Breast Cancer Awareness Game: HOAX!

I recently saw, from someone who has been a Facebook/actual friend for a very long time, a sudden, dramatic announcement on her status update: WE'RE MOVING TO VERMONT AT THE END OF THE YEAR! This was followed by a ton of comments from her friends: "Oh no!" "Why didn't you tell me?" "I thought you said you'd never leave (your hometown)!", etc. etc.

Then I got a message from her that made no sense at all:

Bahahahaha~~ You shouldn't have liked or commented on my last status! Now you have to pick from one of the below and post it as your status. This is the 2016 Breast Cancer Awareness game. Don't be a spoil sport. Pick your poison from one of these and post it as your status.

1. Just found a squirrel in my car!
2. Just used my kids to get out of a speeding ticket.
3. How do you get rid of foot fungus?
4. All of my bras are missing!
5. I think I just accepted a marriage proposal online?!
6. I've decided to stop wearing underwear.
7. It's confirmed I'm going to be a mommy/daddy.
8. Just won a chance audition on America's got talent!
9. I've been accepted on master chef.
10. I'm getting a pet monkey!
11. I just peed myself!
12. Really thinking about getting butt implants!
13. Just won 700 on a scratcher!
14. We're moving to Vermont at the end of the year!
15. Mayonnaise on Reese's peanut butter cups is sooo good! 

Post with no explanations. Sorry, I fell for it too. Looking forward to your post. Ahhh don't ruin it. (Don't let the secret out). And remember it's all for the 2016 Breast Cancer Awareness." Go Pink!!

This was an invitation to play a kind of Facebook tag, the kind I never participate in anyway. I'm offended by all these kinds of things, but this one. . . The fact that it was somehow (?) connected to breast cancer awareness particularly offended me. It felt as if something incredibly serious was being trivialized. I was given no choice but to be a good sport and go along with it, when it wasn't funny or constructive at all. When I checked this on Snopes, it turned out this sort of thing has been going on for years and years, with variations in the nature of the status posts. The worst of them involved women claiming to be pregnant ("Surprise!"). Not surprisingly, none of this has anything whatsoever to do with breast cancer funding or research, or even (as far as I am concerned) "awareness".

There is a sense that if people are aware of something, it's always a good thing that can only lead to MORE good things. Oh yes? The Kardashians? Donald Trump? Awareness on its own means nothing, and can lead to the kind of endless, pointless blather that is currently choking the internet.

I messaged my friend back and pointed out that this was a hoax, which she denied: she said she had researched it (in other words, she was right about it and I was wrong). Furthermore, she had a friend with breast cancer who loved it, supposedly making it not only OK but (?) desirable and effective, though no donation button existed anywhere. Then she prescribed (presumably, for my bitterness and anger in NOT playing the game)  a favorite self-help book of hers called Loving What Is.  Self-help/acceptance for someone who obviously needed it. The message seemed to be: if I didn't go along with her cancer boondoggle, I must have something wrong with my emotional health.

I cannot really describe the welter of feelings I have right now. I feel condescended to, and jerked around. It just isn't funny, but if I don't play along with it I am a "spoilsport" and don't care about all those suffering women. I wonder if any of her other (baffled?) Facebook friends are having the same reaction, but it may well be the usual Greek chorus thing: "ohhhhh, you fooled me there!" "Oh, I'm so glad you're not moving to Vermont."

The following is an excerpt from a powerful 2013 blog post by cancer warrior Lisa Bonchek Adams.
http://lisabadams.com/2013/10/04/breast-cancer-still-facebook-game/

I will not say she "lost her battle" in 2015, as everyone seems to phrase it. Rather, she lived with her disease as fully and openly as is humanly possible, and wrote magnificently while doing so. I quote her here because nobody has ever said it with more eloquence:

"Once again Facebook games about breast cancer are making the rounds now that it is October. I posted this last year and got some flack from people who thought anything that 'raised awareness' about breast cancer was good and couldn’t understand why I am critical of these messages.

My point is that this isn’t awareness.

There probably isn’t anyone on Facebook who doesn’t know that breast cancer exists. But there certainly is a lot of myth-busting to be done. This is not how to do it. . . There’s a lot of work to be done educating. Education is awareness, these Facebook posts are not.

(There follows a version of the above list of options)

The above instructions are not awareness. This is offensive. Breast cancer is not a joke, awareness does not come from sharing the color of your underwear or your marital status (the whole “tee-hee, wink-wink” attitude adds to my disgust). Even if it ended up on TV, that still would not be educating people about breast cancer they didn’t know before. All it does is show the world that lots of people are willing to post silly things as their status updates.

Just because it says it’s about breast cancer awareness doesn’t mean you have to agree. Go ahead. Ignore it. Or write back and tell them why you don’t want to be included in these things anymore. Another blogger, Susan Niebur, wrote about her take here. She was an astrophysicist, by the way. She died of metastatic breast cancer.

Anyone who has breast cancer and uses your FB status update as an indicator of whether you support their cause is not very enlightened. When I rank 'how to help those of us with cancer,' sharing one of these paragraphs as a status update is the lowest possible method of showing support. There are endless ways to do that. I think it actually is the opposite; sharing these status updates makes people feel they are doing something real for breast cancer causes when they aren’t. (emphasis mine)

I say: count me out of these Facebook games.

I have stage 4 breast cancer and it is no game to me."

LOL, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE LIKED OR COMMENTED!!!! NOW YOU HAVE TO PICK ONE FROM THESE BELOW AND POST IT TO YOUR STATUS. THIS IS THE 2014 BREAST CANCER AWARENESS GAME. DON’T BE A SPOILSPORT, PICK YOUR POISON FROM ONE OF THESE AND CHANGE YOUR STATUS, 1) DAMN DIARRHOEA 2) JUST USED MY BOOBS TO GET OUT OF A SPEEDING TICKET 3) ANYONE HAVE A TAMPON, I’M OUT 4) HOW DO YOU GET RID OF FOOT FUNGUS? 5) WHY IS NOBODY AROUND WHEN I’M HORNY? 6) NO TOILET PAPER, GOODBYE SOCKS. 7) SOMEONE HAS OFFERED ME A JOB AS A PROSTITUTE BUT I’M HESITANT. 8) I THINK I’M IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE, WHAT SHOULD I DO? 9) I’VE DECIDED TO STOP WEARING UNDERWEAR. 10) IT’S CONFIRMED, I’M GOING TO BE A MUMMY/DADDY! 11) JUST WON £900 ON A SCRATCH CARD 12) I’VE JUST FOUND OUT I’VE BEEN CHEATED ON FOR THE LAST 5 MONTHS. POST WITH NO EXPLANATIONS. SO SORRY I FELL FOR IT TOO!!!!! LOOKING FORWARD TO YOUR POST HA HA.

I realize I take the risk of my friend seeing this and being offended. But if we are real friends, there will be a conversation about it, not just "here, read this self-help book, you obviously need it". I have no idea if she will get anything but positive feedback from her other friends on her baffling, confusing post, and I suppose it's none of my business.

People have pointed out that the "ice-bucket challenge" of a few years ago was gimmicky, too - but I seem to remember it was tied to actual donations of money. I am not "against" all awareness projects, nor am I "against" cancer research. I am not grim and humourless, nor do I believe that breast cancer can never be approached in a light-hearted way.

But there is a difference between light-hearted and goddamn stupid.

Social media, so promising at the beginning, has become a cheap and silly game, and I often wonder why I stay with it. I only opened a Facebook account because I had a book coming out and my publisher required me to do so. Especially during the American election, I've seen comments that made my hair stand on end from people I thought I knew.

It saddens me to say I had to unfollow my friend, and I may have to do more than that because my insides feel like a milkshake. Social media would say, "Don't feel that way" or "ignore it", the good old turn-off-your-feelings advice that has the world on the brink of total meltdown. Or, I guess, embrace acceptance as a way of life and never be angry again.

It's hard to unfriend someone I've known for 30 years. But I don't want to feel this way because of something she sent me. It's my life, and I can feel what I want to - and I will.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

Creepy clowns? Give me a break!

http://www.snopes.com/scary-clowns-kill-23-people-in-canada/

Fact Check
Fake News
Killer Clowns in Canada
Fake news reported that weapons-wielding clowns from the U.S. invaded Canada and murdered 23 victims.

Dan Evon Oct 04, 2016




CLAIM: Weapons-wielding clowns from the U.S. invaded Canada and murdered 23 victims.

FALSE


ORIGIN:On 3 October 2016 the Global Sun web site published an article reporting that weapons-wielding clowns from the U.S. had invaded Canada and murdered 23 victims there:

As it’s getting closer to Halloween, what seemed to be a harmless joke at first, suddenly turned into a serious matter with the police. What started off as reports of creepy clowns luring around neighbourhoods in the US, has suddenly escalated to another level. It is believed that the surge of clowns spotted wielding weapons originated from some states in America, but has made it’s way up north.

There was no truth to this story. The Global Sun is a fake news web site that does not publish factual stories, as noted in their disclaimer:

The Global Sun is a satire website, articles/post on the website are all made-up stories and should not be taken seriously.

This fabricated killer clown story was published in amidst numerous reports of clown sightings in the United States. In August 2016, residents of Greenville, South Carolina reported that clowns were attempting to lure children into the woods. A few weeks later, the clowns had migrated to North Carolina, and since then scary clowns have been reported in various locations across the United States — although actual evidence of their existence is lacking:

But amid all of these reports, no clowns have been photographed. Police investigators have found no traces of clown activity. Not even a stray red nose or a strand of blue hair.

So what are these insidious creatures? According to one clown expert, they’re probably “phantom clowns.”

Fake news web sites have taken advantage of the recent uptick in coulrophobia to publish bogus reports about clown-related deaths. However, clowns did not kill 23 people in Canada, nor was a clown shot in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

BLOGGER's COMMENTS. OK then. . . From the very beginning, the "creepy clown sightings" reports made me groan. There was more than a faint smell of bullshit about them, but everybody seemed to be getting on the bandwagon and reporting it as straight news - including CTV, the Vancouver television station my daughter Shannon works for as a reporter.

The other day, a school in Vancouver had to be put on lockdown due to high school kids in creepy clown costumes chasing after kids. So is this a copycat crime of a NON-crime? 

What probably disturbs me the most is how quickly pure fabricated bullshit becomes actual news. If it's on the internet, no matter how hokey the site, it MUST have happened, and it is replicated and replicated without ANYONE checking to find out if it's factual or not. So much for getting it from three sources. That just takes too long for today's lightning-paced media demands, so you just grab whatever pops up, anywhere.

I see this in coffee rooms and bus stops and everywhere people casually talk (not that they do any more: too busy looking down and wiggling their thumbs). "Did you see that story on the blah-blah?" "Yeaaaaah. . . it's really awful, isn't it. The world is getting so violent." Never mind if the item appeared in the Bogus Satirical Fake Parody News, or if other stories on the same site were along the lines of "man eats 5000 gallons of ice cream in 5 minutes and dies on the street". 

So I'm not sure what is going on. I'm going to ask Shannon.

'Clownpocalypse' hits B.C. with creepy clown confrontations

Teens arrested for creepy clown threat

Local teenagers are jumping on an unsettling prank that’s sweeping North America, but police aren't laughing.

Clownpocalypse hits B.C. with creepy clown run-in

A letter was sent home to parents in Langley, B.C., after students reported being confronted by someone wearing a clown mask.

CTV National News: Clown hoaxes becoming frequent

A U.S. trend is making its way into Canada. Creepy clown sightings are becoming frequent and freaky. CTV's Kevin Gallagher reports. Police forces and school districts across B.C. are urging caution as a bizarre trend dubbed the "clownpocalypse" on social media triggers arrests and school lockdowns.

It comes in the midst of a string of "creepy clown" sightings in Canadian cities including Toronto, Halifax and Edmonton, as well as many U.S. cities. The phenomenon has also involved threats made on social media, and usually involves vague warnings about violence at schools.

RELATED STORIES

'Clownpocalypse': Canadian students fall prey to viral scare

Why are we so afraid of clowns?

PHOTOS



In this file photo from 2015, a man dressed as a horror clown is pictured when thousands of revellers dressed in carnival costumes celebrate the start of the street-carnival in Cologne, Germany, Thursday, Feb. 12, 2015. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner

That's prompted action by police forces in British Columbia. Surrey RCMP are asking the public to report any unusual clown sightings after a terrifying incident Wednesday night where a man wearing a clown mask jumped out of the bushes and chased four teenagers.

"He was carrying something in his hands that may have been a baseball bat. The male was laughing as he was chasing them," said Sgt. Alanna Dunlop. No one was injured but the force is taking the incident very seriously.

In nearby Langley, a stranger wearing a clown mask apparently approached middle school students on their way to class, which prompted a note sent home to parents. "On two recent mornings students have reported being confronted by a stranger in a clown mask on the way to school," the letter dated Thursday from HD Stafford Middle School reads. Principal Shawn Davids said the school administration and RCMP believe there is no immediate danger to students, but advises students to walk in pairs and avoid distractions like iPods and text messaging.

“Out of an abundance of caution, it is recommended that students walking to school be vigilant in the coming weeks as we approach Halloween and in light of the ‘creepy clown’ internet phenomenon being reported,” Davids wrote. Two teens in Prince George, B.C., were arrested after a posting a clown-related post on Instagram that read: "Every school in PG is about to get hit."

The post prompted a partial lockdown at a local high school. RCMP said at no time did its investigators believe the threat was credible, but officials asked all area schools to keep children inside and lock all external doors.

"Although we had no evidence that indicated violent action would take place, police were deeply concerned about the threats and acted with an abundance of caution," Cpl. Craig Douglass said.
The 17-year-old taken into custody was released without charges, but the 16-year-old was scheduled to make his first court appearance Friday and criminal charges are being considered.

More threats were reported to local schools on Friday, prompting six area high schools to be briefly locked down. RCMP investigators in the latest case determined that the threats were not credible and, in some cases, outdated.

With an increased police presence posted at schools in the Prince George area, Douglass said the investigation into the threats was tying up resources "that could be better used responding to where they are truly needed."

The clown pranks are drawing serious police resources to American schools, where every threat is taken seriously.

It's even drawn concern from the White House.

"This is a situation that local law enforcement authorities take quite seriously," said White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest.

Social media users have been documenting the prank phenomenon under the hashtag #Clownsightings.

OK, the emphasis is mine, but doesn't this sound like Prank-o-Rama or a Prankfest to you? Who has actually gotten hurt in these things? Isn't this just a case of a high school kid in a dollar store mask running around in circles after a screaming little kid, her fear whipped up by her gullible, know-nothing parents?

The blue/italic portions indicate that the cops really think the whole thing is bullshit, but they dare not say so. Hey! It says there are creepy clowns ON THE INTERNET. So it must be true.

RELATED BLOG POST (one of my better ones, I think!):  

I Hate Clowns

Addenda. WHY we are afraid of clowns. The Experts Speak!

So-called “creepy clown” encounters are making people nervous across Canada and the U.S.

The sightings may be part of a viral trend that swept into several U.S. cities, where there have been reports of clowns terrorizing children and stalking people in the street. But why are we so scared of clowns to begin with?

Child and adolescent psychiatrist Steven Schlozman says it has something to do with how clowns are portrayed in popular culture.

“They are supposed to be fun, but they have been part of the horror canon now for awhile, at least 20 years and probably more,” Schlozman told CTV News Channel on Thursday.

He points to films and television shows that have taken the idea of a fun-loving, happy clown and turned it on its head, introducing the maniacal killer character clowns into our thriller lexicon.

From a neuro-biology perspective, Schlozman said clowns also “violate” the rules of pattern recognition.

“We know what a person looks like -- they’ve got two eyes, a nose and a mouth, and so do clowns,” Schlozman said. But with clowns, their facial features are exaggerated and “grotesque.”

In addition, their features are frozen or “stuck,” says Schlozman.

“There’s a permanently painted smile or a permanently painted frown, so you don’t actually know what their motivation is,” he said. “That’s I think what gives people a bit of the willies.”

Schlozman acknowledges some of the fear of clowns is circumstance.

“I think clowns at the circus or a birthday party are not that scary,” Schlozman said. “Clowns in your backyard – that’s a little creepy. I wouldn’t want to see it.”

(So now we know!)

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!