The Yellow Bracelet gets on my nerves
I support cancer research. Really I do. Like many people, cancer has touched my life on more than one occasion. Inasmuch as I follow sports (which is hardly at all), I also support Lance Armstrong; his record is impressive and his comeback from cancer inspiring.
Nonetheless, the Yellow Bracelet gets on my nerves. I see it on half the people around me and I think “conformity.”
Think about it: why not send a $10 donation to the Lance Armstrong Foundation instead of buying a $1 silicone bracelet? You’d be contributing a more meaningful amount (which would probably not break your budget). None of the money would have to cover manufacturing costs for the bracelets. As an added bonus, you’d have one fewer doodad to clutter you wrist, your dresser, and (once the fad passes) a landfill.
In order for the Yellow Bracelet to work as a fundraising gimmick, it must rely on economies of scale: the cost to manufacture thousands of the bracelets must be negligible, and to justify the effort, the money raised by the sheer number of people signing on to the fad (oh, the landfills!) must be greater than what would have otherwise been raised by fewer but more substantive contributions. In other words, the campaign relies on peer pressure and conformity.
The Yellow Bracelet is “cool.” It is, if not conspicuous consumption, certainly conspicuous philanthropy. It shows you care (at least at the $1 level). It makes you feel good (with minimal effort). It proclaims (quite loudly) your involvement (no matter that it’s a non-controversial cause; who isn’t in favor of cancer research?).
I’m not one to pine for the halcyon days of yore, but I can’t help but wish we lived in times in which subtlety was, at least, considered an ideal. One can support causes without making a big production of it; some people have even been known to do it anonymously. Could we not use our compassion, our money, our attention, and our time to further cancer research without turning our support into a facile consumer commodity?