This weekend, Facebook newsfeeds exploded with a rainbow of terse but colorful updates — "blue," "pink," "black and lacy" — mystifying social networkers. The culprit: A message chain urging women to post their bra colors in the name of breast cancer awareness: "Write the color, nothing else," the anonymous call-to-action read. "It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status." Did the stunt, unsupported by the Breast Cancer Association, do any good — or was it just flirty "slacktivism"?
This isn't advocacy — it's flirtation: I have no doubt that the women who "virtually flashed" their Facebook friends were well-intentioned, says Mary Carmichael at Newsweek, but "this isn't awareness or education; it's titillation." This "pointless" meme didn't educate or inform. It only provided sexual fodder for fellow male Facebookers.
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