Pink and pregnant on Facebook

Last month, Pune-based college student Deepika Menon got a message in her Facebook inbox asking her to change her status update to spread breast cancer awareness, according to this format: I’m (your birth month) weeks and I’m craving (your birth date).

At first sight, it seemed innocent, until Menon read the fine print. She had to update her ‘birth date’ according to the table that accompanied the message, where ‘birth dates’ like ‘1’, ‘2’ and ‘3’ had to be written as ‘Skittles’, ‘Starburst’, ‘Kit-Kat’ and so on. On a whim, she updated her status update on Facebook to ‘I’m 2 weeks and I’m craving Skittles’ (she was born on February 1).

Within moments, she was flooded with messages asking whether she was pregnant, followed by an explosion on her mother’s behalf.  

“I am unmarried. And I forgot my mom’s active on Facebook,” Menon explains sheepishly.

But what hurt Menon the most was that not even once did the conversation move towards breast cancer awareness.

Polka dots for breast cancer awareness Mumbai-based college student Remya Mohan* remembers the first breast cancer awareness campaign on Facebook in 2010, albeit with distaste. The campaign asked female users of Facebook to reveal the colour of their bra via their status updates. “But I did it, for a noble cause,” recalls Mohan.

And so did many others. As the message went viral, thousands of female Facebook account holders changed their status updates to ‘white’, ‘beige’, ‘black’, ‘hot pink’, ‘polka dots’. Online pandemonium ensued. Clueless and curious men (the message strictly instructed the ladies to keep them out of the ‘secret’) either begged their female friends to explain what was happening or Google-searched the phenomenon.

The campaign became such a rage that it got a mention in Time magazine, UK’s The Telegraph (according to the paper, a Facebook group called ‘Breast cancer awareness: I updated my Status with my Bra colour’ got 33,000 fans within hours), MSNBC (the article observed how breast cancer awareness campaigns have become ‘sexy’ and thus successful) and Daily Mail.

Mohan, however, felt cheated and disgusted. “Some of my friends changed their status update to something like ‘nothing’,” she said, exasperated. “And the trail of lewd comments that followed never mentioned ‘breast cancer awareness’ even once. It felt awful to think that I was part of something that turned out to be an attention-seeking gimmick.”

Tracing the click that started it
Once the message went viral, tracing the campaign to whoever started it became impossible. Many speculated that a group of Detroit-based women bloggers ignited the craze. Others suspected the hand of the US-based Susan G Komen Breast Cancer

Foundation behind the campaign, until their spokeswoman clarified they had nothing to do with it. But not before calling the campaign “a terrific tool for raising awareness.”

In an interview on CNN, Facebook spokesperson Malorie Lucich too admitted she didn’t know the origin of the craze, although she said the campaign seemed to have been started by a group of users and not an official entity.

Meanwhile, buoyed by the success of the first campaign, more messages continued to circulate amongst women on Facebook. A ‘I like it on the…’ campaign followed, where women had to explain where they liked to keep their handbags once they reach home. Soon, when unsuspecting men logged onto to their Facebook accounts, they were inundated with status messages loaded with sexual innuendo like ‘I like it on the couch’, ‘I like it against the wall’ and even an ‘I like it in the bathtub’. According to a Daily Mail report, ‘I like it on the floor’ became one of the most searched phrases on the Internet.

Tanvi Mishra*, a political science student based in the UK was horrified by what she calls the “obvious trivialisation of breast cancer” and wanted to end it. She decided to spill the beans and explain what the ‘I like it’ status updates were all about. Her critical comments on the campaign garnered 127 ‘likes’. “A few called me a spoilsport, but I don’t care,” says Mishra. “I couldn’t believe that educated, smart women had changed their status updates to something so ridiculous. Seriously, do you really keep your handbag in the bathtub?”

Pink ribbon, blue ribbon
Of course, another problem with this kind of campaign is its underlying sexism. It presents breast cancer as a women-only issue, which it isn’t. Oncologists say that 1.5 to 2 per cent of all breast cancer patients are men.

Robert Kaitz, a breast cancer survivor from Annapolis, USA, admits that he had no idea that men got breast cancer until he was diagnosed in October 2006. Kaitz is also one of the directors of US-based John W Nick Foundation, a charity organization dedicated to spreading awareness about male breast cancer. “In my opinion, the Facebook campaign is just a ‘female only’ type of awareness,” explains Kaitz. “That is one of the issues we at the Foundation fight every day.”

Men also feel they need to be made more aware, should one of their loved ones be diagnosed with breast cancer. Baiju Anthony, from Kochi, finds the Facebook campaign bizarre. “My mother is currently battling cancer and I can’t describe how tough it has been. But if this campaign on Facebook had the right intent, why on earth are men kept out of it? I would have wanted to be made more aware before my mother was diagnosed.”

Going beyond awareness
While it’s easy to dismiss the whole campaign as just another harmless gimmick on Facebook, Dr Shubha Maugdal from Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA) cautions us that such campaigns may undermine breast cancer awareness programmes. “This wink wink nudge nudge tactic can actually pull breast cancer awareness further back,” explains Maugdal. “People might find breast cancer scary or even embarrassing.”

Ritu Biyani, a breast cancer survivor, has conducted almost 140 breast, cervix and oral cancer awareness workshops in different parts of the country. For her, awareness campaigns need to be more direct. “Such online material may not be perceived properly,” explains Biyani. “Besides, these target only those who are active online — they do not even come close to covering the whole of India.”

Breast cancer runs in Reena Koshy’s* family (her grandmother has it and her mother is a survivor). She echoes Biyani’s views. “I think games like these may make people think, ‘Oh its breast cancer awareness week’ but not make them go beyond just the game.”

Though appreciative of the campaign’s effort, Maugdal is not ready to buy it just yet. “How many people changed their status update to “pink”, and got a test done? It is very easy to update the colour of your bra and then sit back and do nothing about it,” she explains.

Perhaps Dr Susan Love, a world renowned breast cancer researcher, said it best at an awareness event titled ‘Conversations on Beauty, Health & Wellness,’ in Los Angeles last year: “We are stuck at awareness”.