Last week, a Facebook friend of mine (who will not be named) posted a status exclaiming their delight at something they had 'achieved' recently. Naturally, I gave their status a 'Like' to congratulate them on their achievement, and continued with my day as normal.
A couple of hours later, I went back on Facebook to discover a direct message from that friend, which was along the lines of:
- Ha! You shouldn't have commented on/reacted to my post!
- It's your turn now - randomly post one of these statuses and pass on this message to anyone that comments on or reacts to it (statuses ranging from "diarrhoea again" to "used my boobs to get out of a speeding ticket" and "I think I'm in love with someone" to "I'm getting married")
- This the 2016 Breast Cancer Awareness game
- Don't be a spoil sport
- Don't let the secret out
In case you didn't know, I refused to follow any of the instructions and considered how such a 'game' supposedly raised awareness for breast cancer. I came to the quick conclusion that it did absolutely nothing for breast cancer awareness. Think about it. You've just congratulated a friend on their engagement and then realise you've just been baited into a 'game' that's part of a breast awareness campaign. You've now been through the fact that you already knew breast cancer existed, along with many other diseases and medical conditions of different types, and wonder how posting a random Facebook status will ever help. Welcome to my world.
I then took to Google and typed in "breast cancer awareness game" - and by 'typed in', I mean I just typed the first few letters of 'awareness' and the result already came up because of the number of people who had searched it before me. I found a lot of negativity towards the campaign, as well as a small handful of positive articles about it. I thought, "Good news first", so I clicked on one of the more positive ones. Apparently this started about half a decade ago and the first campaign managed to go viral and got a mention in the news. Whether this caused people to start donating towards Breast Cancer Research, I have no idea. But it seems as though the golden age of this game has been and gone. I found a negative article written by someone who found the game deeply offensive, given they had experienced relatives suffering from breast cancer and questioned the trivial nature of the game. I had to agree.
I've done plenty for charities in the past, and am intent on doing even more in the future. I've volunteered and run 10K and half marathon distances to raise money for them. Now that's what I'd call raising awareness and making a difference at the same time. I also did the ice bucket challenge for ALS/MND. While this was a campaign with similarities to the breast cancer awareness game, there was no hiding of what the ice bucket challenge was for. The only way you find out that the breast cancer awareness game is about breast cancer is if you react and get the message from whoever's post you reacted to.
All of this begs the question as to whether we're doing the right things to raise awareness or build a campaign around something. Unfortunately I've not got all day to write something (and you've not got all day to read my rubbish) so I'm going to have to leave that question hanging. If I were looking to run a campaign through social media, I'd have people doing something that is actually related to what the campaign's about. In the case of the breast cancer awareness 'game', you don't do anything related to breast cancer and it doesn't make you think for one second about it. It's going to take more than a few random, unrelated Facebook posts to gain support in society.
Ollie out.
Twitter: @Chowerz
Instagram: @chowerz
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