What do you Meme Breast Cancer Awareness? Marketing with Memes

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Picture this: it's October and all the women you are friends with on Facebook changed their status to something confusing. Maybe something like, 'Rachel, black.' And as you scrolled through your home page and saw post after post with the woman's name and some color next to it, you wondered what secret message they were all communicating.

I remember October during middle school and high school well. Yes, I was in middle school and high school in the early 2010s, when these types of Facebook posts spread like wildfire. And right before October most of the girls in school--especially the popular ones--would join in on the breast cancer awareness meme sensation, and thus encourage me to do so as well.

One instance in particular that I remember is when girls all changed their profile picture to a bra (any color they wanted). I thought about joining in on this, but thought it strange and I couldn't figure out what the best angle to take a picture of my bra on the carpeted floor was.

Did this "change your profile picture to a colorful bra" really raise awareness of breast cancer and early screening?

In some ways, yes. These ever-changing memes to raise awareness for breast cancer allow young women and girls to gain some understanding and hear about it.

But, what about actions and bringing true awareness to the general public?

Just posting a meme and keeping it secretive, though it insites confusion and thus interest, does not raise money or true awareness of the risks of breast cancer and benefits of early screening. And just posting pictures of a bra doesn't say much about breast cancer either.

If anything, it hypersexualizes it.

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You might be thinking to yourself, "Rachel, why would you say these breast cancer awareness posts are hypersexualizing breast cancer?"

As the trends continued each year, they got increasingly more sexualized, including one that started with "I like it on the..." which was supposed to be talking about where a woman put her purse at home, and somehow was meant to spread awareness for breast cancer.

Meghan Casserly at Forbes had a similar reaction to me. "Not surprisingly, when I found out that this whole "I like it on the..." Facebook meme was a flirty trend that somehow was meant to "raise awareness for breast cancer," I was equally grossed out."

There were other ones too, like a status update with the number of minutes it takes to get your hair ready in the morning followed by the word 'inches.' For example, it takes me 5 minutes to get my hair ready for the day, so my post would be "5 inches." Suggestive much?

Another one was "no bra day" that was supposed to bring awareness for breast cancer. But, as this Vice article points out, healthy people with both of their breasts intact are basically rubbing it in cancer-patients faces that they have their breasts and have not had to have a mastectomy.

Not exactly the powerful message they meant to spread.

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Now, did you know this was a type of marketing campaign? For businesses, or authors like myself, using a meme and getting a bunch of people to post it would bring a lot of traction to the brand. But, why would you need to "market" breast cancer awareness?

The reason to bring awareness to breast cancer through marketing is because early detection of the disease raises the chances of survival. It can also, if done right, get people to donate to research to help stop breast cancer in its tracks. But, these posts didn't promote donating or mention early detection/preventative measures. They simply posted something funny and kept the reasoning behind the post to themselves. It also didn't include men in the mix, even though men can get breast cancer too.

All I can say is, though the marketing made these types of posts spread quickly through social media platforms and would be great for businesses or brands, it did not do the best job at spreading true awareness about breast cancer or early detection.

What do you think? Were these types of memes beneficial to spreading awareness about breast cancer? Let me know in the comments!

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