AIBU to all the MNetters who were negative about make-up free selfies?

[Marylou62]

I read most of them and couldn't understand why some people were so negative about it. I didn't do one of myself as I never wear make-up so what would be the point! But just heard on the radio that over £1 million has been raised by this harmless, funny campaign. Well Done all of you. (maybe I should post one of myself IN make-up...that would be funny...and I have a S/O to a cancer charity and always take my used books to our local Cancer charity shop)

So did you make a donation then?

I couldn't see how it was raising anything as at first not one of my fb friends posted that they were donating, and how to donate. Yes it's been great now that people are donating, but awareness was there already surely?

yes, she said that she has a standing order running.

if it has got people to donate then great - social media campaigns usually have no effect at all, this must be a first!!

Although the whole thing about being brave to be seen without makeup makes me want to chain myself to a railing... but funding cancer research is more urgent than installing brains in some women. One battle at a time.

Everyone on my fb who has posted a selfie has also posted to show they have also donated.

I havent been nominated yet but have already donated.

Now there are lots of selfies of men in makeup poping up who have also donated

I think the point is the campaign is supposed to be about cancer awareness most of us have seen loads of makeup free pictures on facebook but no mention of making a donation or any links to cancer research and posting a picture of yourself without makeup is not really going to achieve anything.

I am not on Facebook. Never have been.

FB threads on here make me forever grateful for that.

Well YABU because:

a - you could have joined one the trillion threads already about this

b - not until there was a backlash against it did donations even start getting mentioned. On my FB it was all "selfie for cancer", well cancer thanks you my dear myself plus a few others suggested donations might be more fucking useful and lo and behold after the fact I get another load of selfies with "Donation made" smugness on them. Which is great but you didn't do that the first time round did you?

c - even if it raises a shitload I find it morally wrong to support a campaign where women are called "brave" for going without a faceful of artificial slap. Its not fucking brave. Its not fucking necessary.

d - the message it puts out to women whose looks have been disfigured by cancer is in no way a positive one. "Look girls beauty is so all important that daring to look less than modelesque as prescribed by beauty companies is so daring you get money for it"

I am actually hating it MORE now due to the post event smugness of women who say "well we raised money so there" no, no you didn't, the people who pulled up your vain arses did

To be fair, when I had a whinge about it on fb yesterday all I had seen were lots of pouting photos and absolutely no details about donations.......since people started pointing this out people now at least seem to be posting the details too.

Still, as long as people don't do it, donate their £3 or whatever and think job done. Yes, they may have raised an extra £million but as long as they don't think job done and give it no more thought.

I donate, do fund raising but I just don't feel the need to rave about it and want public thanks for doing it.

Doing it for for the right reasons then fair enough, but I reckon plenty just put a photo up, slapped themselves on the back for being so supportive, didn't make a donation and actually didn't even think as to how this was raising awareness.

Initially a lot of people were not donating (well it did not appear as though they were on my feed). It was just make up free selfies, no mention of why or anything about donating.
It was then one guy on my feed that said about donating and did a selfie of him with his Iphone screen saying "Thank you for donating".
Then a lot of my friends (and I though I didn't selfie, never wear make up so did an arrow to my normal FB pic and put "Make up free photo, Don't do make up or selfies, did donate by texting BEAT to 70099!") followed suit.
So initially I agreed it was not achieving anything, but by bed time so many friends had donated I saw the point of it all.

I think to start with people were posting the selfies and not donating. There was a backlash and then people started donating. It's all good now. Lots of money has been raised. I donated but no bare faced selfies of me will be featuring on any of my friends' pages.

As someone who was very suspicious of this when it first started, I think what a lot of people were objecting to was that a lot of people weren't making the point about donating when it first kicked off.

Things have obviously got better but the 'post a risque status to RAISE AWARENESS' sort of thing does nothing in isolation. The difference here is that CRUK made it into a 'and donate 3 while you're at it", which changes things. The "look at meeeee I'm not wearing makeup to RAISE AWARENESS of CANCER!!/ 'aw hunni ur just gawjus without'" does nothing without the donation.

I agree completely with specialsubject - being without makeup is, for the vast majority of people, not especially "brave" - but one step at a time..

Do we really need yet another thread about this?

Fair Enough!!

Two days ago when it all kicked off my timeline was full of pouting make up free women saying they were doing it "for cancer", yet not one mentioned anything informative about checking oneself or how to make a donation or whether they themselves had made a donation. I thought they'd completely missed the point. Also my friend has been through nine months of looking and feeling like shite due to a mastectomy, chemo and rads and was faced with all these women parading their bare faces on her timeline saying how brave they were for going make up free 'for cancer'. She was pretty insulted to be honest.

However, since miserable fuckers like myself got on their high horse about it it does appear we've shamed a lot of people into actually making a donation or actually giving some information alongside their selfies. I'm not sure if we hadnt that this amount of money would have been raised to be honest.

I'm not going to apologise for thinking the first lot of selfies were a pointless exercise in my opinion.

I actually think the people who were being negative about the whole pointless affair have more to be pleased about than those who took a photo and made no donation initially

I was the same, anti the no make up selfie as people who I had seen weren't even mentioning cancer and check your breasts.

I haven't done the selfie as most of my photos are without make up anyway but uploaded the text confirmation made to cancer uk. Personally I think it is better for it to go to cancer research UK than just for breast cancer which was previously advertised already has a large amount of funding compared to others, such as bowel, ovarian etc

I totally hear you softlysoftly

I'm with softlysoftly too.

Thankyou Special. Good job I put that bit about already donating or I would have got a flaming? ( And I have lost many family members and Children I loved to cancer, hence the donations, and I think ANYTHING that leads to more money to fight this vile illness....that's fine by me which is why I didn't get involved in any other posts...probably just wanted people to know that £1m had so far been raised as I literally heard it on the radio.

It is possible to support a cause and dislike a particular way of marketing a cause.

This marketing (or the backlash!) seems to have worked financially which is commendable. If I had thought this up, I would be bloody thrilled!

However, I'll never understand the whole 'going without make up is so brave' thing. For me, that idea just entrenches gender stereotypes. I also don't like the selfie thing.

one brave lady I know posted her own story of beating breast cancer at 34 all about her treatment losing her hair, chemo etc she was the only person I commented on because she is actually telling it like it is and she posted a link to cancer research.

So this is ok then, I imagined the people going into stores and asking them to move the copies?

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/check-em-tuesday/5483158/page-3-vs-breast-cancer-with-coppafeel.html

Fantastic that it raised so much money.

Grim that the idea of women going without make up is so "brave"

Donated to whom? I don't donate to CRUK because so little of what is given actually goes to research AND even less to brain and paediatric cancer. Yet they are an umbrella charity. The funds are heavily skewed into research towards certain types and not distributed at all equitably.

My daughter did not 'beat' her cancer. FA research or advances have been made into it in 30 years so she wasted away and died in front of us.

She never made it to be old enough to have breasts or wear makeup.

She was 9.

In the past two weeks, one child she was treated with has died and another is terminal.

So sorry to hear that expatinscotland, I can not even begin to imagine how awful that has been for you all.
I did donate to CRUK, simply because I did not realise they didn't divide the funding better.
Is there a better charity to donate to that makes more of a difference?