A wave of Facebook status beginning with “I like it on…” raises awareness for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

This past month, legions of women updated their Facebook statuses with evocative statements, all beginning with: “I like it on…” Some of those women included the ladies of Stanford University.

Examples of said titillating statuses included: “I like it on the bed,” “I like it against the wall” and “I like it in the back of my car.”

The trick behind the phrase was the ambiguous use of the word “it,” which was actually referring the women’s purses or bags. The goal of this viral marketing was to spread the word about October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month. “I like it on” was predicated on the wildfire-like spread of a previous, unofficial Facebook campaign that asked women to change their statuses to the color or print of their bras.

Gloria Koskey ’11 “likes it on the couch.”

“The first day [the campaign] went viral, my friend Facebook-chatted me and told me about how it worked,” she said. “I had done the bra one, where you put your bra color for breast cancer awareness, so I figured, ‘I did the last one. I’ll do this one too.’”

“It definitely catches people’s attention,” Koskey added. “In order for someone to become interested in a cause, you need to pique their interest, which I think this campaign achieved. Maybe after seeing these Facebook statuses someone Googled the cause, and maybe that person read an article on breast cancer.”

Others had more mixed feelings on the status updates.

“I knew that it was a campaign for breast cancer awareness, but I had no idea it was about purses,” said Kaia Mattioli ‘11, who created her own version of the “I like it on” status, sharing that she “liked it better when [she] didn’t know where everyone else liked it.”

“I’m all for raising awareness,” said Julie Hernández ’12, “and last year’s bra color statuses got people talking about breast cancer awareness. [Even though] this year’s topic didn’t seem as relevant as last year’s, it got the job done nonetheless.”

The reactions were not limited to Stanford. In a recent article on Time.com, Megan Gibson wrote, “There is nothing wrong with campaigning for breast cancer awareness (or any disease, for that matter). In fact, quite the opposite is true–the effects of successful campaigning for the disease has led to a significant reduction in the disease. Yet what exactly does provocatively saying where you like to keep your purse have to do with a horrible disease that has challenged millions of lives?”

Others on Stanford’s campus had similar responses and doubted the effectiveness of the viral marketing campaign.

“I had no idea that had to do with breast cancer awareness. I just thought [people] were trying to be funny,” said Robert Burns ’14. “I guess it was successful in being widespread, but the message sort of got lost in the shuffle.”

“I didn’t find out about the ‘I like it on the’ trend until after if had ended. It wasn’t until I read about it in an article that I found out what the ‘it’ was referencing,” said Jean Ansolabehere ’11. “And even now, I’m not sure about the connection between breast cancer and where you keep your purse.”

“I think the sexual innuendo of the status update was sort of a strange idea because breast cancer is something so serious,” she continued. “I don’t think it’s necessarily the ideal way to start an open forum about breast cancer.”