters there, with some girls chanting “fight, fight, fight,” a few people in T-Rex costumes, some apparent wrestling champions with their belts, and more. It was a spectacle to behold.

A few Bentonville police officers were in line to get tacos, so we went over to talk with them and get their thoughts on the event. They were clearly cold but appeared amused with everything going on. One told us the location was probably chosen because the old water tower used to be a popular spot for Bentonville high schoolers to have fights after class.

The officers said they’d kept an eye on the Facebook pages but didn’t expect anything bad to happen. It turns out they were right, with everyone just showing up to donate.

Trucks for both teams filled up as the fight continued throughout the day, and in the end charities like Samaritan Community Center and the Northwest Arkansas Women’s Center benefited. It doesn’t matter if all this good will came about as a result of online silliness. We’re always happy to see peace and good will on Earth, especially this time of the year.

Speaking of social media, as the old society columnists used to write, a good time was had by all.

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