On New Year's Day, while the rest of the world was nursing hangovers and signing up for gym memberships, Pete Holby was ready to start the most important resolution he made for himself for 2015. Holby decided he would watch the entirety of Dawson's Creek - all six seasons - marathon-style.
No sleeping. No stopping. And he'd live-tweet it all for charity (and the live-tweets are mocking, and somewhat NSFW, exactly what you want to see when you revisit a show that's been off the air for 12 years.)
dawson goes to nicki's house to give her grief about the camera! she tells him to eat shit
- Sorry Everyone (@sorryeveryone) January 3, 2015
YouTube
In 1998, "Dawson's Creek" aired on the then-WB network, following the lives of four melodramatic teenagers who lived in fictional Capeside, Massachussetts. The program was a major hit, and even after its finale aired in 2003 it lives on through streaming services like Netflix for a brand new audience to enjoy.
YouTube
Here's how it's working: Holby is encouraging people to donate to the charity of their choice, and then asks for those people to forward him the confirmation email from the charity after donating.
so make it worth my doing! donate to some charity you care about and bump up our cumulative total. details here: http://t.co/wQDT4s3Bqq
- Sorry Everyone (@sorryeveryone) January 3, 2015
That way he can keep a running tally of the money he's raising. In an email to Business Insider, Holby tells us he's raised over $3,500 to various charities.
But...why?
In Holby's email to Business Insider, he writes:
I was bouncing around wikipedia one day and noticed Dawson's Creek had 128 episodes. Doing the math on that it adds up to just under four days, which gave me the idea that you could try to do it in one sitting. This is a really stupid thing to do for all of the obvious reasons, which is where the charity angle comes in. There is zero good reason to do this, so invent a reason. In June of 2013 a buddy & I spent 24 hours at Denny's eating pancakes and raising money, with the support of SB Nation but primarily via twitter, just goofing off and directly asking people to donate money to something that mattered. So it's basically "make a spectacle, then ask nicely." Asking people to donate to whatever they care about just seemed like it would be easier to get people to kick in and they might get more personal satisfaction out of doing it.
As for what I hope to accomplish, I'm just trying to have fun. I like livetweeting things, and Dawson's Creek is a rich text if you're looking to riff on things. I had a number I was hoping to hit in mind but it was mostly "if no one donates this will be a humiliating waste of time," and the response has been tremendous. As of right now the cumulative total is just over $3,500 in 48 hours, by which I'm blown away. Twitter has been super important - I have a number of friends/followers who have their own, more substantial following and have been kind enough to help me promote, and @jon_bois in particular is an old friend who has been a huge help. But in addition to the people there, twitter is just the right venue. I tweeted about Dawson's Creek every 3-5 minutes for 41 straight hours, on facebook that would be beyond obnoxious.
It's January 3rd, and Holby is still going strong (I can tell you, as a fan of "Dawson's Creek," that he's currently on season 3):
andie confesses to her brother that she stole the test! she did it so that people would stop thinking she was mentally ill
- Sorry Everyone (@sorryeveryone) January 3, 2015
joey feels humiliated. "No one's humiliated," Dawson says, "except maybe the person wh odid it." VALIDATE AN EXISTENCE SOMETIME, JESUS
- Sorry Everyone (@sorryeveryone) January 3, 2015
they take henry to the hospital to put some blood back in him
- Sorry Everyone (@sorryeveryone) January 3, 2015