Warning: The following mass email is disturbing and may offend some readers. For those of you with a low tolerance for self-righteous vanity masquerading as charity, I recommend you stop reading and make your way back to YouTube videos of children being viciously mutilated in trampoline and pogo stick accidents.
Jane Doe January 19th, 2011 via Facebook.com
Subject: GAME
We are playing a game. We want us GIRLS to do something special in Facebook to help gain consciousness of Breast Cancer. Its so easy that I'd like you to join us to make it spread! Last year it was about writing the colour of the bra you were wearing in your FB status… and it left men wondering for days why did the girls have colours (apparently random) in our status. This year it has to do with our love relationships. In other words, in this moment, which drink represents your relationship status?
tequila: I'm a single woman
rum: I'm a touch and go woman
champagne: I'm an engaged woman
redbull: I'm a woman in a relationship
beer: I'm a married woman
vodka: I'm the "other one"
sprite: I'm a woman that can't find the right man
whisky: I'm a single woman but with friends that won't stop partying
liquor: I'm a woman that wishes she was single.
gin: I'm a woman that wants to get married
Now all you need to do is write down the answer for your situation in your FB status (don't reply this email, just put it in your status). Also, cut and paste this message and send it to all your girl-friends as a message. The Bra game reached the news. Lets make this one make it too and see how powerful women are . .
PS: NEVER reveal to the men.
A female whistleblower provided this to me. After appraising this garbage and considering how obscenely ludicrous it was, she felt there would be no one who would appreciate this more than I. For that assessment, I am forever grateful.
Let's walk through this line by line shall we?
Jane Doe January 19th, 2011 via Facebook.com
Subject: GAME
Of course, GAME. When I think Breast Cancer awareness, I think GAME, like Monopoly or Mario Kart! It's important to hit them with a bold title that fully realizes the gravity of the subject. And all caps, no less. When I think of bold declarations throughout the annals of time, they are usually in all caps. Oh wait, I'm getting note from our editor… oh— turns out that's wrong. Apparently, only morons and people doing movie poster mock-ups for TERMINATOR: RISE OF THE NO ONE GIVES A SHIT, use all caps.
We are playing a game. We want us GIRLS to do something special in Facebook to help gain consciousness of Breast Cancer.
Who are we? All the other bar-backs at Hooters, I assume. And all of you want yourselves, girls, to do something special. That something special should be taking some night classes at your local community college and familiarizing yourself with the English language, which I assume is your native-pierced tongue. But yes, I completely agree, you should regain consciousness at some point, preferably before you finish this email.
Its so easy that I'd like you to join us to make it spread!
Call me old fashioned, but if I were crafting a PSA regarding cancer, I would probably go out of my way to avoid euphemistic language about "making it spread." "We want this email to start in the lymph nodes of the internet and spread like wild fire, unrecognized by BOYS and by the time they discover what happened it'll be too late! Our malignant status will have spread throughout all of Facebook! GIRL POWER!"
Last year it was about writing the colour of the bra you were wearing in your FB status… and it left men wondering for days why did the girls have colours (apparently random) in our status.
Bra color awareness is SO 2010.When 10 girls in my Facebook news feed had bra "colours" in their status update last year, I assumed, "Oh this must be some dumb girl thing." Turns out I was right, but I felt like a little bit of a prick once I found out what it was about. It later occurred to me that if all of these girls put a link to a PayPal site to donate to Breast Cancer Research instead of "My underwear is pink—fuck you, cancer" it would have done far more good. Instead, it was some self-serving sexual innuendo faux-feminine bullshit masquerading as charity.
Also, if you were wondering for days, trying to decode Victoria's Secret, then you are probably a retarded person—yes, retarded. I said retarded. And we should construct a Facebook status chain for you. "Everyone: please put in your Facebook status what your spit smells like. i.e. ‘peanut butter,' because I just ate a peanut butter cup, or ‘hot dogs,' because I ate a hot dog six weeks ago."
This year it has to do with our love relationships. In other words, in this moment, which drink represents your relationship status?
tequila: I'm a single woman
rum: I'm a touch and go woman
champagne: I'm an engaged woman
redbull: I'm a woman in a relationship
beer: I'm a married woman
vodka: I'm the "other one"
sprite: I'm a woman that can't find the right man
whisky: I'm a single woman but with friends that won't stop partying
liquor: I'm a woman that wishes she was single.
gin: I'm a woman that wants to get married
Just in case you were thinking, "Hey, I want to support Breast Cancer Awareness but only if I can define myself as a woman in the most narrow, sexist, and condescending terms possible. Oh good, it's about booze and fucking! Can I put the color of my underwear anyway? Trick question, I'm not wearing any because I'm drunk and having sex. Take that, titty cancer."
Now all you need to do is write down the answer for your situation in your FB status (don't reply this email, just put it in your status). Also, cut and paste this message and send it to all your girl-friends as a message. The Bra game reached the news. Lets make this one make it too and see how powerful women are . .
Yes, The Bra Game, capitalized because it's either the title of the worst Heart album of all time or because it is a state mandated program like Medicare. Or, perhaps because the author is a fucking derelict, who knows. Anyway The Bra Game made "the news," finally.
Yeah, to see how powerful women are…
PS: NEVER reveal to the men.
OOPS, there goes your power.
I have read and reread this email no less than half a dozen times. There is a sort of startling anti-feminism about this. It also places a spotlight on some glaring deficits of a culture that applauds a detached minimalist charitable vanity where people wear Live Strong bracelets and pink ribbons, and drive SUV's bedecked with Save The Planet magnetic ribbons.
The magnetic ribbon, if you can't invest in a cause enough to actually adhere it to your fucking car, then you probably don't give a shit and should probably skip it altogether.
This is where I'd usually go off on a long-winded tirade about the deeper meaning of all of this and how the internet is contributing to the troubling trend that is the insulation of our humanity to our own singular bubbles, taking in the human experience completely detached from it. But I'm not going to do that tonight because I'm one of the detached millions and it would be a bit of the pot calling the kettle black.
Just an FYI, there's nothing wrong with working at Hooters; it's a fine family establishment… if your family consists of half a dozen drunk frat brothers.
But if anyone asks: I'm Redbull and I'm an alcoholic.