Update: Despite being a bit iffy in its social message, the #barefaceselfie movement has raised £1million for cancer research in just one day. Still no news yet on where the actual campaign came from given that cancer charities are insisting it didn't start with them. Nor, an answer on why as a society it is that women feel obliged to go without make-up to feel 'brave' about themselves. When we're talking about cancer, perhaps 'bravery' might be better applied to the people who're dealing with it in their day-to-day?
Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are ablaze, ABLAZE we tell you, with #barefaceselfies and #nomakeupselfies, which people are doing to raise awareness for #cancerawareness. It’s not actually anything sort of cancer awareness month, nor has any cancer charity come out in support of the viral campaign (is campaign even the right word when they’re not actually campaigning for anything in particular?). In fact, Cancer Research UK has specifically tweeted to say that, although they’re HUUUUGE fans, the campaign didn’t originate from them.
We’re loving your #cancerawareness #nomakeupselfie pics! The campaign isn’t ours but every £ helps #beatcancersooner pic.twitter.com/nNb0RSEitr
— Cancer Research UK (@CR_UK) March 19, 2014
And that’s the point, no-one knows where it came from. The Bare Face Selfie started when novelist Laura Lippman tweeted a picture of herself sans makeup in response to the criticism 81-year-old actress Kim Novak received for her appearance at The Oscars. She captioned it ‘Team Novak all the way’ and a trend was born.
But the #cancerawareness bit appears to be a mystery – broaching the possibility that one person hijacked the #barefaceselfie tag to, you know, raise cancer awareness, and the rest of the planet has been following suit ever since because we love a) taking selfies; and b) publically affiliating ourselves with a good cause – and this is a prime opp to do both. The next inevitable step involved people nominating their friends to take part on social media, thus embarrassing the rest of us into joining in.
So, apart from the fact that the entire universe has been taken over by low-level mind control, there are a couple of things to note:
-
It’s not clear what people are supposed to be raising awareness of – cancer itself? Because we’ve all heard of that. It doesn’t even specify a particular type of cancer.
-
Although some good souls have suggested that you donate some money to by texting Cancer Research ‘BEAT’ on 70099 (which will donate £3 to charity) after posting your image, that doesn’t seem to be the overriding point of this campaign/non campaign. The point seems to be the aforementioned awareness. And selfies.
-
What do bare faces have to do with it? Is looking ugly on social media for charity the modern-day equivalent getting sponsored to sit in a bath of baked beans for 14 hours?
-
It takes longer to take all your make up off, take a selfie and upload it with the requisite hash tags than it does to send a text and donate some money. Honestly, I’ve just timed it.
Does anyone else feel like this has gone a little bit Brass Eye?
Follow Rebecca on Twitter @rebecca_hol
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.