We all must have seen the Facebook status messages mentioning colors. Red, Blue, Black, Silver, Gold and what not! Thats the latest fad. And innocent creatures who never really understood what they signify have been trying haplessly to find out the meaning of these colorful mumbo-jumbo of statuses! To give you a light-humored joke, there are males who never understood what these colors meant, and they put up colors as their status messages, only to try and hide under their desks when they were laughed at by friends! Apparently, its like a mystery which has been decoded and posted on Yahoo Answers and all over the internet too. Again apparently, its about spreading awareness about breast cancer. And how is this been done? Female facebook users are supposed to mention these colors and spread the word among their lady friends.
I wonder: Just creating an aura of mystery about some arbitrary colors and gathering 'oohs' and 'aahs' about them are by no means a way to spread awareness about breast cancer! Also, going by the kinds of comments on these status messages, if the motive is also to show how bold you by trying to create a peek-a-boo visual imagination of a colorful bra on a public forum, trust me, its not boldness to a nanoparticle! Let me ask you, Where is the boldness if you just mention 'red,' 'maroon,' 'fuschia,' 'Vibgyor,' 'tiger stripes' as your status? I'd rather say the 'Pink Chaddi' campaign was bold.
I dont even think the actual motive of spreading awareness is anywhere noticeable! Where is the awareness if my lady colleague comes to me and asks me 'what is this hoopla with colors as facebook status messages?' Maybe 30% of the women don't even know what this is all about! It appears to be just the farcical peer pressure of displaying how fashionable you are.
If awareness about a constant raging disease has to be spread, get up and gear up for it. Go to schools, talk about it, set up ways to have free testing for rural women, spread the awareness about it in your own home first. Its a noble cause. If you want to spread awareness about it, care for yourself and dont create a patchwork of colored status murals on facebook.
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7 comments:
I really dont think putting up those colors on FB status hurt either.. I guess it was meant to be a fun way to experiment. Now that people have actually taken the pains to find out whats behind this, may be a few went and read about Breast Cancer and increased their knowledge. It might just be a small step but each step is what counts.. No one was targeting a big achievement here.
Good thought!
Very true. But I think you missed a small point. No matter what it was intended for (I personally think some smart voyeur started it all), it did result in getting people to talk about breast cancer. I doubt that the so many posts that popped up on blogs about breast cancer would have happened without this. And I am pretty sure it reminded atleast a few women to go for their check up and got a few more to speak up. All in all, it didn't hurt anyone, gave people something to laugh and flirt about and did some good.
@ankit: Thanks for your thoughts. Fair said, however, though it was not hurtful, I think it was pointless too. Think about all those women who have had mastectomy and wouldve been happier spreading awareness in a better way. It seemed to be a useless exercise which, if really was for a genuine reason, couldve made better use of people's thoughts and time.
I'd say I did read about it (breast cancer). I even had a urge to do a similar one for testicular cancer, but gave up once i found out we're not very prone to it.
If 20 mill females posted their colors on facebook, i guess its an impressive feat for 04 spent. :)
@Anonymous who commented in the day: Its fair if you say its a way to experiment, however, it didnt look like it was to experiment. The kind of comments it generated was, well, expected, and it more seemed like a fashion brigade among the educated class. I still wonder how many people went and read up about breast cancer. Half of them didnt know what the color codes meant! ha ha :)
Anyways, thanks for reading and for providing your thoughts.
@Anonymous who commented at night: Thanks!
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