“Selfie.” A photograph taken of yourself using a reversible camera, usually accompanied by a ‘kissy’ face or the individual looking in the opposite direction of the camera. To some, pointless. But the increasing popularity of this selfie trend has led to a viral campaign of which women posting a “no-makeup selfie” has raised over £2 million for Cancer Research UK in just 48 hours.
The campaign sparked after a huge cancer awareness vs. narcissism debate and is proven to be one of the most successful viral campaigns of this day and age. Remember planking? Well clearly women plastering bare-faced photos across the social media is a better way of raising awareness and money for cancer. Cancer Research UK announced that they had received an explosive 800,000 donations in the first 24 hours and the most overwhelming element of this whole campaign is that they didn’t even start it in the first place! The trend started off the back of Cancer Research posting the text code for donations over Twitter and Facebook and since then, women have taken to “no-make up selfies” as a more original way of raising money for charity.
So why a selfie? Well as much as this campaign is proving to be a success, it has had some backlash and criticisms as to the relevance of posting photos of yourself across the social media. Obviously, posting a photo isn’t going to raise the money, but it does raise the awareness and encourages more and more people to donate. Twitter and Facebook have even seen the bare faces of Kim Marsh, Michelle Keegan, Imogen Thomas and a number of others that have seen the charitable side to this trend. Most ‘selfies’ are accompanied with a nomination and #cancerawareness to continue the trend among their friends and family. Oh, and in case you’re not quite up with the times a ‘#’ is the way in which us “youngsters” create trends on Twitter when discussing similar topics.
But besides raising awareness and donations to Cancer Research, women going make-up-free online also has an underlying message: being happy with your own skin, no matter what you look like, what you do or don’t have, what you have suffered from or what you are still fighting. Many of us have lost a family member or friend to cancer, and if you haven’t then you can count yourself incredibly lucky. So, you can protest until you’re blue in the face if you really dispute this “no-makeup selfie” trend but before doing so, make sure you find a better way to raise more than £2 million for Cancer in just 48 hours. Oh, and while you’re at it, text BEAT to 70099.
katiemallalieu 