The title is confusing, perhaps worth changing "Reddit investors" to "Wall Street Bets users" or something similar. I genuinely thought the article would talk about owners of Reddit, not it's users.
"adoption" is the terminology used by the foundation, and symbolic adoption is a known quantity in this type of operation so I don't have a problem with it.
However referring to wallstreet bets users as "investors" does seem like a bit of a misnomer...
And more seriously, people actually do adopt animals and bring them home or to some enclosure. There are supposedly more tigers in captivity in Texas than in the wild.
So my guess was not that crazy. Especially considering that it would be a much more captivating if less noble story than "redditors raised money for gorillas."
I kind of agree with parent. While I don’t have a problem with symbolic use of adoption, I do have a problem with “multiple adoption”.
When I think of a donor “adopting” a case, I have a model of “this donation sufficed for lifetime care of that case”. If one donation isn’t sufficient, then maybe a group of donations would collectively be the adoption.
You shouldn’t have a scenario where there are more adoptions than cases (gorillas in this one). I mean imagine if a foster agency said they processed five adoptions but had only two children.
I guess in my mind, the point of the adoption is that the "adopter" has a point of personal connection with the funding they are providing, and they can hang a picture on the wall to remind themselves why they are supporting this cause.
Given that almost none of these "adopters" will ever see the gorilla in question in real life, it seems unreasonably jealous to insist that this organization should forgo funding so that they and they alone can have a financial relationship with this particular gorilla.
>Given that almost none of these "adopters" will ever see the gorilla in question in real life, it seems unreasonably jealous to insist that this organization should forgo funding so that they and they alone can have a financial relationship with this particular gorilla.
I never suggested or hinted at that, just that it was misleading to call it adoption, if they're not granted a kind of "owning" of that relationship, in the sense of that donor is "the" supporter of that gorilla [pair]. If they want to call it "supporting", I wouldn't consider that misleading.
My only issue is that "Reddit investors" means people that invest on Reddit, while the article is about people that speculate with stocks (kinda ok to call them investors) and use Reddit.
>also they don't adopt them, they fund their caretaking. this title is pretty poor.
We don't have to be mega pedantic about words not being used for its literal meaning. The Dian Fossey Fund uses the word "adopt" in a symbolic way like many other charities do:
It's not being pedantic, but accurate. It took me a confusing 30 seconds to understand that the gorrilas won't be coming home with the owners of Reddit.
Ok, if we're getting pedantic about it, adopting as a synonym for supporting is a misnomer or more specifically an attempt to conceal the conflict of wanting to support something, but being unwilling to become intimately involved with it. It takes away from the genuine act of adoption. So I'll stand behind not using the term.
That just feels pedantic and gatekeeping. Adoption in this context has been used this way for as long as I can remember (20+ years) with every animal charity in the UK at least.
using the phrase "adopt" to mean "funding the ongoing care of" is pretty common parlance, at least in US-based charities. You can, for example, adopt a highway: