Originally Posted by Alchemist11

So it's "breast cancer awareness"

Telling people about breast cancer (as if they didn't probably know more about it than the female changing their status) is gonna do NOTHING.

But at least you're generating awareness for all types of cancer that can affect all types of people, because they're all equally horrible diseases, right?

Oh wait.

They ARE equally horrble deseases.

Originally Posted by Alchemist11

So it's "breast cancer awareness"

Telling people about breast cancer (as if they didn't probably know more about it than the female changing their status) is gonna do NOTHING.

But at least you're generating awareness for all types of cancer that can affect all types of people, because they're all equally horrible diseases, right?

Oh wait.

If you look a few pages back on this thread, I explained that it's a viral campaign and it's only meant to get people talking. (ie. "What's your status about?", "It's a breast cancer campaign") Simply talking about breast cancer could do something, like encourage a woman to get a mammogram. Just because changing your status might not do anything to raise awareness/save lives, it doesn't hurt to try. And there's nothing wrong with people talking about/raising awareness for one type of cancer. There are tons of campaigns for breast cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, etc. No one is doing anything wrong by raising awareness for only one at a time.

Originally Posted by lizziepizzie

They ARE equally horrble deseases.

I think what he is saying is not that they aren't equally horrible diseases but that people aren't raising awareness for the other types of cancer.

If you look a few pages back on this thread, I explained that it's a viral campaign and it's only meant to get people talking. (ie. "What's your status about?", "It's a breast cancer campaign") Simply talking about breast cancer could do something, like encourage a woman to get a mammogram. Just because changing your status might not do anything to raise awareness/save lives, it doesn't hurt to try. And there's nothing wrong with people talking about/raising awareness for one type of cancer. There are tons of campaigns for breast cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, etc. No one is doing anything wrong by raising awareness for only one at a time.

You're right - there is nothing wrong with raising awareness.

However, as other people have stated, it's not a very good way, plus I think Andrew posted the term "slacktivism" which describes this situation pretty well.

If one were to donate money to cancer, it would be acceptable to donate to only one type of cancer because sending $50 to every type of cancer research would be a bit difficult.

However, if you're doing something as easy as changing your facebook status, why does it have to be some stupid mysterious women only propaganda BS for one type of cancer?

It's not any more difficult to promote awareness of all cancer as opposed to just a single type limited to one sex, and if someone isn't going to do anything but change their facebook status why not do it that way?

This is irrespective of the fact that it's "breast cancer month" whatever the hell that means.

Originally Posted by Alchemist11

You're right - there is nothing wrong with raising awareness.

However, as other people have stated, it's not a very good way, plus I think Andrew posted the term "slacktivism" which describes this situation pretty well.

If one were to donate money to cancer, it would be acceptable to donate to only one type of cancer because sending $50 to every type of cancer research would be a bit difficult.

However, if you're doing something as easy as changing your facebook status, why does it have to be some stupid mysterious women only propaganda BS for one type of cancer?

It's not any more difficult to promote awareness of all cancer as opposed to just a single type limited to one sex, and if someone isn't going to do anything but change their facebook status why not do it that way?

This is irrespective of the fact that it's "breast cancer month" whatever the hell that means.

Not everyone has enough money to donate to charities. Changing your status is a free, easy, quick way to get the attention of a few friends on Facebook and spread the word.

If you don't like it, don't do it. If you don't like reading it, block status updates. There's no need to trash people for trying to make a difference, no matter how small or insignifcant you consider it to be.

Originally Posted by Alchemist11

It's not any more difficult to promote awareness of all cancer as opposed to just a single type limited to one sex, and if someone isn't going to do anything but change their facebook status why not do it that way?

This is irrespective of the fact that it's "breast cancer month" whatever the hell that means.

Men can get breast cancer too. It's not nearly as common, but it can happen, and more frequently than most people think.

There you go...as much as I don't think this whole status-changing thing is worth it, it led to you learning something new about breast cancer.

Originally Posted by Alchemist11

However, if you're doing something as easy as changing your facebook status, why does it have to be some stupid mysterious women only propaganda BS for one type of cancer?.

Because it has gotten so much more attention by spreading the awareness of breast cancer through ths SIMPLE STATUS than it would have for people to just say "October is Breast Cancer month; be aware!" Would this thread have been started if that had been the case? No. Would people be confused and take initiatve to find out what it's about? No. Would people be talking about it? NO. So this whole thing has done its purpose BY MAKING MORE PEOPLE AWARE. It's not a huge deal, people. It's just a facebook status. Stop belittling it.

Originally Posted by nerual

Men can get breast cancer too. It's not nearly as common, but it can happen, and more frequently than most people think.

There you go...as much as I don't think this whole status-changing thing is worth it, it led to you learning something new about breast cancer.

I was not aware of that, thanks for the added knowledge.

Originally Posted by lizziepizzie

Because it has gotten so much more attention by spreading the awareness of breast cancer through ths SIMPLE STATUS than it would have for people to just say "October is Breast Cancer month; be aware!" Would this thread have been started if that had been the case? No. Would people be confused and take initiatve to find out what it's about? No. Would people be talking about it? NO. So this whole thing has done its purpose BY MAKING MORE PEOPLE AWARE. It's not a huge deal, people. It's just a facebook status. Stop belittling it.

First of all, belittling would entail me attempting to make it seem less important than it is, but the sentence before you just said "it's just a facebook status" indicating its unimportance. Nice.

Second, I suppose this argues back to the initial point that it doesn't DO anything.

Awareness? That works for rare diseases that many people may not know. Breast cancer awareness is almost an oxymoron.

"Would this thread have been started if that had been the case? No." Correct, but does the creation of this thread DO anything? All I remember reading from tons of people here is that the status was a stupid idea, and it didn't help whatsoever. Nice job.

" Would people be confused and take initiatve to find out what it's about? No." WHO THE HELL WOULD NOT KNOW what breast cancer was? That's my entire point! Anyone who was "confused" by breast cancer would be too stupid to be able to do anything to help the issue anyway.

"So this whole thing has done its purpose BY MAKING MORE PEOPLE AWARE. "

It's made people talk about it, but it hasn't created awareness. And the problem is the way in which they decide to pursue the conversation is never the same way required to actually generate knowledge and/or awareness.

Besides Lauren [and this is only because she's a pro], has anyone in this ENTIRE thread even mentioned any information about breast cancer? Have people asked questions about the cancer itself? Have they asked how to help? Have they asked where they could donate money? Have they asked what the statistics are for people who get breast cancer?

NO. They don't even care about the cancer, they only care about the retarded status update. In other words, they've generated buzz "about" the topic of breast cancer, and I use the term "about" extremely loosely. More accurately, they've generated buzz about a totally different topic and linked it to breast cancer.

It's honestly fine if someone wanted to put that as their status, but the significance and change it can make is honestly so small that it might as well not have been created in the first place. And it doesn't help that half the females were doing it for a totally different reason.

I agree entirely with what Alchemist11 said.

People are aware of what breast cancer is. Nothing new is being added to the discussion. No where in a person's status are people being told about mammograms, important information, or even being given a link to somewhere they can find that information. They're just being told where someone likes to put their purse.

I'm all about bringing awareness to different issues, but when you're trying to get people aware, you can't give them something that's totally unrelated and going to distract them from the issue.

And really, after people were told about what the "I like it..." statuses were for, how many people actually had a discussion about breast cancer?

Annnnd, I'd like to point out that most people who have this as their status don't even know it has anything to do with breast cancer. As evidence for this point I'd like to direct everyone to post #105 by lizziepizzie where she states that it's for "GIRL POWER."

Note: I'm not picking on lizziepizzie, it was just the first post I found when looking for something to back me up.

Originally Posted by lizziepizzie

BY JOVE I THINK YOU'VE GOT IT! IT'S ABOUT GIRL POWER! It has nothing to do whatsoever with breast cancer! Finally, someone understands.

0_o
The message I received was purely about girl power type shyte, hence why I thought it was about that.

Congrats on finding the capslock key though...

Another thing that I would like to add about this awareness campaign that bothers me is the fact that it's designed so that only females will take part in it. I think this perpetuates the idea that only females can have breast cancer, and doesn't give males who have/had breast cancer or who know or have lost someone to breast cancer to participate.

http://www.oddee.com/item_97189.aspx

These are awareness campaigns. Cause you know...they actually have to do with breasts and stuff. Really though, some very good ads there. ( I have an obsession with advertising)

lmao guys do movember (H)

After I found out what it was about I thought it was kinda dumb :/

It being about breast cancer is kinda helpful I suppose, but just to try and trick guys didn't really impress me. (it worked on me, but only because my gf DOES like it on the floor lol)

Other than girl power what is the point in trying to pull a fast one on guys? Do we not get tricked enough in real life so we have to get tricked on facebook? It seems like girls could find better ways to bond and promote sisterhood than this.

I also don't really like how the whole thing separates the sexes. Just seems unnecessary to me.

I have no interest in supporting breast cancer research upon hearing about this campaign.