chicus.com

Awareness
Jan 13, 2010
This was initially one post in two parts but the first went so long I broke it up. Since I don't post that often right now I don't want you to miss the first post of the day on Haiti. Also, donate.

I've had some misgivings lately about "awareness", especially as it relates to social media. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people being more aware of life outside their apartment. I'm actually quite for it. However, I have concerns that people confuse raising awareness for action.

I have seen this twice recently. Initially I thought of this with the Facebook day of posting your bra color for breast cancer awareness and today it was the quake in Haiti.

One day last week all these cryptic status messages which only stated a color started popping up. Being the curious person I googled and found it was to raise awareness for breast cancer. One result I found stated that the purpose was that while the women looked under their shirt to identify the color of their bra they were encouraged to give themselves a little self-exam. (I cannot find that link now)

That's all well and good in theory but how does it work in practice? Did women actually checked themselves or did this simply become a fun Facebook game? Did anyone see the posts and learn anything about breast cancer?

The easy answer is that if even one woman checked herself or was prompted to schedule an overdue mammogram the gimmick was a success. And I completely agree with that. However, couldn't it have been much more effective if the status said "blue. Get checked." or anything of that nature to prompt action? I think this post, chosen because it was the first Google returned and NOT because it supports my point says it wonderfully. "When someone has found the cause of the bra color updates, they have been made aware. Mission accomplished. Some people may stumble upon a blog or article that spreads breast cancer awareness further. There is then possibility that people will be educated on breast cancer risks, self exams, early detection and more." (my emphasis) Why leave it to possibility that someone will stumble across the reason for the posts when it is so easy to include a link that would ensure they understand as well as provide solid information on how to take action? It's much less fun than posting just the color but a much more effective means of raising awareness (if that's your goal).

I saw this again today with "awareness" for the Haitian earthquake. First off, if it was noon and by reading facebook was how you learned of the earthquake you need to get out of the fucking hole you live in. So what purpose does it serve to say your thoughts are with those in Haiti when there is no action behind it, other than posting some generic blog post? How much more effective would it be to say "my thoughts are with those in Haiti, you can donate $10 by texting HAITI to 90999 if you are an AT&T customer or go to (choose the website of your choice)"? I was particularly bothered by twibbon, a twitter app that allows you to add a Haitian flag overlay to your twitter picture. Today they drove over 10,000 people to their site to add the Haitian flag to their twitter image yet on that page they don't provide any information on how to make a donation to those whom they are allegedly trying to support. Yes, they made people aware, I took note. But what did they DO? What tangible step was taken by their site? How hard would it have been to post a site to any one charity or a list of available charities to encourage people take real action?

Thanks for listening to my rant, I hope it moves you to act, even if that is just posting here to tell me I'm full of crap (but I would prefer if you chose to donate money to Haitian relief).