Yes, wristband mania has engulfed Britain. It is Pokémon, red noses, Ugg boots, The Da Vinci Code and Abi Titmuss all rolled into one huge, brow-beating craze. And the wristband backlash is upon us, too. The ranks of the refuseniks are swelling. You’re not wearing one because you’re allergic to rubber, you say? You’re waiting for the outcome of next month’s G8 summit before making an informed decision on debt relief? The mugger who ran off with your iPod Shuffle also helped himself to your collectable black-and-white anti-racism Stand Up Speak Up gewgaw? It fell off?

You may be wondering where mine is. Well, did you hear that story about some bracelets possibly having been manufactured in Far Eastern sweatshops? I wouldn’t want to cause more ethical problems in the world. And they make my wrist look scrawny.

But enough already with the lame excuses. The question is, would I be seen dead wearing a wristband? They’re naff. Cheesy. Cheap-looking. And they’re everywhere. On footballers and politicians. On girning TV presenters. On excitable children and on the high street. To wear one is to be but a step away from having Nuts magazine in my lap, Crazy Frog as my ring tone, Burberry on my head and Keane on the car stereo. Counterfeits are even being sold on market stalls across the land (yes, they’re so trendy that people actually buy them for fashion alone).

Am I prepared to join the tacky ranks of the masses, or will I stand over here, thanks, coolly individual and proudly aloof from all the po-faced virtuosity and join-the-club conservatism?

Obviously, this is a conundrum. If you are as concerned with being a decent, giving person as you are with not following the holier-than-thou herd, what do you do? Do you secretly buy two copies of Coldplay’s X&Y, knowing that the band give 10% of their earnings to a range of charities? Do you pay top dollar for fair-trade coffee? Purchase this season’s wardrobe entirely from an Oxfam outlet? How about sporting a discreet badge that telegraphs your genuine support for, say, Britain’s embattled small farmers? (And if it has been designed by a cutting-edge graphics company, even better.) What about stumping up for an armful of wristbands, then quietly stowing them in a cupboard?

These are all strategies that style-obsessed friends have used to strike that perfect balance between saving the children and saving face. You don’t have to be uncool to be kind.

It is a worry, though. Since when have we been so cripplingly image-conscious that we can’t support a good cause without sweating over how it reflects on us? What price street chic when millions less fortunate than you are suffering? Those of us who find ourselves weighing up these dilemmas as we finger the spare change in our pocket are perhaps in such dire need of “help” that people will soon be wearing wristbands to express solidarity with us.

The answer, of course, is deceptively simple. When faced by multiple crises, both locally and globally, now is not the time to be an individual. Instead, be a card-carrying, wristband-wearing member of a movement. Hard as it may seem, a rash on the wrist is worth warmth in the soul.

“Anything that gets people thinking is healthy,” says Cerne Canning, the manager of Franz Ferdinand. The band wore Make Poverty History wristbands on stage at Glastonbury 2004, and have publicly supported Radio 1’s anti-bullying campaign (blue) and the Teenage Cancer Trust (purple). “The trendy or not trendy debate is irrelevant,” says Canning. “If the money and the support are being given for a good cause, it really doesn’t matter what the motivation is, or how it looks.”

No doubt Chris Martin would agree. So what if moody old Liam Gallagher has decried him as a “knobhead student” for writing entreaties to Make Trade Fair on the back of his hand? Martin is happily uncool, ta very much. Unlike Gallagher, who doesn’t have the luxury of choice. In all likelihood, the only bracelets that the Oasis loon favours are lockable metal ones.

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