What was once a crowdfunding platform to raise money for challenging, unfortunate incidents, or illness, has transformed into a selfish plea to repair a cracked iPhone screen, or hopeful wish to attend a Justin Bieber concert. GoFundMe: the world’s number one “philanthropic” website.

The fundraising phenomenon was first founded in 2010; since then, the once-wholesome values tied to the site have unraveled into a greedy scam.

As I scroll through my Facebook timeline, countless GoFundMe pages are mixed in with humorous blog-like posts and mirror selfies that should be showcased on a family-oriented virtual community.

According to similarweb.com, 55.23% of the sites traffic is due to social media. In today’s society, asking family, friends and even strangers online for money has become the norm.

This past March, one of my close friends, Jeremiah Harris lost his mom, Lizzie Bowman, to cancer. Being a single parent, Bowman struggled to make ends meet. Although each month was a financial challenge for Bowman, she still managed to keep Harris in the sport that he loves: all-star cheerleading.

Once Harris’s coaches, teammates and their parents received word about his loss, they did all that they could to help him. One of the most supporting factors being a GoFundMe account.

The money made for Harris is specifically going to the challenges ahead that he now has to face without his mom. These include everyday needs like food and clothing, as well as keeping him in school and cheerleading.

Unfortunately, there are many people that are ruining GoFundMe’s virtuous reputation– asking for money for things like a birthday vacation to Mexico– making the site lose respect and potential donors for people, like Harris, that actually need financial assistance.

We all face economic obstacles, but taking the easy way out of things and setting up a GoFundMe Page, is not the way to go about it. If you want something like a new iPhone, pair of concert tickets, or an international vacation, save your money and work hard for it.