The Ice Bucket Challenge – what is it and have participants missed the point?

It seems like it’s taken over everything at the moment – you know what I’m talking about…the ice bucket challenge. You can hardly escape it – it’s on the news, on Facebook, on TV – but what is it? If you’ve been confused about this phenomenon, then you’re not alone…I too was confused as anything when I saw the first video. The idea is that you can either dump a bucket of ice water over your head, or donate money to the ALS foundation. ALS is the American medical term for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or motor neurone disease as we call it in Australia. If you can’t quite understand the correlation between the ice bucket and ALS/MND, it’s okay – there really isn’t one. Celebrities have been taking part in this craze, including Oprah, Bill Gates and Steven Spielberg. But have some people missed the point?

Sometimes it feels like when these internet crazes come along that they are just that: an internet craze where everyone gets on the bandwagon for a bit of fun. And of course that’s okay, but what about when it appears that they have forgotten what it supports? The ice bucket challenge has raised money for ALS/MND, but I wonder how many people really have donated that have done the challenge? It seems quite strange that celebrities have been pouring buckets of water over themselves in order to avoid donating (as is the point of throwing the water on yourself, probably as punishment). I’ve read that some have questioned the campaign, like me, and think that $15 million in donations is significant, but not when you think about the sheer volume of these videos and the amount of well-off public figures who are in them. One also has to wonder whether it is really such a good idea to be wasting water when so many are without clean water.

An interesting version of the ice bucket challenge was doing the rounds this afternoon and shows actor Charlie Sheen tipping what looks to be like a bucket of water on his head, only for it to be $10,000 in cash. He makes a point that ice will melt, but his money will go a lot further:

Earlier this year, another viral campaign raised money for a worthwhile charity, breast cancer, through women posting a picture of themselves without makeup. #nomakeupselfie became a big success but it too felt like the posters had forgotten the point along the way, instead doing it more for attention than to raise awareness. It makes me think of this saying my mother used to tell me: “no good deed goes unnoticed” and I wonder if some have forgotten about this nowadays. When we do something good, people can’t wait to show off that they are in fact, doing a good thing. I am more impressed by people who do good things because they genuinely want to (a recent story about Robin Williams springs to mind), not so others think they’re good people – they don’t have to announce it to the whole world. It’s a sad reality today, and social media looks to be turning our world into takers instead of givers.

What do you think of the ice bucket challenge? Would you do it? Or do you think that these sorts of campaigns are more for public image than for the charity?