It's Tanuary!

“Tanuary, which invites us to raise awareness for skin cancer by going out to the tanning salon and getting yourself all Snookiefied for the winter.”

– Moustache Rides, Micheal Citrone. “The Mirror”

Movember was torturous for me for two reasons. Firstly, I’m not the biggest fan of facial hair on men, or women for that matter (yes, I’m being cheeky – I was also the one making jokes about growing out my moustache in support haha) and secondly, I knew there were more than a few people doing it for the wrong reasons or no reason at all. It’s all part of this new-found fake activism I’ve noticed. How many of these men went out and got tested, how many spoke to their doctors, brothers, fathers about the issue. How many raised money for the cause? I know a few guys who did and I respect them for taking the ‘stache’ to new heights. But the sad thing is they were a minority. Many men were growing out the handlebars just because everyone else was doing it – does sitting on the same bandwagon as the “active” activists make you an activist, by association? I think not. Get off your ass and do something. 

It’s not enough to say you’ve educated yourself about an issue – what are you doing with that piece of knowledge? Are you sharing it? Are you doing anything to change the current situation? I am a whole-hearted believer in baby steps and grassroots initiatives, so yes, one person can change the world. It will not be a grandiose gesture that will do it, but it is a ripple effect. And it’s common sense! Why do parents teach their kids right from wrong? So they will grow up knowing it, living it, teaching it, propagating “good” ideals to their children ---see? The Ripple Effect. Why is Movember important? It raises awareness of an illness that is growing and affecting more and more people. Educating yourself helps you better educate the people around you. This in turn ensures that more people get tested, leading to early diagnosis and better prognosis---see? The Ripple Effect. Yes, grow the moustache! But donate a toonie. Talk to your dad. Go get tested. Awareness is the backbone of prevention – this applies to any illness. Think HIV/AIDS – get educated, be safe and wrap it up, get tested. You hear these phrases all the time, yet at least 1 person in Quebec gets HIV EVERYDAY!

But back to the issue at hand. There was this heart-string pulling status craze on Facebook a few weeks ago. It was about Special Needs kids – basically, copy paste the short blurb into your status box if you care. It was part of “Special Education Week” to raise awareness of issues associated with children with special needs. I feel very strongly about said issue, so I posted it. Almost immediately a friend of mine posted a link in response. The link led to an article about a mother who, after being so touched by the awareness initiative tried to look further into this Awareness Week. Turns out, the week doesn’t exist. So I started talking to people about it, I deleted the status, and I did some pondering... what does this status craze really accomplish? A few people feel all warm and fuzzy thinking about this children, and then to top it all off they post the status update and take that good feeling home with them. But how many of them read up on learning disabilities trying to better understand the issue? How many of them took action and decided to help out in some way? How many of them got off their asses and did something?!! Forget this example – how many people hear about something even remotely like this and decide to TAKE ACTION? It’s depressing as hell.

This is a superficial activism – the only good that comes out of it, is that people feel good about themselves for donating mere seconds of their time where they think “oh, that’s unfortunate for [insert target group here]”, maaaaybe empathise a little, feel good because they are caring people, and then move on with their lives. I won’t say unchanged, because empathy is hard to develop and it’s something worth working on, so if status updates, clicking an online petition for killer whales, wearing multi-coloured ribbons and plastic flowers, yelling an “Amen” to a disgruntled person on a soapbox helps do that, then so be it. What I’m saying is that it’s not nearly enough. Awareness should lead to action; it should be stirring people to do something. And yes, I suppose there are people who are stirred into action, because then there would be no change, and I can’t lie – there is change. But then you know what? I want to revoke that good feeling! Why should you get to feel good about doing nothing?! Hmph.