Last week we blithely predicted the end of civilisation with the advent of bare-faced selfies, which women around the world were posting on Facebook and Twitter to raise cancer awareness. We cynically wondered a) what selfies had to do with cancer awareness; and b) why they had to be bare-faced. And guess what? The doubters (us included) were all wrong.
To date bare-faced selfies have raised more than £2million in text-message donations on the back of the organic campaign. Slebs including Kym Marsh, VV Brown and Michelle Heaton joined in, and a phenomenon was born, all in the name of a good cause.
Now it appears that the over the weekend, the good men of the Internet were starting to feel a little left out – and so #cockinasockwas born. Men up and down the country are posing with their… cock in a sock (nothing abstract here) to raise awareness (and let’s presume this time, money) for testicular cancer.
Even British Soldiers have joined in:
Again, the cancer charities say this movement hasn't come from them, but they're in favour of anything that highlights the issue – and raises much-needed money. (As well as an increase in male-body awareness.)
And it doesn’t stop there, folks, oh no. There’s ANOTHER burgeoning hashtag doing the rounds called #titsinmits, where women are encouraged to cover their boobs with a pair of gloves (rubber or woollen seem fine), tweet the picture and donate some money to Cancer Research. Again, no real word on what the link between Tits in a pair of mits is (although breasts = breast cancer awareness, perhaps?), and this one doesn’t seem to be setting the Internet on fire just yet. But has it occured to anyone else that a woman sticking a pair of rubber gloves on her naked breasts, tweeting a picture of it and calling it a charitable act might be a bit ridiculous?
Such is the lifespan of a meme on the Internet now, that ‘selfies for charity’ has gone from a rising trend, to a genuine phenomenon, to a much-imitated and hackneyed idea within the space of a weekend. What’s next – #ballsinbowls? #toesinbows? Or, most likely, all of the above.
Follow Rebecca on Twitter @rebecca_hol
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.