Well, they faded a bit out of existence, like any fad that fades (especially life), things just go away after a while.
It’s all part of the natural cycle of dying and re-dying.
So, let’s do a poor review on what happened.
(TLDR, there was a scandal and people stopped caring)
Livestrong’s inception and purpose
Founded in about 1997 (give or take a few years), it was originally called the Lance Armstrong foundation. The purpose was to fight cancer and stuff.
Lance Armstrong was that award winning cyclist, (not to be confused with the astronaut Neil Armstrong).
This guy:
Not this guy:
So Lance Armstrong was this dude who won a whole bunch of medals and gold for being an Amazing Cyclist.
So The Foundation later renamed itself to Livestrong, and they started leveraging old Lance’s character. Appeal to ethos sort of thing.
The foundation marketed his name and brand to sell swaggy bracelets that every jock in highschool had because it was the thing.
They partnered with Nike and opened the floodgates to marketing to a bunch of high top gear athletes.
All sorts of stores started carrying them, sports stores, foot locker, Dicks, Hot Topic, random Walmarts, Dicks, Did I mention Dicks? This was a time before Amazon was delivering everything (and people’s first born) to people’s front doors, so this was quite a big feat of branding and accomplishment. (Isn’t that what basket babies are?)
Actors, athletes, news anchors, presidential candidates, models: They wore one. Eventually, your mother, your brother, your coach, your executive assistant, your subway seatmate, your date last Saturday night, the asshole who just gave you the finger on the 101: They were wearing one, too. Some people wore three, some four, some an entire 10-pack.
-ESPN
Yea, they started selling em like hotcakes and everyone wanted some, unlike your mom. This shit was popular around 2010, give or take a decade.
They still sell them to this day;
Then this thing happened
Around 2012, give or take a century, Lance Armstrong was found to be using performance enhancing drugs.
What drugs?
Well none other than his own blood!
Talk about drugs my dude, he was blood doping his own blood, to get that slight edge.
If I recall correctly, they tested a whole bunch of finalists and the top 40 or something, were all doping.
Imagine the guy in 40th place thinking “How the fuck can I beat these guys, I’m literally cheating and I’m not even winning”
Like, yikes.
Anyways, Lance boy-oh was banned from from professional cycling and stripped of his Tour de France titles.
He later stepped down from Livestrong foundation. Probably for the better.
Then people made fun of the bracelets
Take for instance, the Onion, they were once a good satire comedic site then got bought out and started shilling shitty jokes.
People changed the bracelets to say “LIE STRONG” or “LIVEWRONG” and mocked and memed the original.
Eventually people stopped wearing them because they didn’t want to be associated with a cheater, or people just stopped caring about cancer and stuff.
Then the foundation changed some stuff
The foundation likely had a lot of OG’s (old gangsters) that weren’t affiliated closely with Lance Armstrong. These OGs probably only cared about fighting Cancer.
So they moved to try and rebrand themselves and move away from any affiliation of Lance Armstrong. I mean, you’d think they’d have at least one picture of Lance on their website?
Naah, zip, zero.
(I also didn’t look for any pictures of Lance, and I also don’t really know what he looks like, even though I posted a picture, I stand by this statement as falsely as I can.)
Here’s a link to their history
Because the foundation has actually accomplished some things and has done things, so the foundation is still a good thing.
It’s just that they lost a lot of sales and support from the whole Doping scandal.
Which they also try not to mention in their History, lmao. Nice.
In fact, they only name Lance Armstrong twice in the history.
In Closing
Overall Lance Armstrong help supported a seed that grew into cancer research and support stuff. So this will culminativly be a net good for the organization in general.
Livestrong is still fighting cancer and stuff, so if you want to support the cause and donate to help make the world slightly better, go ahead.
If not, then atleast consider the tax writeoffs you might get for doing such a deed.
If not, then you could buy their swag,
If not, then I don’t care dude.
Hey, always remember the big take away; fuck-ah you,
*Not Valid Financial, Legal, Life, or Any Advice