The 'No Makeup Selfie' Trend Goes Viral for Cancer Awareness

This week's blog post will focus on the #nomakeupselfie, an example of how powerful social media can be.

The #nomakeupselfie started trending in the UK on March 18, 2014 when women started posting pictures of themselves without makeup on Twitter and Facebook. 

This trend evolved organically into a cancer awareness theme and the selfie posters pledged to donate to cancer charities.  

Cancer Research UK jumped on the trend immediately by responding with: ''Thousands of you are posting #cancerawareness #nomakeupselfie pictures and many have asked if the campaign is ours... It's not but we love that people want to get involved!'' on their Google+ page.

Cancer Research UK set up a number to text for donations and in less than seven days, they have raised over £8 million ($13,200,800 USD) for cancer research in Britain.  This 'organically grown' campaign made a huge impact on social media and has been getting attention in national media.

According to Adweek, ''Author Laura Lippman apparently started the trend to support actress Kim Novak, who was criticized at the Oscars.''
From this, the hashtag #breastcancerawareness and donation links to Cancer Research U.K. were added to the selfie tweets.

A rep for the Cancer Research U.K. group was quoted saying ''It's brillant it's raising so much money.  It's totally unexpected because it wasn't something we planned.''

Dr. Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: ''We've been overwhelmed by the support people have been showing us through the #nomakeupselfie trend.''  She goes on to say that Cancer Research UK does not receive any government funding for their research so its phenomenal that the public is so being so generous by enabling them to fund critical research that could not be funded six days ago.

This tweet from @CR_UK was posted on March 21 in response to all of the support of the #nomakeupselfie.

Although the trend and campaign have received a lot of criticism for lacking substance and purpose, the money that Cancer Research UK has raised doesn't lie.  I think it is very cool that women everywhere are inspired to take a no makeup selfie and donate to charity at the same time; its a great cause!

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Oscars highlight the power of social media

Picture via Financial Post

Last night's Academy Awards celebration was a true testament to the power of social media. According to the Los Angeles Times, Ellen DeGeneres' selfie tweet of herself and 11 other celebrities received over 2.7 million retweets and nearly 1.4 million favorites. This tweet supposedly "broke" Twitter and surpassed the previously most popular tweet of all time, President Barack Obama's tweet following his 2012 election win. The tweet was a win for both Ellen and sponsor, Samsung.

According to Deadline Hollywood, "Wolf of Wall Street" was the social media universe's Oscar favorite. I am personally not surprised by this due to the fact that Leonardo DiCaprio's face has been filling my Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook feeds. American Hustle came in second and was followed by Captain Phillips and 12 Years a Slave. I found this to be extremely interesting and wonder if one day the Oscars' will adopt a social media award winner.

Throughout the entire program, posts, comments, and creative media were consistently being created and discussed. As I was watching the Oscars with my housemates, we were all following along on our phones and sharing the funny posts we found with each other. I know that personally I enjoy Twitter during events like this because it allows me to feel like I am watching TV with everyone I know.