Upworthy is a website based on the cute and stupid idea that upvotes and shared links will somehow alchemize into tolerance and equality. Like most things that are cute and stupid, Upworthy is very popular. It serves as a kind of feel-good tonic for comfortable liberals who want to be comforted, which is fine — everyone should feel good and comfortable. That’s the point of progress and making the world a better place. However, if the people who run Upworthy truly believe that they are “enacting change” or whatever with their “irresistibly shareable stuff” then the whole enterprise is all the more cute and stupid.

Last month, one of the “curators” at Upworthy posted an article with the typically Upworthy-style headline: “How Does The Worst Human Being Of Retail Sleep At Night? After He Sees This, He Won’t.” The “worst human being of retail” is Mike Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch, which might indeed be the worst retailer, the outfitter of teenage bros who consider Jeremy Piven from “Entourage” their role model. Anyway, Jeffries said some mean things about people — he doesn’t want larger women or “not so cool” kids sporting his brand — that he probably shouldn’t have said, especially with Upworthy on the case.

After all, Jeffries will be unable to sleep after he sees a video on Upworthy of an obnoxious guy (probably an Upworthy reader) giving Abercrombie & Fitch clothing to the homeless. Like everything these days, the campaign comes with a hashtag, #FitchTheHomeless, which sounds like some sort of bizarre sex tourism thing.

Note that Jeffries is the “worst human being of retail” just because he said some stuff. Yeah, his comments were rude and hurtful, but all this ire directed at the bleached-out weirdo and his anti-fetish for the overweight and unhip misses some of the truly horrendous things going on in retail, namely sweatshop labor, which Abercrombie & Fitch uses, along with dozens and dozens of other companies.

Then there’s the inanity and bankruptcy of the video itself: The image of a well-dressed white kid with a video camera giving “cool” clothes to a bunch of mostly black homeless people should make any viewer feel uneasy. There are just too many complexities and signifiers for one unwieldy Upworthy headline to handle! Also, by trying to give Abercrombie & Fitch a “brand readjustment” by giving the clothes to homeless people, the #FitchTheHomeless campaign, such as it is, basically agrees with the Jeffries worldview, that the world is divided between cool people and “not so cool” people.

This is but one video, one Upworthy item, but it demonstrates the core problem of this certain kind of liberalism. Such ideals and idealism looks nice on a Facebook newsfeed, but once these “Glee” fans emerge from the lukewarm syrup bath that is Upworthy and head out into the world, they get smacked by reality. It’s easy to sloganeer change — engineering it is a lot harder.