Bra Color Status on Facebook Goes Viral

Jan. 8, 2010— -- "Black My Regular," was Anna Davison Smith's post yesterday on Facebook.

"Handbags, no?" commented her brother-in-law Ian Davison. "Put me out of my misery."

Olive White was at first baffled by all the colors being cited on Facebook by her women friends. "But I've got it now, good job."

A lot of Facebook users didn't get it. In the last 24 hours, women have randomly been posting the color of their bras on their status updates, bewildering their friends and titillating the men in their lives -- all to raise awareness for breast cancer research.

At noon today, "color status on Facebook" was number 11 on Google Trends and was making fast gains on Twitter.

Click here to visit the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Web site.

No one seems to know its origin. Detroit Free Press is taking credit for its city in starting the phenomenon. BellyBeyond blog also suggests the Motor City.

White, a 43-year-old nanny who lives in New York City, is convinced the Facebook phenomenon started in Britain then quickly went viral in the United States.

"I saw my Irish and English friends post colors in the past few days and now the Yanks are at it," said White, who was born in Ireland.

"It's pretty funny that mostly black is coming up. Because of all the ice going on over in Ireland, I was thinking about the roads," she told ABCNews.com referring to dangers of black ice. "Then when someone from Scotland wrote, 'pink,' I thought it was pink eye. Finally I asked what was with all the colors."

"I hope some sizes come up next," commented one of her male friends.

Another realist quipped, "I am still waiting for someone to be honest and say grey."

"Some of my posts are pretty embarrassing," said White. "It's madness. Some people are writing 'nude' and the guys are saying, 'Great, I'll come over.' Nude is a color of brown."

October is breast cancer awareness month, but organizations that support the cause say they are thrilled with the free publicity.

"We think it's terrific," said Andrea Rader, a spokesman for Susan G. Komen For the Cure, an organization that raises funds for breast cancer research. "It's a terrific example of how little things get started on the Internet and go a long way to raise cancer awareness."