2 months ago, i got into a pretty heated debate regarding the yellow braclets. It's a running joke now....and someone, to get my goat, sent me an article from SI. I'm going to paste the entire thing, but bold the important stuff. my comments will be in italics and blocked off.

Lance Armstrong will return to the Alps and the Pyrenees this summer in an attempt to win a seventh consecutive Tour de France title. You know what that means, right? Another six months of people wearing those yellow LiveStrong bracelets. And you know what? I couldn't be happier.

The bracelets, which debuted last May, quickly became a fashion trend rivaled only by Von Dutch hats and Ugg boots.

[fashion trend? that's like the word soggy; there is no good way to use it. Fashion is disgustingly shallow. Trend indicates a temporary interest but no staying power. So a fashion trend is just a tempoary interest by the sheep towards something regarding fashion.]

But like all trends it has garnered the backlash of trend-haters who despise anything that creeps into the mainstream.

[Already, you can see this guy is biased. Being wary of mainstream appeal does not mean that I depise any and all things that are mainstream. Refusing to just assume something is good b/c it's popular is very different than hating anything that is popular. People who automatically reject anything popular are just as big conformists as those who they try to mock. ]

We all know at least one. This is the person that brags about an underground band or an unknown clothing line but quickly labels it "dead" when it goes public because it's now been "tainted" by the masses.

[Yes, there is something gratifying about discovering something great before the masses figure it out. I'll grant the author that. The process of going "dead" when something becomes popular isn't that unique a phenomenon. By definition, if you want to appeal to the most people, you need to regress to the mean. The most popular comedians are the ones who are bland enough to not offend anyone. Cult followings develop b/c the art form appeals to a narrow, but devoted audience. When the artist wants to open the net to pull in more viewers, it becomes less focused. Less pure. it becomes "dead".

Unknown clothing lines? No comment, other than I don't think counterculture people are that shallow.]

I guess that thought process would make sense if you were egomaniacal, but I would follow the road less traveled with the LiveStrong bracelets.

[The road less travel being that which is the current fashion trend? w-o-w.]

I first found out about them while I was volunteering at the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Hospital in Los Angeles last year. I was told by one of the receptionists that Nike was hoping to sell 5 million of the yellow bracelets to help the Lance Armstrong Foundation. As of today, it has sold close to 35 million, making it arguably the greatest trend in fashion history, not for how it looks but for what it has done to fund cancer research and awareness

[fashion trends are completely insignificant. to call this the biggest and best insignificant thing in history doesn't do it for me]
It's an amazing idea on so many fronts. Not only do the bracelets raise money for a great cause, but they are a way of showing support for Armstrong and other cancer patients and survivors. And, unlike other chic fashion accessories, it's cheap -- $1 per bracelet. It's a cause everyone can support and be a part of, no matter what your income is.

[well, aint that mighty generous of them... to allow us common folk to be like them.]

I went home from the hospital that night and bought 100 bracelets for my friends, family and classmates. At the time they were just being released and no one knew much about them but I hoped that would change when Nike began running ads about the bracelets prior to the Tour de France.

[doesn't the fact that Nike is involved set off even the feintest of signals. What does nike care about more? setting trends to make their athletes popular, or curing disease. Why don't you ask some of their slave labor to find out]

Sure enough, the popularity of the bracelets swept the country in the coming weeks and months as celebrities from John Kerry to Lindsay Lohan began flaunting their yellow bling-bling.

[wow, he mentioned a politician wearing it w/o even a drop of irony (at least intended irony). and yellow bling bling is his cute way of pointing out that this fashion trend can even be copied by the poor suckers.]

The streets were filled with people wearing the rubber bracelets. Somewhere along the way, however, the meaning of the bracelets got lost. Whether it was by people who resold the bracelets for $20 a pop on eBay or others who sold knockoff versions or alternative wristbands with slogans like "LiveWrong."

[case closed]

This is the best example of a trend jumping the shark: when the streets are littered with knockoffs and when everyone from grade schoolers to grandparents are flaunting the once-popular item as if it's still cool.

so i guess the person that this author knows who rejects things when they become popualar is the person who looks himself in the mirror. oh, this is so fight-club-ish.

But LiveStrong is much more than a fad. Every time I see someone wearing a legitimate LiveStrong bracelet, I know at least $1 went towards cancer research and that someone is showing their support for cancer patients and survivors by wearing yellow, the color of the Tour de France leader's jersey that Armstrong has made his own the past six years. Unlike other trendy fashion items that do nothing but benefit big companies and feed individual egos, the bracelets serve a purpose.

[yes, and that's what makes the issue more grey. You have to balance the negatives of trends and conformist thinking with the benefit of cancer research]

Although it's about as cliché to knock the rubber yellow circles these days as it is to knock Paris Hilton, people who criticize the bracelets or laugh at others who wear them fail to realize how much they have helped those affected by cancer. The day hospital at the Norris Center, along with thousands of other facilities around the country that treat cancer patients, is filled with people wearing these bracelets today. It might seem vain or foolish to think these bracelets make a difference, but they do.

Sit with a kid undergoing chemotherapy with her parents besides her, all of them wearing LiveStrong bracelets, and tell them the bracelets are a joke, that they don't mean anything, that they're just a fad. To them the bracelets aren't fashion statements, but survival statements. As tacky as it may seem to others, when cancer patients, especially younger ones, see celebrities and people they respect wearing LiveStrong bracelets, they know they aren't alone in their fight.

[well, what does it say of our society that a kid dying of cancer focuses on a celebrity instead of his family? And what do the parents tell their kid when the celebrities stop wearing them? Sorry johnny, but nobody cares about you anymore. so go ahead and die. IT'S A TREND!]

The look on the patients' faces when they see Armstrong demolish the competition year after year has proven to me that Armstrong's accomplishments have been the best medicine hospitals have had to offer patients for the past six years. It's a living, breathing inspiration to see Armstrong do what he does. It shows them that there is not only life after cancer, but that it can be better than anything they had experienced before. In a time when cancer is still the cause of 548,000 American deaths per year, according to the National Cancer Institute, watching Armstrong win the most grueling event in sports year in and year out continues to inspire people to "Live Strong."

[so Lance now represents everyone with cancer? well played Lance. Way to trick an entire population into becoming your fans. But i thought it wasn't about Lance....I thought it was about cancer]

While trends and fads may come and go, supporting cancer research and those affected by the disease is one that, like watching Armstrong win the Tour de France annually, will never get old.