When Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, he found it satisfying to blame everything that went wrong in his life on his condition. Lost his car keys? It’s his cancer’s fault! Computer crashed? It’s the cancer. Stubbed his toe? Blame his cancer!
The habit was so satisfying, in fact, that he thought others might like to blame his cancer for things as well. A dedicated Twitter user, he set up a hashtag (used to allow users to find a certain topic) called #BlameDrewsCancer and encouraged the blaming to begin. The response was overwhelming. Drew’s cancer became the culprit for everything from long bathroom lines to lazy husbands to Michael Jackson’s death.
While this communal blame game was going on, Drew was hard at work. He launched a website to record the blaming Tweets and used the buzz he had sparked to start fundraising campaigns for the American Cancer Society and the Make a Wish Foundation.
While the blaming continues — over 7,000 individual people have now blamed his cancer (“for having to actually go to Walmart,” “for people who eat placentas,” “for everything”) — Drew is taking his efforts to the next level. He recently formed a partnership with Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG Foundation and is looking for a major donor who will give $1 for each individual who blames something on his cancer. Lance has already earned his dollar by blaming his shoulder injury on Drew’s cancer.
So will Drew’s cancer be responsible for the project finding that big funder? Or will the cancer be to blame for scaring all the donors away? We have yet to find out. But we do know that, in a thrilling little side plot, Drew’s cancer is at fault for Drew himself becoming engaged to his girlfriend.
On June 30, he sent out this life-changing Tweet: “I #BlameDrewsCancer for asking @sarahcooley to marry me on Twitter … and for the impending parental smackdown for doing so.”
Sarah Cooley took full responsibility for her acceptance, but not for the aftermath: “@drew yes. And I #blamedrewscancer on the smack down too 
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