Friday, August 29, 2014

The Ice Bucket Challenge

I've seen a bunch of people take this challenge, but at the same time, I've seen a bunch of people trying to douse the whole thing with a cold wet blanket, saying 'just shut up and donate money' or 'look at all the water being wasted'.  That shit kinda pisses me off.  If everybody would 'just shut up and donate money', do you know what we get?  We get last year's results, whch frankly suck when compared to this year's.

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and why it works - I've seen several posts where people are wondering how a bunch of people pouring buckets of ice water over their heads can possibly help cure ALS. I'm here to help.

The actual act of pouring a bucket of ice water over your head does absolutely nothing. However, when you take that act, record it and put it on social media in a challenge to your friends, family and whatnot, it becomes a powerful tool. If you challenge others to do the same and/or donate money to ALS, it engages your social circle, putting something in their head that wouldn't normally be there. They in turn could ignore it, in which case, no harm done. They could, however, pour a bucket of ice water over their head and/or donate to ALS. If they pour a bucket of ice water over their head and post it to social media, the social circles expand and more people at least THINK about donating to a worthy cause. Some of those people, who wouldn't otherwise, actually do. Enough people do that it's spiking donations for ALS.

The numbers bear it out. Last year during this same period, the ALS Association's donations during the period of this Ice Bucket Challenge amounted to approximately 1.5 million dollars. Over the same period this year, over ten times that amount has been donated and it's climbing. So, people pouring ice water over their heads IS making a huge undeniable difference, whether they personally give money to the ALS Association, or manage to cajole others to do it. The water being 'wasted' is just a drop in the bucket.  People, who are posting video of themselves pouring buckets of ice water over their heads and not donating anything, are being criticized by judgemental assholes for getting to feel good about helping without actually donating to money the cause.  So what?!?  First of all, you're assuming they didn't donate money.  You don't know, nor is it any of your business, if they did or how much.  Good stuff is coming out of it.  If it's working, don't knock it.

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