Did you know that on the second Monday of February there's an epilepsy awareness day?
I'm almost thirty years old and it's the first time I hear about it. And I AM epileptic! What about other people?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying epilepsy is worse than cancer, I'm saying epilepsy PR people have a lot to learn from cancer PR people. Especially breast cancer.
Take a small break, open an adjacent tab, go to YouTube and search for a breast cancer ad. That shit is traumatizing!
Again, I'm not saying epilepsy is worse than breast cancer, or any cancer for that matter, I'm saying the epilepsy foundation has some homework to do.
Now, before you play the video, I'm going to guess what's happening in that video.
First scene: a young, twenty-something model is doing sports, or yoga, or something that is neutral woman propaganda - something usually used to sell stuff to women. Most importantly for the ad, however, is that her breasts seem to flail all over that place. She gets home, or is already at home, where she either gets a letter or a text saying she needs to go to the hospital stat.
Second scene: whether or not there's a shot of her entering the doctor's office is the budget team's decision. The oncologist looks like what you would write when asked to describe Dr mengele. He has a perfectly circular bald spot right on top of his head, he wears thick glasses, he's moving kind of weird. Kind of like a robot. He doesn't try to console the protagonist, he's a no-bullshit kind of guy. The actress is crying, but the ugly kind of crying, the kind one does when they're totally and utterly fucked and there's nothing they, or anybody else can do to help.
Third scene: it's either a funeral or she's in chemo. If she's in chemo, she lost like 50kg in weight, looks like a WWII pow camp resident, and is possibly missing a breast. If we see the chest area in this shot, it's fucked up beyond my ability to describe.
Bonus - fourth scene: a survivors meeting where they share experiences.
Again, epilepsy is not worse.
Here's how my last seizure went - I went outside for a smoke with my previous supervisor. The guy who I call "my boss" is in the same position, except he's being a dick about it.
So my previous boss and I go out for a smoke. We're standing outside, talking. Sort of, we have different points of view on things, and she's very religious. I'm responding mostly with "yeah", "she said that?! Dayum!", that kind of gossipy talk. I look up, the world slowly fades into whiteness and white noise, and then everything goes black. I wake up ten minutes later surrounded by shoes, there's a tire an inch away from my nose and my boss is screaming.
I had a grand mal.
I'm pissed off, unable to talk, trying to communicate that medics are expensive and frowned upon, and that I'll survive this on my own through the power of sheer hatred. That's how that played out. It was relatively gentle (compared to my other, and other people's own seizures) and I kinda nearly had my head run over by a guy who doesn't watch the fucking road.
What if we took that relatively gentle experience and used that for an epilepsy PR campaign? There are worse cases. People die from seizures too.
Hell, driving awareness ads are more violent than that. Epilepsy doesn't even HAVE ads!
I want to start turning the epilepsy foundations more violent, but don't know how...
I'm almost thirty years old and it's the first time I hear about it. And I AM epileptic! What about other people?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying epilepsy is worse than cancer, I'm saying epilepsy PR people have a lot to learn from cancer PR people. Especially breast cancer.
Take a small break, open an adjacent tab, go to YouTube and search for a breast cancer ad. That shit is traumatizing!
Again, I'm not saying epilepsy is worse than breast cancer, or any cancer for that matter, I'm saying the epilepsy foundation has some homework to do.
Now, before you play the video, I'm going to guess what's happening in that video.
First scene: a young, twenty-something model is doing sports, or yoga, or something that is neutral woman propaganda - something usually used to sell stuff to women. Most importantly for the ad, however, is that her breasts seem to flail all over that place. She gets home, or is already at home, where she either gets a letter or a text saying she needs to go to the hospital stat.
Second scene: whether or not there's a shot of her entering the doctor's office is the budget team's decision. The oncologist looks like what you would write when asked to describe Dr mengele. He has a perfectly circular bald spot right on top of his head, he wears thick glasses, he's moving kind of weird. Kind of like a robot. He doesn't try to console the protagonist, he's a no-bullshit kind of guy. The actress is crying, but the ugly kind of crying, the kind one does when they're totally and utterly fucked and there's nothing they, or anybody else can do to help.
Third scene: it's either a funeral or she's in chemo. If she's in chemo, she lost like 50kg in weight, looks like a WWII pow camp resident, and is possibly missing a breast. If we see the chest area in this shot, it's fucked up beyond my ability to describe.
Bonus - fourth scene: a survivors meeting where they share experiences.
Again, epilepsy is not worse.
Here's how my last seizure went - I went outside for a smoke with my previous supervisor. The guy who I call "my boss" is in the same position, except he's being a dick about it.
So my previous boss and I go out for a smoke. We're standing outside, talking. Sort of, we have different points of view on things, and she's very religious. I'm responding mostly with "yeah", "she said that?! Dayum!", that kind of gossipy talk. I look up, the world slowly fades into whiteness and white noise, and then everything goes black. I wake up ten minutes later surrounded by shoes, there's a tire an inch away from my nose and my boss is screaming.
I had a grand mal.
I'm pissed off, unable to talk, trying to communicate that medics are expensive and frowned upon, and that I'll survive this on my own through the power of sheer hatred. That's how that played out. It was relatively gentle (compared to my other, and other people's own seizures) and I kinda nearly had my head run over by a guy who doesn't watch the fucking road.
What if we took that relatively gentle experience and used that for an epilepsy PR campaign? There are worse cases. People die from seizures too.
Hell, driving awareness ads are more violent than that. Epilepsy doesn't even HAVE ads!
I want to start turning the epilepsy foundations more violent, but don't know how...
