Why is Everyone's Facebook Status a Color?

Today, the women of Facebook came together in a fun way to help spread the word about breast cancer. The trend started with a single message on Facebook that went viral and managed to confuse men all around the world in a matter of hours:

"Write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. And send this on to ONLY girls no men .... It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. 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..."[sic]

One by one, Facebook statuses were being set to a single color. The gesture of solidarity effectively acknowledged the plight of breast cancer and honored its survivors. To get men into the act, they were intentionally left out of the loop. Some men went with a, "If you can't beat them, join them," approach, garnering a few laughs, while others who finally got it went in the wrong direction started acting, well, like men. Regardless, the mission was accomplished as both women and men were reminded about the seriousness of breast cancer. Social networking had done it again.

This fun little experiment not only created more breast cancer awareness in one day than all of breast cancer month combined, it showed how social networking is changing the way our nation and the world communicates, receives news, and spreads awareness. Traditional journalists have been ranting about this change for years, going on about how journalism degrees are sacred, and how this new breed of armchair journalists were out to destroy news media as we know it. While traditional media still has its place, today proved that the power of social media can't be ignored.

According to the American Cancer Society, last year 192,370 women were newly diagnosed with breast cancer, making breast cancer the top diagnosed cancer of 2009, and the most common cancer among women. In 2009, just over 40,000 women died from breast cancer. Getting the word out through social networking is a great way to remind women to perform monthly breast self-exams. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010. With those statistics, it's possible that this seemingly glib Facebook status game could have helped save a life.

Source:

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/cri/content/cri_2_4_1x_what_are_the_key_statistics_for_breast_cancer_5.asp