While they may be the cause of a rise in plastic surgery in America, it turns out selfies are not all bad. They're helping raise cancer awareness in Britain. Over the last few weeks, a #NoMakeUpSelfie campaign has exploded on social media and raised millions of pounds for Cancer Research U.K., even though the group had nothing to do with the hashtag in the first place.
It all began when author Laura Lippman uploaded this bare-faced selfie to her Twitter account in support of Kim Novak, the elderly actress who received a ton of criticism for how she looked at the Oscars.
While Lippman's selfie had nothing to do with cancer awareness, her no makeup look started a trend. Later on, #breastcancerawareness and donation links to Cancer Research U.K. were added, transforming the hashtag into a viral fundraising campaign.
According to the Guardian, it has garnered 83,000 Twitter mentions since Wednesday, while Instagram saw 59,000 posts in 24 hours from Thursday to Friday. Here are a few of those tweets and posts:
Instagram user have donated an estimated £180,000, and as of last Friday, #NoMakeupSelfie had raised two million pounds total. Aaron Eccles, Cancer Research UK's head of social media told the Guardian, "We're over the moon. When we do a social media campaign we want to engage as many people as possible, and this has taken off like crazy."
We hope to see more selfie-takers using their powers for good instead of evil feed-clogging. To learn more about Cancer Research UK, click here.
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