Facebook users across the globe have been updating their status to a color, from one or two, then five, to everybody's doing it. Now the crowd wants to know why.
The chain email that seems to have been passed around the world read “We are playing a game...... silly, but fun! Right the colour of your bra as your status, just the colour, nothing else!! Copy this and pass it on to all girls/Females ...... NO MEN!! This will be fun to see how it spreads, and we are leaving the men wondering why all females just have a colour as their status!! Let's have fun supporting breast cancer awareness.”
Origin of the Facebook Colors
Andrea Rader, a spokeswoman for the Susan B. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, says that the organization is not responsible, but said it was "a terrific tool for raising awareness." So far, this seems to be a fad of the day, with some men jumping on board for laughs. One man’s status read “Leopard print with tassles”.
It appears that the ladies of 2010 are wearing a lot of black, red, white, and nude. It is unclear whether “nude” implies color or just that. Occasionally, a bit of print garnered an honorable mention. Some of the guys started in on testicular cancer awareness, with one man from Vancouver, Canada updating his status to "girls are posting bra colours for breast cancer awareness: Guys let's beat them at it and post amount of testicles for testicular cancer awareness! I'll go first- 1 ". And boys will be boys, as many just mentioned their skivvies, some being modest and saying they should at least be taken to dinner first.
Breast Cancer Awareness?
How much breast cancer awareness has to do with the origination is unclear, but it’s safe to say it has caused a high degree of it. With over 350 million active users on Facebook, word gets around, and if people weren’t already clued in, they googled it to find out. The question remains, is it really for breast cancer awareness or just a bandwagon effect of someone’s boredom? An oncology nurse from Tacoma, WA stated that "It's possible that someone started the whole thing with good intentions...Perhaps someone, somewhere was inspired...Maybe they remembered to do their own self-exam, or scheduled that dreaded mammogram, or decided to make a contribution to breast cancer research. I have my doubts."
Social Networking Fad of the Day
Despite the rumors of a good cause, it is merely a fad. In his blog, Stuart Cosgrove of Channel 4 in Scotland, calls out a few components of a fad that explain the frenzy behind this:
• Fads must be by their nature ephemeral
• Fads always touch a basic human and are proxies for something more important
• Fads usually have a strong element of play, display or behavioral narcissism
People will have their fun, even sitting alone in an apartment with a computer that links them to the rest of the world. Social networks have become a proxy for physical community for many, accessible even from a mobile phone while running mundane errands. These sites have become a community unto themselves and trends run through them like a sieve. The things that make any community of people feel connected, no matter how large or small, are sometimes strange, sometimes silly and even immature, but the point is that there is somehow a connection.
Olivia Benson - Olivia Benson has been writing full-time since 2010, though it’s a craft she’s been passionate about since she figured out how ...
