Listen up, lovelies. I’ve got some things to share with you.

I have debated telling you this story. See, I’ve been taught that if you are wrong then you have no defense, but if you are right, then you have nothing to defend. Right or wrong, V. and I both feel that it’s necessary to explain our side of things. So here is the story, our side of the story.

Let’s start with the facts. Just under a month ago, V., the founder of @boobiewed on Twitter, became aware of a Twitter account named @boobiewednesday. The bio stated that these people were the founders of Boobiewednesday.

V. is one of the two original @boobiewed founders still running the team, though there are various people, me being one of them, that help her. She has worked very hard, over the past two years, to build and grow this organization. And in my opinion, it’s been a great success.

We are currently sponsored by several companies for fund raisers, which allow us to donate monies to various breast cancer charities. There’s a Boobie Wednesday Facebook where we post much of what is posted on Twitter. There is a café press store where we sell boobiewed and breast cancer awareness goods, and all those proceeds are also donated to various breast cancer charities. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and we’ll be selling Boobie Wednesday Girls and Guys trading cards. Again, all proceeds will be sent to various breast cancer charities. And finally, there is our website: www.boobiewednesday.org. The Boobie Wednesday team invites cancer survivors, family members and supporters to send in stories in regards to all different types of cancer, to be posted on the site.

V. was completely shocked when she became aware of the other page and she contacted me immediately. I am sure you can all understand her confusion and upset over this. How could this be happening? Why would someone do this? And honestly, it never occurred to any one of us that we should set up a second account for the sole purpose of securing the full non-abbreviated version of the Boobiewed name. We contacted the other users of this page and asked them to please change their name. They refused. Unfortunately some words were exchanged within the general time line on Twitter. You must understand, this is more than just a Twitter account. This is more than just a bit of laughs, where we occasionally talk about spreading breast cancer awareness, and this is certainly more than just a boob contest.

This is the heart and soul of two women who got together to start something different. They worked hard, and they have been successful. It is not okay to have another group of ladies decide to poach a name because it’s available, claim to be the founders, go on their merry way….then defend their actions as “All in the name of charity.”

We were called names and hammered almost daily. We’ve been labeled bullies for ganging up on the UK Boobiewednesday page. One person even called us “Yanks.” What does that mean exactly? How did this turn into a war between the US and the UK? The simple answer to that question is: it’s not. This has absolutely nothing to do with country or city or state or any other political nonsense. It has to do with integrity.

In any event, this was the stuff we were seeing and I tell you, it was damn hard not to rip some people’s heads off in the stream.  And there were times when we did. We feel this was inappropriate on our part. We aren’t bullies, and those tweets have been deleted. We offer our sincerest apologies to our followers and supporters for any unseemly behavior you may have witnessed from anyone on the BoobieWed team. We would much rather have behaved with grace and dignity.

So, I’ll ask you all: Is there that little integrity left in the world that all of the sudden it’s okay to take an organization’s name and ride on its coat tails? Is it okay for me to steal a car and then donate it to charity? I still stole the car, didn’t I? Does it somehow become less of a crime because I donated the car to charity? No, it doesn’t. It’s still wrong.

Boobiewednesday/Boobiewed is an established organization. It is protected under copyright laws and is in the process of obtaining a Trade Mark. We had to file a complaint with Twitter and after several rounds of correspondence they made the other gals close their account and pick a new name.

We will never quite understand why these ladies, who claim to want to spread awareness and get their message out there, decided they could use our name. Why not just pick your own name?  Or better yet, why not just reach out to us and see if we were interested in partnering–we would welcome the help. We work with many of the cancer pages on Twitter and Facebook. We support and RT their tweets and re-share their posts. We would have gladly supported this addition to the awareness family.

We certainly were not looking to start some sort of war. We simply wanted to protect what we have worked so hard for. I don’t think that is such a bad thing.

One of our loyal followers said it best:

I want to offer a huge Thank You to our loyal followers and supporters who have stuck by us and defended us throughout this episode. We truly appreciate you all! I’d like to now ask you all to leave the other group alone. You’re loyalty is appreciated, but its time to put this to rest.

We’d like all of us to move on now and we wish the other group much luck in bringing about awareness.

Thanks.

V. and WookiesGirl.

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