CAN WE PLEASE STOP THIS CRAP FOR A MOMENT?
What used to be a chain letter is now the chain status update. As far as I know, there is no official word for it. In any case, it is a status update on Facebook in which the poster calls on others to paste and copy the message on their own profile. Many of those messages are about friendship and love (“share this if you have a best friend!”), but some are also about cancer and I want to talk about that for a moment. Last week, I saw the following status update and it made me furious right away:
“There is nothing more painful than watching someone at the end of their life due to cancer. Trying to look good, but after chemo you know that the person has changed mentally and is in shock. I know that many of you don’t care about this message because cancer hasn’t affected you, of course. You don’t know what it’s like to fight or to have a loved one who has lost the battle against cancer. For all the men and women I know, I ask you for a small favor and only some of you will do it. If you know someone who has lost the battle against cancer or someone who is still fighting it; please put this on your status for one hour as a sign of respect and remembrance. Copy this and put it on your status to support the victims and families affected by cancer. Keep your finger on this message and copy it and set it as your status. If you choose to do it: please do not tag or share, but copy and paste!”
Now it just so happens that my mother passed away from cancer and I can say something about this. After all, this message is about me, or is for me, because I do not belong to the group “who don’t care because cancer hasn’t affected you.” Just that alone, by the way, so people who haven’t come into contact with cancer at all think it’s all perfectly fine that there are others who die from it? Anyway, this message should be posted for one hour to pay respect to the bereaved and to cancer patients. Because that will help them and so on.
Honestly, I get so tired of everyone who thinks it’s ‘respectful’ to like or share things. “Share this if you are against hunger too!” Or: “like this if you think this skinny African child is so sad too!”. And then those cancer messages. Don’t think this is an incident or only reserved for PVV voters. The person I read it from is a very normal person. In fact, this person is the owner of three wildly successful stores in Amsterdam, comes from a good family, has at least as successful a boyfriend, and lives in a huge property in Amsterdam-Zuid. Nothing about her says ‘weak-minded.’ And this message, or a message in the same vein, I see way too often passing by.
What bothers me among other things is the imposed guilt that is in it. “If you don’t share this, you are a heartless jerk, I know that most of you are like that, but be the one who does have respect for cancer.” And then that time frame of one hour. So the person for whom you post this has to see your status update exactly in that hour? And is your respect over after an hour? And are you really going to keep an eye on the clock? Like: “Well, that’s enough respect for now. The 60 minutes are up, hop hop, delete. Done with that cancer.”
But what makes me even angrier, and this is actually in the entire handling of cancer, is that it is always portrayed as a battle. The battle against cancer this and the battle against cancer that. That implies, and in this message it is literally stated, that the person who dies from it is a loser. That they weren’t strong enough. “Oh you’re dead? Well, tough luck, you should have fought harder. Yeah, sorry to be so blunt, but my hour of respect is already over, just so you know.” All in all, this message was meant as support and respect, the only thing it gives me is spots on my neck and a murderous rage. But strangely enough, people then suddenly have much less respect for that.
