A viral campaign dreamed up to ‘raise awareness of breast cancer’ has been the subject of major controversy on the web for the last few days.
Like many of you I’m sure, I logged on to Facebook last week to find the following message in my Inbox.
“Some fun is going on! Put the colour of your bra in your status and nothing else. Send this message to your female friends only. It will be neat to see whether this spreads the wings of cancer awareness and fun to see how long it takes for the guys to notice that the girls have only colours in their statuses!”
I closed the message, wondering if many of my friends had received it and how they’d responded to it. My feed said it all – every other post was a short status update – "Black", "Red lol", "Pink and blue :)" and so on.
My first reaction wasn’t a particularly positive one. What sort of effect was me posting the colour of my bra on Facebook really going to have on breast cancer awareness? Looking at updates on my feed, the only response they seemed to be getting was from confused men - or women who hadn’t got the note - asking what the hell it meant. As for it having something to do with breast cancer – the message I’d received didn’t even mention breast cancer in particular. I decided not to get involved.
Why? For the same reasons as many others who objected to the ‘awareness campaign’. How many people who read these status updates had any idea they were supposed to have something to do with cancer? I saw a fair few instances where men, having managed to guess that it had something to do with underwear, were suddenly extremely interested and started commenting with "Sounds good lol" and "Tell me more!"
But most of the time, people were just bemused – and with good reason. After reading about the phenomenon online I discovered that no-one had been able to find out whether it was even connected to a charity or organisation.
One criticism highlighted across the internet was the fact that the campaign seemed more like an excuse to play some sort of ‘titillating game’ than a way of helping people.
Over at Salon, Tracy Clark-Flory said:
“Who knew fighting a terminal illness could be so fun -- and flirty. It essentially trumpets: Hey, breast cancer exists and I'm wearing a bra! Or, seeing as the status updates mention nothing about disease, perhaps it translates to the more succinct: Breasts exist!”
When you look at it like that, it’s not so different to the awful video released in time for last year’s National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, imploring men to “Save The Boobs” in the hope that they’d want to do something for breast cancer purely because boobs look nice.
Other critics pointed out that there are far more effective ways of educating people about breast cancer. BitchBuzz's own Lori Smith wrote over on her personal blog, Rarely Wears Lipstick:
“I decided to change my status to say that I can't believe women think that putting the colour of their bra into their status will 'promote breast cancer awareness' as surely mentioning a cancer charity would make more sense? I mentioned Breast Cancer Care and then also posted a link to one of my own chosen charities - Cancer Research UK.”
It didn’t take long for groups such as “I Really Don’t Care What Colour Your Bra Is” and “Not Posting the Color of Your Bra” to spring up on Facebook, the latter suggesting that people make a donation to a cancer charity instead.
What people really need to know about breast cancer is how they can examine themselves, how they can raise or donate money, how they can support a family member or a friend. They also need to know that men get breast cancer too – so maybe leaving men out of the whole Facebook status in-joke wasn’t such a good plan after all. Simply knowing what colour bras your friends happen to be wearing isn’t going to help anyone.
However the backlash hasn’t been universal. Some charities have spoken out to say how pleased they are to see their cause being brought to attention on such a high profile social networking site. The Dallas Morning News reported on one such reaction from local charity Susan G Komen for the Cure:
“Komen spokeswoman Andrea Rader says the page had 134,000 fans on Friday morning. After people began posting their bra colors, the number jumped to 136,000. By Monday, the total was 142,784 and counting.”
This is all well and good, but let’s be honest, how much does ‘becoming a fan’ of something on Facebook do for the cause?
Some further breast cancer charities and resources:
Think Before You Pink, a site which “calls for more transparency and accountability by companies that take part in breast cancer fundraising, and encourages consumers to ask critical questions about pink ribbon promotions”.
Breakthrough Breast Cancer
Breast Cancer Action
Image via Jenny Downing's Flickr