The Ice Bucket Challenge - Is it getting stupid?

Unless you live in a cave on Mars, I think you've heard of the Ice Bucket Challenge by now; a publicity stunt to raise money for ALS or 'Lou Gehrig's Disease' (Didn't know this? Then you're part of the problem). So far it has been done by a number of big celebrities and countless people on social media looking to get some attention and let people know they care about stuff (or just to be part of the fad, completely oblivious to what it was supposed to be about). "Hey guys, lets pour some cold water over our heads! Everybody is doing it!"

Now, I don't doubt that a lot of money has been raised (millions so far), but I'm pretty certain that this trend has become more about the 'challenge' and conceited attention seeking than the charity itself, which is an ongoing problem with social media activism. And there is the 'awareness' factor, but come on; people are going to forget about all this in a month.

Lastly, it's an odd disease for the focus of such large-scale, high-profile publicity. ALS affects less than 0.01% of the World's population (and around 5,000 people diagnosed in the US each year), and there has been very little progress made on treating the fatal disease since its discovery, despite several past campaigns and millions of dollars of government funding given on an annual basis. I'm certainly not saying one shouldn't donate, but I doubt this long-standing disease's 15 minutes of fame is going to accomplish very much beyond celebrities getting good PR and Facebook users receiving more likes from their friends.

Less cynical? What are your thoughts?

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Reply 1

godd

As long as people are smiling.....I'm happy.

Reply 2

Kill3er

It was stupid from the start.
Waste of water.

Reply 3

godd

What's wrong with living on a cave on Mars? :biggrin:

Reply 4

Autistic Merit

As long as it's saving lives then I say it's a good thing. Of course, the usual suspect celebs are using it as a chance to show off their bikini bodies and their abs but they'd do that another way anyway to be fair.

Reply 5

Chlorophile

TIL I live in a cave on mars.

Reply 6

De Chirico

The videos of people who actually have ALS doing the challenge and thanking everyone for all the attention thats been drawn to the condition justifies it for me. Although I do think some of the celebrities doing it care more about self promotion than ALS.

Reply 7

syrettd

I don't think it's doing much in terms of awareness. I've been reading articles about it and seeing clips and photos of people doing it for over a month now. When did I find out what they were actually doing it for? Two days ago. Most people don't seem to even know why they're doing it.

Reply 8

Ivan.Drago

Verne Troyer's was best where he used milk instead of water with an oreo in his mouth.

Reply 9

iheartdjokovic

It raises money and awareness while being fun at the same time - I don't see the problem!

Reply 10

username521617

Original post by syrettd

Precisely. It took me at least a week before I discovered what it was actually about. Almost all of the people on my Facebook didn't even mention it was for ALS/Lou Gehrig's, and I bet less than half actually donated anything!

Reply 11

Ndella

With all the money raised, it's ridiculous that a treatment, let alone a cure, has been successfully researched; the best that researchers got is medication to lengthen the patients' life for a few more years. Tbh, they haven't done a good job considering how long ALS has been around. Despite the amount of money that has been donated, there really is no point in continuing this ridiculous challenge - most people care about publicising themselves rather than donating anyway.

Reply 12

RF_PineMarten

The charity has got over 10 times as much money from this campaign as it did in the whole of last year.

Just think about that for a minute.

Of course some people use it for publicising themselves but you can't deny that it's doing a lot of good.

Reply 13

mynameisntbobk

Tbh it was quite stupid from the start. I just keep thinking about the health risks associated with pouring ice cold water over yourself

Reply 14

bertstare

Every time a social media charity thing like this goes viral, there are soon people calling it a fad, stupid, attention whorey, blah blah. It happened with the no makeup selfie thing and it's happening again with this... The way I see it, this is getting people to donate money to a cause that they otherwise wouldn't have donated to, and everyone is getting some laughs out of it as well. I don't see how anyone can interpret that as a bad thing. It may say something about our society as a whole that people only donate if it's part of a publicised event like this (though this may not even be true for everyone doing the challenge), but incidentally the fact people are giving money to a good cause can never be a bad thing unless you are just being cynical for the sake of it

Reply 15

spanker

Well I guess I must live in a cave on Mars, this is the first I've heard of it.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 16

username521617

Original post by RFowler

See again my third paragraph.

Reply 17

78Saab

I wasn't aware until recently that the ice bucket challenge was about raising awareness as well as money for ALS - I thought it was one of those silly challenges like the "Cinnamon challenge" which had no meaning. Nevertheless I agree it has become stupid as it's become more of a publicity stunt as opposed to a good deed to charity.

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Reply 18

Sephiroth

My work place did it today but the money was for a cancer charity rather than ALS.

Best argument I've seen against it is the water waste.

I don't get why people have to do silly things to donate money. If you want to give to charity just do it.