Please bore off with your No Makeup Nominations

I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s had their timeline hijacked over the last few days with a stream of girls without their usual slap on, and to be honest, I’m getting sick of it. In case you’re not aware of the new social media craze, the catchily named #nomakeupnomination trend is probably the worst thing to happen to Facebook in 2014.

The most offensive part of the campaign for me is that it’s being masked as an awareness campaign for breast cancer. I’m not entirely convinced that nobody had heard of this disease, before this swept the internet, given that 1 in 8 women are affected by the disease in their lifetime, and it kills over 11,000 men and women every year.  So awareness isn’t really the key problem here, given that a lot of these photos don’t even have the donation details attached that they’re claiming to be promoting.

I have no problem with selfies. I don’t even have a problem with no makeup selfies. If posting a photo of your face makes you feel better about yourself, then by all means go for it. We live in a world where advertising companies make millions off of the low self-esteem of teenage girls, and if getting likes on photos of your face helps you combat that, then that’s fantastic. However, don’t pretend that you’re doing this for cancer – you’re doing it for likes, and for people to tell you how gorgeous your natural face is. There are plenty of existing fundraising efforts nationwide – ones that actually take a bit more effort than just washing your face – such as Race for Life, and if you’re serious about raising money and not just getting a bit of attention for five minutes, maybe you should check them out.

Is this really creating awareness?

If you want to donate £5 to Macmillan Cancer Support, text MOBILE to 70550. If you want to donate £3 to Cancer Research UK, text BEAT to 70099. If you want to find your nearest Race for Life, click here (Lincoln’s event is on June 8th this year). And please, for the sake of your Facebook friends, stop giving in to every fad that has the word “nominate” next to it.