I’ll begin this post with two links. One, there’s a ‘social media campaign’ going in which ladies are invited to hold a bottle of coke, in whatever ‘imaginative’ ways they can, between their boobs. And two, criticism of the same campaign.

As is often the case, social media appears to be the natural home for anything moronic, a place that I hope history will record as a brief phenomenon belonging to the narcissistic and shallow.

‘Cock in a sock’, ‘no make up’ and maybe the most idiotic of all, the ‘Ice Bucket challenge’, the latter even tipping over into SL, and which we blogged about previously, these are things people indulge in.

Yes, I’ve heard the arguments that some were ‘in a good cause’, but eventually the money or awareness raising elements of them were bypassed for no other reason than people wanted to act like ‘good sports’ or ‘idiots’ on their chosen social media.

The instigator of the hashtag #HoldACokeWithYourBoobsChallenge is quoted as saying “We never thought it would take off like it did. But it did. And then people started posting it was for charity and it was for breast cancer awareness. We had never plan [sic] on that nor thought of it. But since that’s what people want to do it for, we said why not do something good with this. So we went with it. They can ether [sic] do the challenge, donate to their favorite charity, or both. It’s up to them. Let’s face some real facts. Not every woman does their exams or goes and gets a mammogram. Several people are on the mind set it will never happen to me, I’m to [sic] young or old for it to happen to me, my boobs are too small… and so on and so on…We tell people to get their mammograms and to donate to any breast cancer charity they want too [sic].‘

OK, so it didn’t start as a ‘charity campaign’ but as a bit of fun. Fine. And it seems that those doing it have turned it into a charitable event (maybe). Also fine. The instigators are now, in retrospect, telling people to get checks or donate to charities because a bit of fun has gone viral in a way they never anticipated. Equally fine.

But it doesn’t get away from the fact that it’s certainly exploitative of young women (again!) who may regret their participation in events like these in later life. Or maybe their narcissism and shallowness is such that these sort of things are, sadly, key highlights in their lives.

I expect the first ‘hold a coke with your boobs’ pose to turn up in SL within a week…

Ella

edited to add: One Mum with breast cancer goes full on about the meme in the UK’s Daily Mirror newspaper today.

Further edited to add: The bottle cap nipple pasties as displayed in the top photograph are already an SL Marketplace item. This is not a criticism of the designer (and they look to be an item that pre-dates this current internet meme). SL designers and builders merely reflect or, in this instance, pre-empt what RL sometimes does.

There are also Coca Cola cans widely available in SL, and I assume it would be relatively easy to replicate the meme’s style by choosing to attach these to the avatar’s chest or spine rather than attaching them to the hand.