Cancer Culture and Awareness

Our society in the United States has shifted from not speaking about the ways in which illness has touched our lives, to becoming extremely open to the practice of sharing personal stories and burdens with others. Today it is not that way at all, and a lot has changed about cancer culture. The terminology has even changed. We call patients “Survivors” (King, 2010). We wear certain symbols because of their latent and manifest meanings. Most notably, the cancer ribbon has become “one of the most widely recognized symbols in the United States” (Harvey and Strahilevitz 2009). In the United States, consumers have participated in a buying storm for years with a certain theme: awareness. This isn’t a topic hotly debated publicly, presumably because of its nonprofit stature; however this isn’t a topic that is controversy free.

Disease, simply put, is something that shouldn’t be taken advantage of. There are many different approaches one can take to explain this phenomenon. The most blatant, however, is through breast cancer awareness. Budgets that appear to dedicate a certain amount to research and prevention really donate substantially less. Marketing tactics are misleading, and the cancer ribbon and similar symbols are, in some cases, being used as a tool to beef up marketing campaigns. These symbols are in the process of taking on a meaning other than what they were originally intended for. The ribbons were originally intended to be inspirational (Fernandez, 1998). The manifest meaning of the pink ribbon in our society is breast cancer awareness. The latent meanings have evolved immensely over the last 10 years and have new meaning. The pink ribbon has become a fashion statement, especially when it is sported on clothing it...

... middle of paper ...

... our help.' (Banks, 2013). This company recognizes that pink ribbons will still be a vital form of revenue for them as they sell them at different events, but they welcomed this change with open arms (Banks, 2013). They now have their own identity instead of blending in with the pink atmosphere of more breast cancer nonprofits.

Not conforming to the norms of making money is a scary concept for corporations and nonprofits alike. There are ways to keep the community of people touched by disease and cancer strong and thriving without making a profit from it. Companies have the options to become independent from the societal norms and start a new movement to be innovative and break away from the color pink. There is nothing wrong with using pink, so long as you do not take advantage of consumers and are transparent as to where the money is going, along with how much.