Showing your support for a cause by wearing colored ribbons is all the rage these last few years. With ribbons, concerned citizens can literally wear their causes on their sleeve. This is both a blessing and a curse. After all, with so many different ribbons in every color and hue, things can get quite confusing. Multiple causes even share the same colored ribbons; yellow, for example, could mean “support our troops” as well as bone cancer awareness, suicide prevention, endometriosis awareness, craniofacial acceptance, giving prisoners a second chance, and commemorating Australian “Black Saturday” bushfire victims or the death of former Philippine President Corazon Aquino. There are no less than 17 different causes supported by blue ribbons. There is a very real danger of these once-meaningful symbols losing their importance as people are rightfully confused by the proliferation of colored ribbons whose meaning is often difficult, if not impossible, to discern.
Enter Cause Ribbon. This new spin on an old concept dispenses with all the confusion by adding text to the ribbons. Color doesn’t matter as much as the message. And while you can’t wear these ribbons on your shirt, you can proudly display them on your virtual sleeve by choosing from dozens of free and easy-to-install cause ribbons and adding them to your personal blog or website.
I’m always highly skeptical whenever I hear the words “easy-to-install.” But Cause Ribbon really is. You just choose your ribbon from one of ten categories including ‘human rights,’ ‘animals,’ ‘environment’ and ‘health,’ copy the code from your selected ribbon and paste it onto your site.
Critics may take exception to the fact that nearly all the issues promoted by Cause Ribbon are liberal or left-leaning. There are, for example, no “support our troops” or “overturn Roe v. Wade” ribbons, but there are “support organic farming” and “overturn Citizens United” (which is currently displayed on my site, Moral Low Ground). But the Cause Ribbon team explained in an email that it chooses issues that are current, important and underreported in the mainstream media.
“Lately, the ‘we wear hoodies’ ribbon has been popular due to the Trayvon Marin case,” Cause Ribbon wrote in the email. The LGBT equality ribbon has also been very popular because of all the news, both good and bad, about gay marriage lately. A few weeks back, ‘against SOPA’ (the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act) was huge.”
As its popularity increases, Cause Ribbon is looking to expand.
“We are working on implementing ways for people to be able to directly donate to support the cause,” the email said. The idea is to provide the easiest way to support a cause, whether users wants to simply display the ribbon in his or her blog/website, or to better inform others about the cause, or even make donations to organizations working on that cause.
For those who wish to wear their cause on their virtual sleeve, free and easy-to-use Cause Ribbon can’t be beat.
