We all want to give the world a #BreastCancerRealityCheck✅ on October 1, and we want the world to HEAR us! So we gotta get LOUD! To that end, a group of friends on Twitter formed Pink Is Not a Cure (PINC) just so we could create a Thunderclap—a sort of “social media flash mob.”
Some of you may already be familiar with Thunderclap and how it works, but some of you may not. Here’s the deal: We created a single tweet with the #BreastCancerRealityCheck✅ hashtag and everyone who signs up will have that single tweet sent out all at once (7am PDT/10am EDT/3pm BST):
“We don’t sugarcoat the truth: 1,430 will die today! We need life-saving research. Join #BreastCancerRealityCheck✅”
*See bottom of this post for FAQ. We need at least 100 of you to sign up so this tweet (and feel free to have the message sent out on your Facebook and Tumblr accounts as well) will be sent out on your behalf—but we’d love 1,000 to sign up! The idea, of course, is the more #BreastCancerRealityCheck✅ is in use, the more likely it will trend and attract attention. Hey, we need something to be heard over the din of Pinkness and whatever celebrity scandal will be happening that day!
Now, that is just the ONE tweet, we are still counting on everyone to craft their OWN creative and inventive tweets and tweet the heck out of them as often as possible, ALL DAY LONG. Which leads me to another exciting aspect: You Could Be Tweeting for Charity!
A panel of US and UK judges will pick the WINNING TWEET that best captures the spirit of this 1st Annual Breast Cancer Reality Check✔ Day. The person who contributes that winning tweet on October 1st will have money donated, in their name, to a US- or UK-based breast cancer charity advancing the kind of education and research that will SAVE LIVES. Symbolizing those 113 people (and many more worldwide!) lost to metastatic breast cancer on October 1st, the donation amount in the winner’s name will be £113 GBP (or $146 USD at current exchange rate). Winner will be announced and notified on Saturday, October 8th.
The general public is so accustomed to the usual pink din of October, they likely tune it out at this point. We wanna shake things up; inject some reality into this stagnant old pink ribbon fairy tale. Help us do that—put YOUR REALITY out there. For me, one of the best feelings I got after I started blogging was meeting people online who were NOT other cancer patients, who came to me and told me “I had no idea,” and now they don’t go along with the same old pink story each year either. They GET IT. It’s a GREAT feeling, being honest and changing minds!
*In case you are hesitant to sign up for this Thunderclap, know that they will not spam your friends, or tweet anything else on your behalf other than this single tweet—yes they do ask for access to your friends list—their FAQ page can explain all this way better, check it out: https://www.thunderclap.it/faq. And you must go there and sign up, not just like this blog post or the tweet inviting you to do this—you gotta go through the steps. It won’t take long and it’s painless. Trust me—I signed up for these things in the past and I have the patience and attention span of a gnat. If I can do it, so can you!
Visit our Thunderclap page by clicking here, the graphic at the top of the page, or the graphic below and please, please, please, sign up and participate!
anotheronewiththecancer 