Nomakeupselfie The Latest Nomination Trend To Hit Social Media By Abbie Ree Pr Account Executive

Nomination trends have become huge across social media sites in recent months. There was the #NekNominations which encouraged people to drink a concoction of alcohol, followed by then nominating a handful of friends to do the same. The trend soon got out of hand when a number of people began drinking a dangerous amount of alcohol resulting in a number of deaths.

The latest nomination trend to hit social media is #NoMakeupSelfie. This trend has swept across social media with females in their thousands uploading bare faced selfies and nominating friends to do the same to help raise awareness of breast cancer. Although it is not clear where this trend started, it has been traced back to a tweet by novelist Laura Lipmann, who tweeted to support Kim Novak after she was taunted for her looks at the recent Oscars due to the plastic surgery she has had. Since this tweet, thousands of girls have tweeted their support with their #NoMakeUpSelfie which then became linked to raise awareness for cancer.

Cancer Research UK has since stated that they didn’t start this trend but are grateful for the support they have received and are encouraging girls to continue posting their pictures and donating to the charity. 

When I first started to see the photos take over my Facebook news feed it made me quite angry. Girls seemed to be just uploading a photo of themselves without make up on with little or no mention as to why they were doing it and how it is raising awareness, it was as though they were simply posting it for attention and just wanted to be part of the latest trend. It appeared that I wasn’t the only person that felt this way as people began to post statuses saying how they didn’t see the link between a selfie and raising awareness. 

The #NoMakeupSelfie’s that followed started to change, the captions were a lot more meaningful with mention of people they had lost due to cancer or how awareness needs to be raised in order to fight this horrible disease. The selfies continued with proof that they had donated by uploading a screenshot of the text they had sent to donate.

I had been nominated a couple of times and I was just going to upload a photo of the text to show that I had donated, but I ended up with four nominations from friends who I never thought would upload a bare faced photo. Seeing my news feed fill up with makeup free photos of girls and even celebrities made me see that it is all for a fantastic cause and I wanted to take part. I finally decided to upload my very own #NoMakeUpSelfie and it felt great! I couldn’t believe how good I felt after I had uploaded the photo; it was great to feel part of such a great cause and helping to raise awareness. I think this is a rare example of a pure campaign and it’s amazing that this viral trend has spread across the UK raising a staggering amount of money which will hopefully help Cancer Research UK to be one step closer to finding a cure.

Here is my very own #NoMakeUpSelfie including my cat Bobby although he doesn’t look too happy about it. 

The fact that this could all be done with the use of a mobile phone is one reason why the campaign has been so successful. Photos can be taken and uploaded onto social media and donations can be made through text without the need to enter contact or credit card details making donating simple, giving people the chance to be part of something special – where all they need is their phone! Another reason for the popularity of the #NoMakeUpSelfie may be due to the fact that it includes the buzzword of the year ‘selfie’ which has now been added to the English dictionary.

Currently the #NoMakeUpSelfie trend has raised £8 million. This shows how a nomination trend can be used for a good cause instead of a trend such as #NekNomination that people took part in simply because it was popular at the time and they wanted to be part of the trend that everybody was talking about. Social media is a great way to raise awareness and this trend has proven just how powerful it can be.