Recently we have all witnessed new fads and crazes on facebook such as neknomnations the foolish game of drink or dare. Videos and pictures invaded our newsfeed with people hoping on numerous bandwagons as they grew in popularity on all social media platforms.
However, there is a new online craze capturing our attention called the ‘no make up selfie’. The idea behind this new trend is to capture a picture of yourself wearing no make up and donate €4 to cancer research. Since the emergence of no make up pictures online and especially on facebook I have seen and read countless people disagreeing with the purpose and failing to recognise the true intention of these pictures.
I would like to draw you now to other cancer awareness projects and action plans that have grown in popularity over the years such as Movember and Shave or Dye. The idea behind these concepts is to change your appearance for cancer raise awareness and get donations. To those people filled with doubt about the no make up selfie I ask can you see a difference between all three cancer awareness concepts and ideas?
I urge those full of pessimism to sit back and really consider the thousands of women in the world who suffer from low self-esteem and self-confidence. Wearing make up is something we can do to quickly and temporarily change our appearance. We are constantly bombarded with celebrities and ideas of what society consider being beautiful. As a result women feel inadequate and confidence levels drop.
Now imagine the confidence levels of those women who are living with breast cancer. Breast cancer and its treatments can cause changes to your body and the way you look. You are left with scars loss of hair if you had chemotherapy, weight gain or weight loss. Looking at your body can be upsetting and difficult. Suddenly our low self-esteem without make up seems very insignificant.
So to those people who see ‘no benefit’ and ‘no point’ to posting a picture of wearing no make-up. This is a sign of solidarity, it is a sign of support between all women that we are willing to forget about our minor insecurities and unite in natural beauty to show our support for all woman and men suffering from cancer throughout the world. We are stripping ourselves of our comfort blankets and raising awareness for cancer research and showing the online world the real beauty behind natural beauty.
If you feel this craze does not boost awareness for cancer research you can’t deny it has built a community of women encouraging others to take off our comfort masks and unite us in building up our self esteem and confidence.
Finally, numerous people have argued that posting a no make up selfies does not raise money that they would rather just donate money instead. Yet, would we all be talking about donating money for cancer research if it wasn’t for this new campaign? Would you have donated that €4 if you didn’t see a picture of your friend wearing no make up? It is not just raising €200,000 for Irish Cancer Research and £1 million in the UK it is creating a platform for everyone to talk about cancer research, to think about all our self conscious issues and compare them to those who suffer from cancer.
As a teacher of teenagers, this is one craze I will definitely be encouraging my female students to be taking part in. Teenagers as we all know have a mountain of self- confidence concerns and problems. This is one idea how a school could unite and increase awareness by holding a no make up day or week, encourage students to come together lose all make up as a sign of solidarity with those suffering from cancer raise money whilst also boosting confidence levels of our female students.
Ms Keleghan's Education Blog 