Everywhere you go these days, a yellow menace can be seen, spreading further across the cultural landscape with each passing week. Kids are pretending they care about the sport of cycling, students with endless debt are becoming philanthropists, and football tailgaters are celebrating the victor of a non-contact, non-drinking French sporting event. And all the rest of us are wondering what on earth happened.
But all of this is part of a hot new trend-the fight against cancer. And while that might sound like a craze beyond criticism, it's not. For all the good intentions and extraordinary support of Lance Armstrong bracelets, they signify something potentially dangerous and ugly-even uglier than mere yellow wristbands.
Oddly enough, I first encountered this mass trend when I was out for a drink with someone strikingly individual.
\Oh no,"" she said. ""I forgot my Lance Armstrong bracelet.""
""Your what?"" I responded.
She quickly explained that six-time Tour de France-winning cyclist Lance Armstrong had endorsed a line of wristbands that could be purchased for one dollar, with all proceeds going to his foundation to aid cancer sufferers. Thirteen million have already been sold. She couldn't believe that I had not seen them around campus.
""I've got mine,"" the bartender declared from across the bar.
""I feel naked without mine,"" my companion said.
After taking note of the unfortunate difference between spiritual nakedness and actual nakedness, I rolled this idea around in my mind. Are we naked if we don't actively declare something like our opposition to cancer with a clear visual sign? Now looking for the bracelets, I saw them everywhere, from lecture halls to the Farmers' Market. And it made me wonder if my non-ringed wrists had become like wearing a sign that says, ""Forget Bush. Forget Kerry. I support cancer in 2004.""
But that couldn't be right, could it? I don't support cancer. My mother has run in the Race for the Cure several times back in New York, so I even understand the value of combining fundraising with group support of survivors and victims. This was something else.
What ""Live Strong"" bracelets do is materialize moral support. Being a citizen of the health-conscious world has been commoditized, and there is now a bandwagon and a fashion trend for people who oppose premature death. The problem with this is that it will inevitably go away, just like every other trend. People will not be wearing yellow bracelets in five years, but cancer will most assuredly still be a problem that plagues thousands.
This means that at a certain point, some poor guy will walk into a roomful of friends and say, ""Look guys, I finally got my Lance Armstrong bracelet.""
And his friends will roll their eyes.
""Cancer is, like, totally 2004,"" one will say.
""Yeah,"" another will chime in. ""Cancer is so pass??. We're onto propeller beanies for lupus now. And sweater vests for shingles are the next big thing.""
Cancer bracelets are going to go the way of parachute pants and turned-up shirt collars. Cancer isn't. We need to be careful how we turn real problems into conformist fashion trends with predictably short shelf lives.
And we need to escape the yellow menace before it swallows up the rest of us, and public concern, along with it. People's hearts are in the right place-it's just their wrists that might not be.
amosap@hotmail.com.
