The new wave of social media nominations are doing nothing for awareness
Am I the only one seriously not feeling these incredibly awkward Facebook and Instagram nominations? Are these actually in the slightest way relevant to a meaningful cause at all? This is a strongly worded letter of my hatred of “no makeup” or “cock in a sock” nominations and “awareness campaigns” that are plaguing social media.
Where do I even begin? First off, how does taking a selfie do anything for cancer? If you actually want to raise money or awareness for cancer, taking a selfie and saying it’s for “cancer awareness” certainly doesn’t do anything beyond feeding your ego and being fooled into thinking that you’re actually making a contribution to society. Please get off your lazy rear and run, bike, or even walk in a weekend to end cancer event if that’s actually what you want to do.
Why are people so obsessed with these fake “raise cancer awareness” campaigns? It started off with a weird array of shocking statuses that would scare your family into thinking you were like 16 and pregnant or reporting on your fave sex position for the world wide web to see. I mean, was I the only one who Googled statuses that said things like “I like it on the table” from my 56-year-old aunt or “I like it on the stairs” from my 13-year-old cousin?
Upon searching Google I discovered it was for “cancer awareness.” Well, the statuses never even mentioned cancer, all they did was haunt me for half an hour while I frantically searched for a reasonable explanation (which I still have yet to find) and tried to overcome overly vivid images of my family having sex…
This shock value approach is something men are definitely aware of. I dare you to search #cockinasock. Apparently, men have taken to Facebook and Instagram, stripped down, and literally put their cock in a sock in the name of “prostate cancer awareness.”
Now, should you actually dare to take a look, your reaction will be something like “AHHHHH” or “oh my god, oh my god, AHHHH,” and it will actually make you think of prostates, wieners, shlongs…you get it.
Then, there’s the no makeup selfie nomination, which has literally consumed my news feed. Not only do 95 per cent of these photos make me want to vomit, but I tend to notice a type of girl so vain that they, clearly still wearing makeup, try to rake in compliments like “omg you’re like totally naturally pretty.”
So if we can agree that not wearing makeup, or worse, pretending not to wear makeup and taking a gratuitous selfie does nothing beneficial for cancer research, why we are focusing on the face to create breast cancer awareness? While I can understand the notion that mentioning breast cancer can make people think about it and maybe that thought could turn into a potential donation, what does this makeupless selfie have to do with it?
You want to shock me? You want me to think about breast cancer from a photo you post onto my news feed? Then ladies please, unbutton your tops and show me the real deal: shock the hell out of me by flashing your breasts on social media and then I might actually think of breast cancer for like five whole minutes.
