Breast Cancer Meme

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Every year, October is celebrated as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. There is typically always a large amount of support for this cause and social media is always involved. This includes various memes that circulate around Facebook in order to help spread awareness. These memes had women posting things like their name and a color which corresponded to the color of their bra. This would confuse their male friends who would go on Facebook and see these posts and not understand what it was all about. Memes like this became extremely popular all over Facebook and even began to make national news. It allows people to have fun with their own personalized message but also do their part in raising awareness for breast cancer.

The Facebook breast cancer awareness meme was great because of how much awareness it brought to a great cause, but what went into making it so viral? I believe the mystery of it made it fun for everyone. The women were able to make these posts that men were completed puzzled by which made it really fun for them and the men were also following the trend trying to decipher what these posts meant. This was something that everyone could participate in and enjoy, one of the key reasons things like this go viral on the internet.

However, while these fun breast cancer memes have raised awareness for this cause, it has not done much to make a significant difference in helping to cure breast cancer. Lack of awareness was not always the biggest problem with breast cancer. What these viral memes failed to do was direct people to places where they could make donations and give information regarding the initiative’s goals. It also seemed to alienate men from this message when they are also susceptible to being diagnosed with breast cancer. In 2012, over 2,000 men were diagnosed with breast cancer and over 400 men died from it in the United States (Mahoney & Tang, 2016). By informing all people of where they can go to make a difference whether it be with donations, volunteer work or to learn more about the signs of breast cancer, it will create a more effective campaign with better user mobilization.

One of the biggest signs of mobilization success for something is creating real-life experiences that make people emotional and resonate with them. For example, volunteering at a chemotherapy treatment center can be eye opening and will shape your behavior towards the cause from that moment on. By having that personal experience with it, it creates an emotional connection to the cause and turns you into an advocate for it. You then become a more informed and active member in this community, doing your part to help spread their message and accomplish their goals. We can also make these campaigns more effective on Facebook by including videos of people doing volunteer work and their experience with it, as well as interviews with breast cancer patients and survivors. People will watch these videos and make an emotional connection to them, making them want to support this cause further.

References

Mahoney, L. M., Tang, T. (2016). Strategic Social Media: From Marketing to Social Change, 1st Edition. [MBS Direct]. Retrieved from https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781118556900/