Your Cause Needs a Bracelet

Saw the new ad for the ONE campaign tonight. In it a slew of recognizeable celebrities (including the recognizeable only to LA people Jack Valenti and the inexplicably thrown in there for no good reason Pat Buchanan) explain to me in no uncertain terms that "we can beat extreme poverty, starvation, and AIDS" if we all join together and throw a bunch of money at the problem. Lofty, but possibly misguided. Even a cursory Google search reveals 10 or more recent articles in the Financial Times and New York Times debating the merits of this kind of economics, and whether or not the recipient countries even have the infrastructure to effectively manage the billions of dollars in aid. Of course I'm in support of solving these problems, but I can't say I'm happy to be harrassed by talking heads like George Clooney and Kate Hudson, telling me that all I need to do is buy a white bracelet. Which reminds me.

Naturally somebody at ONE's most recent board meeting pounded his fist on their meeting room table and said "I'll tell you what this cause needs: one of those rubber bracelets. Like the one that guy Lance Armstrong used to cure cancer." So what did the ONE campaign do? They made a bunch of white bracelets so as to flood the not at all saturated rubber-bracelet-for-a-cause marketplace. Here's an absolutely true story for you: my buddy Josh and I were out in Palm Desert buying some sporting goods a few weekends ago and I noticed that our cashier was wearing a bright pink rubber bracelet. "What's that one for, breast cancer?" I asked. "Um, no" she replied. "It just says 'Princess' on it." "Oh" I reply. "So then it's really not for any specific cause, really." "No." she says. "Do you need this receipt?"

Look for the rubber bracelets to go the way of the ribbon craze from the early 90's, because you know they've jumped the shark when kids all over America no longer wear them for awareness, but for fashion.