WaterAid wanted to draw attention to the 1.25 billion women worldwide who don't have access to a toilet during their period. So, the charity made an ad suggesting if men had periods, they would need manpons.
When you figure out how those things are connected, you can let me know.
They made two other strange spots—one about how men having periods would change football (soccer to us Yanks), and another about how men having periods would change office interactions. But the true viral standout is the fake spot for ManPax Manpons, which people seem to be sharing because men using tampons is funny, and of course, they'd have to be super manly manpons designed by NASA.
Manpons are more advanced than your average feminine product, with their Kevlar skeleton and heated therma-core. The bait-and-switch appeal is also fairly advanced. Perhaps WaterAid was getting tired of no one giving a damn about the myriad of other videos on their channel—the heartfelt true stories of those living without clean water and the transformative effect that sanitation makes in their lives.
So, they made a spot about men needing tampons, and lo, the attention started to flow. Even more amusingly, they actually collected a bunch of speculative data about how people think the world would change if men did have periods, and created a press release out of it.
Charities, take note. If people don't care about your cause, find something for them to care about, even if it's a ridiculous hypothetical question. Now let's hope they care enough about it to actually change something.
Here are the two other spots:
