This post will be about the attempted cyberactivism of breast cancer by using memes designed to intentionally exclude men. (Mahoney & Tang, 2023) While most breast cancer does indeed affect women, it certainly affects men and can be just as fatal.

In India, having cancer is a stigma, and men having cancer of a “feminine organ” even more so. (Mondal, 2024) Montel Williams was falsely diagnosed and had a double mastectomy when he really had torn pectoral muscles. Rod Roddy was an announcer on the show The Price is Right and died from breast and colon cancer. Richard Roundtree, actor, had a double mastectomy; Edward Brooke, senator, had a double mastectomy; Peter Criss, drummer with KISS, had a lumpectomy; and Ernie Green, Cleveland Browns fullback, had a mastectomy. (Vanhooker, 2015) It is estimated that there will be 2,800 cases of breast cancer and 510 deaths in the United States from male breast cancer, with a lifetime risk of 1 in 726 (compared to a lifetime risk of 1 in 8 for women). (American Cancer Society, 2025)

The design of the memes used was clearly intentional persiflage, intended to minimize concern for the very real effects of breast cancer on men, inclusion through exclusion. (PCMag, 2010) It is intentionally obfuscated; I suspect the reason for this was for friends to see the weird status updates and ask about them. The effectiveness of this as a means of spreading “awareness” through a message is dubious at best. (Trussell, 2012)

Now, it’s supposed to be offensive for women to be sexualized, but this meme used phrases such as “I like it on the floor” or “I like it behind the couch” to identify where women store their purses. Another one expected women to use a number, followed by the word “inches”, and then followed by a time representing how long it takes to take care of their hair. Imagine the effect of a man doing that. What has hair care got to do with promoting breast cancer awareness? I suspect there were a number of women who did it because it seemed “naughty” and their friends were doing it and may never even have known it was supposedly related to promoting breast cancer awareness.

Almost 25 years ago, I was travelling south on I-25 in New Mexico in my tiny pickup when it overheated. I made it to the town of Truth or Consequences and pulled into a gas station. I did a monumentally stupid thing and took the thermostat off while the engine was still hot. I turned to get something out of my toolbox and missed the gush of black slimy heated water that shot all over the underside of the hood and thus did not strip the skin off my face. I mention this in this post because, parked at the same place, was a bright pink bus promoting the Susan G. Komen Foundation. I’d never heard the name but seeing that bus led me to fight out and this probably raised more breast cancer awareness than the entire Facebook campaign mentioned above.

That’s not to say that memes can’t be useful in promoting health care information. The nature of social media is such that misinformation can be spread at least as easily as facts. The algorithms are designed to provide more of what it appears we want, not to accurately inform, so a consumer is more likely to get something that reinforces existing beliefs. Still, memes appropriately designed for the target audience can be useful and are more likely to be shared by that target audience than ones intended for a broader audience. It may take more work to prepare multiple memes, but it is more likely to lead to successful diffusion of the message. (Headly, et al, 2021)

Digital activism is mostly ineffective. It requires little commitment and thus is mostly virtue signaling. Save the whales? Sure! <click> Where’s my latte? Memes may be easy to spread, but they don’t do much to drive action, particularly when the message is intentionally disguised like the previously mentioned Facebook breast cancer awareness effort. (Is digital activistm effective?, 2024) Using a hashtag related to some social concern is not the same as using personal time and resources. Jimmy Carter did not tweet to generate awareness for affordable housing, he climbed ladders and swung hammers and even succeeded in getting injured requiring stitches, something unlikely to happen by merely clicking “like”. (Wolfe and Ahmed, 2019) Useful activism requires butts in motion, a sacrifice of personal time and money, not clicks on an online petition.

Tatas for now!

References:

American Cancer Society. (2025, January 16). Key Statistics for Breast Cancer in Men. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/breast-cancer-in-men/about/key-statistics.html

Headley, S.-A., Jones, T., Kanekar, A., & Vogelzang, J. (2022). Using Memes to Increase Health Literacy in Vulnerable Populations. American Journal of Health Education, 53(1), 11–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/19325037.2021.2001777

Is digital activism effective? (2024, September).  https://study-online.sussex.ac.uk/news-and-events/social-media-and-campaigning-is-digital-activism-effective/

Mahoney, L. M., & Tang, T. (2023). Strategic social media: From marketing to social change (2nd ed.). Wiley.

Mondal, S. (2024). Dying with shame: a qualitative study of stigma experienced by terminal stage male breast cancer patients and family members in India. Mortality, 29(4), 692–705. https://doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2023.2215704

PCMag Staff. (2010, January 10). Why the Color Facebook Updates? Breast Cancer Awareness. PC Mag. http://appscout.pcmag.com/social-networking/270867-why-the-color-facebook-updates-breast-cancer-awareness

Trussell, D. (2012). Pinktober! Queue another stupid Facebook meme. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2012/10/02/pinktober-queue-another-stupid-facebook/meme/

Wolfe, E., and Ahmed, S. (2019, October 8). Despite 14 stitches and a black eye, Jimmy Carter is back building homes. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/08/us/carter-building-houses-after-stitches-falling-trnd/index.html