Ninja Rant
Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at 8:45AM I am feeling a bit sassy today so I hope you don’t mind a little…
NINJA RANT!
First let’s start with Meg.
My family watched these videos with me because I wanted to get their reactions. They had not read all the posts I had about the new campaign so I figured we would see what the Simmons family thought.
My son did not like the play on words with the whole “give diabetes the finger” thing. My wife thought she was a little creepy. My daughter was probably sitting in front of the screen with her nose in a book as usual.
So here is my take.
I hate type 1 diabetes. I want more than anything more awareness and more education about it. If that means “Meg” than so be it. I could pick it apart, heck I could probably find things that bacon really would not make better but I am not going to. The fact is we need more and more type 1 campaigns out there. It’s not a lie. The JDRF is not putting out bad info right? It’s all good. Meg, you go girl!
Next.
This ad that ran in the NY Times and Washington Post.
First off, I have to give the JDRF mad props for all they are doing. Sure the ad was scary, the number freaked me out, and putting on a kid on there really tugged at the heartstrings.
But you know what? So be it. People need to understand that diabetes is serious. The FDA needs to know! How many times have people said, “well at least it is manageable” to you when they find out you or a loved one has diabetes. If someone had cancer would you say, “well at least there is chemo?” No. Never. That belittles the disease and makes it not a big deal. DIABETES IS A BIG DEAL and anyone who thinks differently needs more education about it!
Here’s the thing. If bad information is being distributed than I think we need to stop it. But if someone is trying to raise awareness about type 1 and they are not putting out bad info than we should be thankful.
Awareness raised = Win!
Take your lens and zoom out a little. Sometimes the view is better when you look at the whole picture.
</rant>
Reader Comments (10)
Thanks for posting these, George. And I agree with you in so many ways. I kind of liked these parody ads and prefer them to soft, squishy, feel sorry for us kind of D PSA's we see. Time to step it up and get the word out any way we can!
great rant, george! love it!
preach on, brotha! :D
I think its well done. Perhaps it's hokey, and I'm fine with that too (perhaps it speaks to my age!). But what we want to do is bring attention to D in any way we can. We want to get the message out to as many as possible - and for those who subscribe to laughter is the best medicine or who are sick and tired of soft and squishy, it reaches out to more people. A good example is the Man App which gets attention quite effectively and that's a good thing. No one is saying that the breast check message isn't serious or important (although it may have been criticized for that too). The next question is where do we go with this and there's certainly a lot more to get there - and it will be interesting to see what JDRF does next.
@Brad - It's all about spreading the word!
@Jess - I shall. It feels good to rant now and then.
@Jamie - That Man App is brilliant! Something like that gets the point across in a way that can go viral and reach a lot of people!
Nice Rant.... Ninja...:)
"Take your lens and zoom out a little. Sometimes the view is better when you look at the whole picture." I like the way you put that.
get your rant on any time you like, dude. it's your blog! also, lol @ your bacon comment. :)
Great Ninja Rant, G! Loved reading your take on this, and absolutely agree with Amy that you're ending is about as good as it gets. So very true, that there's a bigger picture here and we shouldn't get lost in the insider-baseball type stuff. Thanks for including your family's take on all this!
I love the "zoom out" perspective George - thanks for adding your opinion to the mix.
Is it Ok to say that I haven't decided how I feel about this stuff yet?
I am type 1 too. i try to exercise on regular basis and eat right, for starters i use natural substitute called Natvia in my daily cup of coffee and sweets (yes i may be diabetic but i still have a uncontrollable sweet tooth)
see the website for further details.