Last Thursday I received a Facebook message from an old friend and was hugely disappointed to discover that it was the forwarding of a pointless viral campaign – essentially a chain letter. The message requested that:
Some fun is going on….just write the colour of your bra in your status..just the colour, nothing else, and send this on to ONLY girls no men… it will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status…thanks ladies!
So, there are people out there who don’t know what cancer is? And changing my Facebook status to ‘black’ is going to help how exactly? Instead of following these pretty pointless instructions, 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. Every two minutes someone is diagnosed with cancer in the UK. More than 1 in 3 people will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime. Every four minutes another person dies of cancer in the UK. Giving £2 a month doesn’t sound so bad now, does it?
Today I saw that girlonetrack had tweeted a link to a fantastic Jezebel article on the same subject. Can’t we just cut the crap and just give money to the people who are working to cure this terrible disease? Buying something pink that gives a mere 1% of its sale price to a breast cancer charity is a small step, but everyone would be better off sponsoring a friend taking part in Race for Life, doing something themselves to raise money for a cancer charity or, even better, donating a small amount every month. Telling your Facebook friends that your underwear is red or wearing your old Fashion Targets Breast Cancer t-shirt doesn’t really help anyone. Giving money to researchers or nurses will.
I completely agree. The 'bra colour' status updates have been bugging me all week. I have a direct debit set up to Cancer Research UK and have had for a number of years now. It's a charity that's really close to my heart for numerous reasons and I'd much rather donate direct than post the colour of my underwear!