"I Like It In The Car" & Other Assorted Nonsense

I woke this morning to find a status update on Facebook by a friend that read, "I'm going to New York for 4 months! =D". Having seen this trend of updates for the last few days my immediate reaction was one of annoyance and then of anger towards the body of people propogating this. My issue isn't towards the individual here, but the form of 'Awareness' that this sort of activity is supposed to be for and how it only ends up undermining the seriousness of the issue in question.

Here is my Facebook update, right after looking at the aforementioned status, "Chicks are posting updates about going to this or that city for x number of months. Another stupid gimmick to raise awareness (how do you raise awareness for a 'secret' cause?) for god only know what, harking back to the times when silly girls posted their bra colors (breast cancer awareness FAIL) or stuff like "I like it in the car" (Really?! Raising awareness for what here?). It is no secret that I've lost my Mother and an Uncle to Cancer and feel this sort of thing is in very poor taste. There really are better ways to raise awareness and make a real change, girls."

Maybe I was a little harsh here but 28 people so far and counting have 'Liked' the status. This in no way makes what I said right but I had strong views on the subject and voiced my opinion on it.

In the comments I mentioned this, " I just had a girl tell me she had no idea what the Bra color thing was for and believed it was all in good fun. My beef is that the message of awareness gets lost, even among the one's spreading the awareness by these means in the first place." and this, "Here's what I mean: "We need something new to mess around with the boys

since they figuered out yet everything,
we need something new!
So, lets start it:
Your current status
Single = England
In Love = Germany
unhappy in love = France
in a relationship = Spain
married = Switzerland
engaged = Austria
Send this to every Girl!! of your friend list
And watch out, dont tell any boys!!!
lets see, how long they will need for this one ;;)""

My scathing criticism here isn't directed at the individuals indulging in this silliness, but rather at the silliness itself. There's a right way and a wrong way of using Social Media for the greater good, and this way just does not seem right to me.