Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Shane Burcaw is dying - but first, he wants to make Ellen laugh

Shane Burcaw is a lot of things: a blogger, a student, an all-around great guy. He's the blogger behind Laughing at my Nightmare, and the founder of the organization LAMN.

He's also dying. He has a condition called Spinal Muscular Atrophy (Type 2.) He has had it since childhood, and it is gradually robbing him of his muscles and his ability to move. Eventually, it will take away his ability to breathe. Eventually, it will kill him.

He knows this. He has known it for a long time. He has decided to take an upbeat approach to it. He wants to leave a mark on the world. And he wants to make Ellen DeGeneres laugh.

You can help make this happen.

From his blog:

Operation Make Ellen Laugh



Since I started my blog almost two years ago, people have been telling me “YOU SHOULD GO ON ELLEN!” They scream it at me actually, hence the caps lock. My response was always “I’d love to, but she’s very difficult to get in touch with.” I kept the idea in the back of my mind until I felt it was the perfect time.

Well, my friends, now is the perfect time. And if it’s going to work, I’m going to need every single one of you to help me!

This Thursday at 11am (Eastern Time), Operation Make Ellen Laugh will begin, and if it is successful, my life and the future of LAMN could be changed forever.

We will conduct Operation Make Ellen Laugh the same way that we have successfully contacted other celebrities (Anthony Green, Alex Morgan, etc.): with a MASSIVE twitter/fb bomb that is too large for her to ignore. This time, however, we’re stepping up our game, because we refuse to let this Operation fail. Instead of getting hundreds of people to tweet her that day, we need to get thousands!

It’s very simple: starting at 11am on Thursday and continuing all day long, thousands of us will begin sending her a special tweet (I will post the tweet on Thursday morning). It will contain a link to some videos that explain who I am and why I’d like to be on her show.

I wrote a long time ago that my ultimate fear is being forgotten after I’m gone, leaving no impact on the world with my time here. Now I have a chance to truly put that fear to rest, as I believe the things we are accomplishing here at LAMN, Inc. are capable of making a significant positive impact on the world. Getting on Ellen would catapult us to new levels, and give us an unbelievable opportunity to affect the lives of millions of people.

All I’m asking is that you take some time to rally your friends to take part in this Operation. Please “Attend” this Facebook event to signify that you are committing to recruit as many tweeters/facebookers for April 11th as you can. Then share it on your wall so that your friends can read this and do the same thing

Together, we can pull this off, and I will be forever grateful.

I first learned of Shane Burcaw and his blog from Monica Madeja when we got to talking after one of my weekly appearances on PA Live! His blog may have been the first blog that we posted on NEPA Blogs that was in fact completely outside of Northeastern Pennsylvania - we stretched the definition to allow the Lehigh Valley. We featured him as the NEPA Blogs Blog of the Week just a few weeks later. Michelle and I actually got to meet him when we went to Allentown last year for the Allentown Morning Call's "Best Blogs of the Lehigh Valley" presentation ceremony. (He won his category!)

Help make this happen. Shane has been wanting to do this for a very long time. But he is operating with a time limit. He has recently noted that things he was capable of doing six months or a year ago are no longer possible. Please spread the word, and help him achieve his goal!

UPDATE, 4/11: This is the day, and Shane has posted these instructions:


Alright folks, the time is here! We have a few quick instructions to make sure that we're all doing this the same way and have the best chance possible of getting Ellen's attention (without annoying her TOO much in the process). It's pretty simple:

- PLEASE do NOT spam Ellen. We want to get her attention, not bludgeon her to death with tweets, so one tweet every few hours from each person should be MORE than enough
- No swearing, use your big person words
- Remember to reference Shane as @shaner528 and not just "Shane"

When constructing your tweets you will need to incorporate the following hashtag and link:

Hashtag: #MakeEllenLaugh
Link: http://s0.gd/7e

Sample Tweets

"Hey @TheEllenShow, have you laughed today? Put @shaner528 on your show and you will! http://s0.gd/7e #MakeEllenLaugh"

"@TheEllenShow if you want to have a good laugh, bring @shaner528 onto the show! http://s0.gd/7e #MakeEllenLaugh"

"Hey @TheEllenShow, while you're making others laugh, @shaner528 is after YOUR laughter. Laugh with him! http://s0.gd/7e #MakeEllenLaugh"


Finally, THANK YOU! In the end, we can't accomplish anything without the help of people like you, so from the bottom of our hearts thank you for helping us work to spread Shane's message of positivity to the world. Remember that we're going to stop bothering Ellen at 11pm US Eastern Time, and HAVE FUN!

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