Unless you’ve been living under rock for the last week or two, you would’ve heard of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. It’s an extremely simple concept really; have ice cold water poured over your head and nominate a whole bunch of other people to follow suit. It’s a bit of harmless fun and its great seeing people’s reactions to the challenge. The craze kinda crept up of me like a thief in the night and before I knew it the challenge was all over social media. Mind you, certain guys have been doing the Ice Bucket Challenge for years when the heater breaks down in their houses lol. Pouring ice water over their heads triggering their underlying PTSD of those cold ass showers right before getting dressed for school. Life be hitting hard and people are out here reinventing the wheel. And what happens after you do the challenge… you know, after the regret of doing the challenge in the first place? Answers on a postcard please! It did make me wonder though, why was everyone doing this and how had it managed to become such a trend?
After seeing a host of challenges all over my timeline, I finally decided to ask what the purpose of it all was… ‘Just a bit of fun to be honest’, ‘because my friends nominated me to’; the comments went on. It’s not until I did my own research that I realised it was done in an attempt to raise awareness about Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, more commonly known as ALS. In brief, ALS is a progressive nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing loss of muscle control. Social media is a great way of spreading a message but in my opinion, the challenge somewhere along the line lost its credibility. After watching several vids, I had no idea what ALS actually was nor how the challenge correlated to the disease. It was as though people were following a trend with no reason as to why they were doing so. What made me laugh is when I heard that if you failed to do the challenge after being nominated, you’d be forced to donate money to charity… people hate donating to charitable causes so badly its seen as a punishment.
ALS is a progressive nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing loss of muscle control.
Regardless you see trends like this all the time especially in the day and age we live in. A couple months back it was the ‘No Make-Up Selfie Challenge’ for Cancer Research, and don’t forget the good ol’ ‘Planking Challenge’. I promise you I’m not trying to be a spoil sport but don’t tag me in any of these challenges unless you want ‘blue ticks’ and no response; ‘seen’ and no reply. Life is a challenge enough, lemme not deal with further obstacles. Society has this unquantifiable ‘want’ to be included and it fascinates me every time I see it. Certain guys can’t wait to go out of their way to impress strangers on the internet. The thought of instant gratification from a profile with a car or footballer display pic is what is keeping our generation going. I was gonna say that people will soon look into buying likes and comments but unfortunately that ship has sailed long time!
Lemme make it clear though, I’m actually in favour of challenges like this and others that follow suit *shock, horror*. It’s great seeing people collectively embracing something outside of racism or football hooliganism. But my problem is when we aimlessly follow a trend without an understanding of what we’re doing and why. If people actually took the time to explain what ALS actually was instead of rushing in to do the challenge, it could’ve actually been an effective way to promote a cause. Instead, I’m just left baffled as to why people are doing bucket baths with their clothes on. A society where everybody claims to be unique yet rarely stand out as individuals. A society where being labelled a follower is an insult yet it seems as though we subconsciously accept it when we do. I need to start selling shame… DM me for prices, I’m giving discounts to those who need it most. Meh, hopefully the next obsession that comes along you’ll be the trendsetter rather than the imitator.
Joe
Joe Oriade Blogs 
In the 1980s a phrase became popular, “Keeping up with the Joneses.” It described the pernicious affect of consumerism. The neighbours got a new car, so now we feel like we need a new car. Your friend from university just landed Chelsea season tickets, so now you need season tickets to a team. Your colleague just booked a trip to China, so now you need to travel somewhere exotic. All the while all of this information is constantly uploaded onto social media, creating hundreds, maybe thousands of ‘Joneses’ you regularly interact with. Most of us aren’t shallow and misguided enough to feel the effects of this envy constantly, but it most certainly afflicts us all, whether we realise it or not, after all, as humans we’re constantly measuring ourselves against one another.
My point in saying all this is that perhaps our society encourages such behaviour, and has achieved the effect through long periods of consumerism. Personally I would say that it’s the main contributing factor to, for example, why people get their haircut a certain way, or even what type of jeans they wear.
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@OKDawood totally agree with that, very well written in fact lol
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My opinion is that people do understand why they are doing the challenge and that is evidenced by the fact more than 90% of people mentioned ALS in their video and provide a donation link. What people often don’t realise is why they are tipping an ice bucket over their head. It’s because the sensation you feel is what people who suffer from ALS feel as a result of their condition.
Also, whether people simply view it as a trend for “just a bit of fun” or because they understood the cause, it was an effective fundraising campaign. Would you have ever donated, let alone heard of ALS otherwise? I don’t think any credibility was lost along the way; people continued to donate and raise money. Even if only ~25% of participants donated, the campaign raised 35 times as much money as ALS did this time last year. Up until the Jennifer Lawrence nudes stole the spotlight from ALS…
I know your article was looking more at the idea of fitting into trends rather than the legitimacy of the Ice Bucket Challenge, but do you think that maybe this time not being unique and blending into the background was a good thing?
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@James_Wolman I think that 90% is a fabricated statistic especially when i look at the majority of posts on my social sites. I may hear ‘this is my ALS challenge’ in most vids, but i rarely see explanations nor donation links anymore. I do agree that the ‘sensation’ is something that people are relatively unaware off though.
I did state that I liked the idea and its a powerful way of spreading a message but I think as its filtered through society, its effectiveness got less and less due to the lack of understanding. From a donation perspective the challenge was no doubt a success but the nature of being involved in a craze was my main issue.
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Annoyingly, I can’t find where I got that statistic but you’re right, stats can be easily manipulated. Nevertheless, I did come across a similar figure by RJ Metrics who took a sample of 1,500 random #icebucketchallenge videos and analysed the data. They claim 74% of videos in that sample mentioned ALS. Of course that doesn’t include people who tagged it in the description without mentioning it in the video – the remaining 16%?
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@James_Wolman i also believe its one thing mentioning ‘ALS’ and another explaining it. Unless further research is done (which hopefully was the result of seeing the vids), saying ALS could be an acronym for absolutely anything. I don’t feel the depth of understanding justified the purpose of doing the challenge despite its good intentions. And I presume you meant ‘26%’ but regardless thats pretty damning stats which I guess is difficult to argue against
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