Colours as facebook status?

[flip]

Originally Posted by Jambi

Normally, I don't buy into these things, but this one gave me a change of heart. Its fun, and it definately gets the message across.

Today, a friend of mine posted on her facebook wall, saying how she didn't know what the whole colour thing was about. To which some stupid person responded to with this:

"it's dumb b*tches posting their bra colour to raise awareness of breast cancer...don't ask them how it helps fight breast cancer in any way tho. they aren't really sure.

spoiler alert: it doesn't"

Something about that got me so pissed off, between the ignorance and the sheer stupiditiy, I had to give this guy (no idea who he is) a piece of my cyber-mind.

ME :...Pretty sure you explained the reasoning yourself.

How does it fight cancer? By raising AWARENESS of breast cancer.

Why do schools make students walk on Terry Fox day? Why do we see multitudes of people walking around with a different coloured ribbon on their chests?

spoiler alert: AWARENESS.

I don't know who you are, but ignorance is the reason why we need awareness in the first place.

I support these "dumb b*tches", not because I'm some kind of humanitarian, but because its just the morally right thing to do."

Internet tough-guy forever

Yeah because there is a serious lack of awareness about cancer...

Furthermore I'm not sure if we live on the same planet but there is nothing morally right about supporting this campaign. That would suggest that not supporting it is morally wrong, which of course is bulls***.

As has been posted since you made your post, really great things to do would be to give $$ to breat cancer research or pressure the government/health care industry to make mammograms more prevalent and accessible.

[FlamesGirl]

I'm not sure how this thing got started but it eventually took off, probably due to the flirty factor involved. Youngish girls doing it probably think it's fun to tease the guys they know about what colour bra they're wearing, tee hee hee...etc. No, it's not helping the fight to end breast cancer the same way donating money/time would, but I'm not sure that's the entire point. If it gets even a few women aware of the need to self-exam and reminds a few others, then what's the harm? Maybe some women will catch a problem before it's too late. How can that be a bad thing?

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by Jambi

Normally, I don't buy into these things, but this one gave me a change of heart. Its fun, and it definately gets the message across.

Today, a friend of mine posted on her facebook wall, saying how she didn't know what the whole colour thing was about. To which some stupid person responded to with this:

"it's dumb b*tches posting their bra colour to raise awareness of breast cancer...don't ask them how it helps fight breast cancer in any way tho. they aren't really sure.

spoiler alert: it doesn't"

Something about that got me so pissed off, between the ignorance and the sheer stupiditiy, I had to give this guy (no idea who he is) a piece of my cyber-mind.

ME :...Pretty sure you explained the reasoning yourself.

How does it fight cancer? By raising AWARENESS of breast cancer.

Why do schools make students walk on Terry Fox day? Why do we see multitudes of people walking around with a different coloured ribbon on their chests?

spoiler alert: AWARENESS.

I don't know who you are, but ignorance is the reason why we need awareness in the first place.

I support these "dumb b*tches", not because I'm some kind of humanitarian, but because its just the morally right thing to do."

Internet tough-guy forever

The problem is that raising "awareness" in and of itself is completely meaningless (and honestly, who isn't aware of breast cancer by now? They've marketed themselves so well that whenever I see a pink product of any kind I immediately associate it with breast cancer regardless if any such association exists or not).

I've taken several marketing and public relations courses at UofC, and one of the first things they teach in every class is that "raising awareness" is never a valid metric for any campaign. You have to change behaviour, and that's why this stupid Facebook meme is a failure. The message should have said, "Post the colour of your bra in your status, and when you're finished that, remember to do your monthly breast self-exam! You can also donate to the Breast Cancer Society by following the link below."

That would have been infinitely more effective. Instead, this campaign trivialized an important health issue and turned it into an opportunity for women to flirt with everyone on Facebook. My wife (age 30) reacted to receiving the private message thusly, "How old are these people, 12? 'Tee-hee, look at me, I'm wearing a bra! LOL'"

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

The problem is that raising "awareness" in and of itself is completely meaningless (and honestly, who isn't aware of breast cancer by now? They've marketed themselves so well that whenever I see a pink product of any kind I immediately associate it with breast cancer regardless if any such association exists or not).

I've taken several marketing and public relations courses at UofC, and one of the first things they teach in every class is that "raising awareness" is never a valid metric for any campaign. You have to change behaviour, and that's why this stupid Facebook meme is a failure. The message should have said, "Post the colour of your bra in your status, and when you're finished that, remember to do your monthly breast self-exam! You can also donate to the Breast Cancer Society by following the link below."

That would have been infinitely more effective. Instead, this campaign trivialized an important health issue and turned it into an opportunity for women to flirt with everyone on Facebook. My wife (age 30) reacted to receiving the private message thusly, "How old are these people, 12? 'Tee-hee, look at me, I'm wearing a bra! LOL'"

Your whole argument is based on the assumption that all of these women posted the colour of their bras and nothing else. That's a huge assumption and extremely improbable.

Sure, most probably did just that, but based on the size of the campaign, it's guaranteed some have actually taken the next step and made a donation, planed for more tests etc. "changed behavior" as you were looking for. Something they would not have done 3 days ago when they were "aware" of breast cancer, but not thinking about it.

"awareness" isn't just about learning the unknown, it's also about focus and conscious thought of the known.
Even if 100 women made some sort of behavior change because this brought breast cancer to the focus of their minds for a couple of days, it's worth it.

I can't understand how anyone could have a problem with this.

[Superflyer]

Originally Posted by ken0042

I guess my thinking is that this current "awareness" isn't targetted towards those who would actually donate cash, click on a link, educate themselves, etc.

The point is to make a few extra people a little more aware, and then when somebody comes around the office doing a bake sale, or a run for breast cancer, etc- the guys who said "hot- LOL" on people's status might be a little more likely to buy a pink cookie, or donate $5. They see the next promotion, and say "wow- we're seeing a lot of stuff about breast cancer" and feel a little more inclined to do something.

Truthfully I am burnt out on all the pink stuff I see for breast cancer, I hate walking through a store and seeing dozens of pink items to raise money\awareness. Also when flipping through a magazine, watching a show or listening to the radio there are many ads for this run\event\party\get together\etc for breast cancer. At this point I have stopped paying attention to them. I give my support to the Canadian Cancer Society because they spread the money amongst all the different types of cancer not just one.

[Jambi]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

The problem is that raising "awareness" in and of itself is completely meaningless (and honestly, who isn't aware of breast cancer by now? They've marketed themselves so well that whenever I see a pink product of any kind I immediately associate it with breast cancer regardless if any such association exists or not).

I've taken several marketing and public relations courses at UofC, and one of the first things they teach in every class is that "raising awareness" is never a valid metric for any campaign. You have to change behaviour, and that's why this stupid Facebook meme is a failure. The message should have said, "Post the colour of your bra in your status, and when you're finished that, remember to do your monthly breast self-exam! You can also donate to the Breast Cancer Society by following the link below."

That would have been infinitely more effective. Instead, this campaign trivialized an important health issue and turned it into an opportunity for women to flirt with everyone on Facebook. My wife (age 30) reacted to receiving the private message thusly, "How old are these people, 12? 'Tee-hee, look at me, I'm wearing a bra! LOL'"

I agree with you, actually. What really bugged me was how the guy referred to the girls in a really derogatory manner. That just dosent fly with me.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Superflyer

Truthfully I am burnt out on all the pink stuff I see for breast cancer, I hate walking through a store and seeing dozens of pink items to raise money\awareness. Also when flipping through a magazine, watching a show or listening to the radio there are many ads for this run\event\party\get together\etc for breast cancer. At this point I have stopped paying attention to them. I give my support to the Canadian Cancer Society because they spread the money amongst all the different types of cancer not just one.

I will start this off by saying I like boobies just about as much as any other straight guy...

BUT It's a fundamental concept of economics that the more money you put into one problem, the less you get out of each aditional dollar - diminishing marginal utility. Breast cancer - as an issue - has gotten so big that it's pushing other issues (particularly other cancers) out of the picture. It's star is shining so bright that everything around it becomes a little bit dimmer. In isolation, the more money that goes to breast cancer research the better. But bring in say, the Canadian Cancer Society, as an alternative, and the Canadian Brest Cancer Society is overfunded.

I honestly wish the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation would tone it down a little. Or at least use their superstardom to at least mention that they're not the only cancer out there.