Jumbled Words

I have watched the bra colour meme spread across Facebook over the last few days. It even made it over to Sweden, and translated itself somewhere along the line. It’s just that it seems to have changed meaning a bit as it’s worked its way around the globe. I realised just how much when two friends told me, after I tweeted about the stupidity of this meme, that it’s actually to raise breast cancer awareness. This made no sense to me, because the version I read said nothing about breast cancer, whatsoever, but with my friend Google as help I found a blog saying the following:

So, like every good Facebooker, I played along by peeking in my shirt and updating my status: Beige.

What I turned up on the Internet is that the purpose of this color thing is to simply raise awareness of breast cancer. Not sure how it all got started, but here’s what you should do if you’re a girl (or boy who wears a bra): Look at your bra, note the color, type it in your FB status bar, then feel those boobies. Just re-updated my status after my “beige” remark and wrote this:

So, while you’re peeking inside your shirt to see what color bra you are wearing so you can post it in your status update, go ahead and feel around in there, make sure there are no lumps. And if there are, call your doc for a clinical exam!

Are you game? Hope so.

This way it makes sense. Really. It does. Unfortunately, the original version of the meme, sent to women all over as a Facebook message is less clear. It goes as follows:

Some fun is going on… Just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of breast cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before people wonder why all the girls have a color in their status… Haha.

Now, this make decidedly less sense. It does mention breast cancer awareness, but it doesn’t say WHY this would raise breast cancer awareness, and honestly, I am wary of it, because while it may sound innocent I did during my search for where the hell this came from, come across a few “oh, and while you’re at it, let a DUDE check out that bra colour for you”, comments, and seriously? There is nothing funny about that.

And if you’re interested in how breast cancer is sometimes sexualised in a way no other cancer ever is, read this post from Hoyden About Town. It’s really an eye opener.

And for the record? The version of this meme that I was bitching about? It said the following (although in Swedish, I translated it for you, my esteemed readers):

I just received this – a bit silly, but everyone needs a bit fun! Just for girls and women. Let’s have some fun and play a gave! Write the colour of your bra in your status here in Facebook. Send this to all girls in your profile. NO MEN! It will be fun to watch them wonder why there’s a colour in your status! Keep this meme going.

So, um, you can see how the message has changed, and thus alienated a lot of people who just found it plain stupid, which is a shame, because breast cancer awareness is important. Which is also why I decided to write this post.

And no, I’m still not telling you my bra colour.