I Like It, So Deal With It

“I like it on the stairs.”

This was my status update to Facebook yesterday, as a part of a silly little meme to raise awareness for Breast Cancer Awareness month (October, for those of you playing along). The idea was to post a sexually suggestive “I like it” sentence describing where you keep your purse. It’s a quick, light-hearted meme, and it DID get a fair few women talking about BCAMonth. This is precisely what irritates me about the counter response to the meme. Several of my male friends posted today, and late yesterday, bitching about how keeping the meme’s meaning a “secret” ran counter to the meme’s supposed purpose, and PS, men get breast cancer too, so maybe we should’ve let some of them in on the joke too, hmm?

Calm the fuck down, boys. And to begin with, let’s put the bitchy generalizations aside for a moment, shall we? I, personally, did send the message regarding the meme to some of my male friends. I did not spam EVERY man, woman, and child on my FB, however, because let’s face it, not everyone is receptive to this kind of silliness, as the backlash to this meme so clearly illustrates. Furthermore, the complaint that women weren’t explaining the meme when queried is ridiculous. Do you know why I personally didn’t explain the meme to any men on my page? Because not a damn one of them ASKED. If you don’t ask and can’t remember how to Google It, then it isn’t really my fault, it’s yours. Thanks for playing though. Or not. Additionally, it only took 24 hours or so for the message to get to y’all, so as a result of this meme, you DID hear about BCA month. You just didn’t get to be in on the joke. That wasn’t the point. This was obviously and unashamedly a stunt to get media attention, for both the meme AND THE CAUSE.

This last point is what I find most ridiculous about this blog post some of my male friends have been linking to criticize the meme. She says “This entire thing was just a stunt to get in the news. And congrats, by the way. It did.” Exactly. What’s your point? By getting on the news, the meme brought attention both to itself AND TO THE CAUSE. You can’t discuss the meme without discussing its purported cause. So the meme succeeded, just not in a way that you personally find palatable. Suck it.

A final thought: I am offended by the douchebags out there saying I’m an asshole for joking about this, that I’m somehow sexualizing breast cancer. Excuse me? First, don’t assume that everyone grieves or deals with disease in the same way. I know breast cancer survivors, I know people who have lost loved ones to breast cancer, my grandmother had it, and I have myself lost loved ones to cancer. I’m sorry your personal grief is rubbed the wrong way by this, but I find, to be horribly trite, that laughter often is the best medicine, and if joking a little bit alleviates some of the pain this subject elicits, then I think that’s all to the good. A little innuendo never hurt anyone.

It’s a facebook meme. Get the fuck over it. Facebook is not serious business.