I’m going to assume that most people who come to this blog have heard of the Ice Bucket Challenge – essentially, it is one of those social tagging games, where you ask three friends to do something silly, and they have to ask three friends. In this case the silly thing is to dump a bucket of ice water over your head and post a video of yourself doing it. This incarnation of the Challenge was created by former BC athlete Peter Frates to raise awareness of ALS (aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease), and encourage donations to the ALS Association. All noble and for a good cause- in fact, it has been reported, as this Challenge spread throughout the Web, that more than $4 million dollars have been raised, compered to less than a third of that in the same period last year.
What does this have to do with Newton?
I found out about the Challenge through my son. I didn’t know at the time that it was based on cause awareness, but just another silly dare- I admonished him not to make a mess, and to PLEASE not post “vertical video.” I was not surprised that dozens, if not more kids, were doing the Challenge, but as I came to realize it was supposed to be for ALS awareness and fundraising, I noticed that while many (not all) of the videos mentioned “als challenge,” not one had a donation link. There was no awareness as to why these kids are doing it.
This is not a way of saying our kids are not socially aware, but it does point out that every day we have opportunities to point out to our kids why things are being done and what good they can do- an opportunity I regrettably missed this past weekend. I’m not against silly Internet memes and kids having fun, but I can’t help having this feeling it could have been done better.
Have you noticed anything similar with kids (or anyone) and the Ice Bucket Challenge? Do you feel the same way – or disagree?
Side note: an online discussion of the effectiveness of the whole Challenge, started by my much less specific question on Facebook (“Are raising awareness or annoyance?”) sparked a remarkably civil conversation. i was so taken aback by the high level of discourse and low level of vitriol that I wrote a blog post about it.
A pay link would’ve been nice..and organized. We have discussed the same idea amongst our friends and family. I am guessing that Frates had no idea how this would go viral..or that it would raise so much money! This morning I heard it was up to $7mil!! So..the lack of a link did not inhibit donors. A conversation with our kids has occurred a number of times as a result of various nominated friends and family. But yes..a pay link in this day and age is very useful and maybe would get the donations into the billions.
And, speaking as a Vertical Video Syndrome challenged individual, I have learned a valuable lesson.
The one I participated in had a donation link, and when I posted our video on Facebook I included a link.
Here are a bunch of options including their rating from Charity Navigator.
It is a truly hideous disease. I am thrilled to see this creative approach gaining attention and funding for those suffering from it.
Pretty much everyone I know who took part and who took the challenge, including my daughter and I (brrrr!!), included a link. This was creative, fun, and meaningful.
I think one of the issues was that it isn’t really organized- so some folks just had fun dumping water, while others took the Challenge to heart. I’m glad to hear so many different experiences to mine (and yes, I have talked to my son and will continue to, about thinking about what these things are for when participating).
I think this was an inventive way to raise awareness and cash for ALS research. It was fun and educational. I have seen some with links and some without. I can’t remember if my son’s had a link but he and my grandchildren, loved getting sloshed and cold for a cause and not just because their nuts. My grandchildren learned a lot about ALS and all concerned, nominaters and nominatees, sent checks.
They’re nuts. Just committed one of my favorite pet peeves.
This social media phenomenon has yielded an incredible amount of money for ALS. This is money that would not otherwise have been earmarked for the cause. It took no organization. It was a simple idea. Yet you have backseat drivers like you questioning the process and protocol. Seriously bro, how miserable are you? This is a no effort campaign that has absolutely crushed so many attempts to raise money for ALS. Schilling’s Bloody Sock didn’t net close to the Ice Bucket hi jinx.
Your point is to concentrate on those that posted videos but didn’t donate? Really? So you are concentrating on the people who didn’t contribute rather than the record number of people who did? Why? Could you devise a plan that would yield more with the same minimal effort?
How about you just shut the F up and marvel at the success of this movement. If you can do better then do it.
Clown.
I agree with Kim and for a very personal reason. I have a good friend in his early 40’s who is battling ALS and the things he’s doing seem to be working. His arm that had begun to atrophy has suddenly regained good form and strength. He’s looking far better than he did a few months back. This from a combination of medical breakthroughs, much through government funding, and some cutting edge dietary changes from people outside the medical community.
“Is our Children Learning” is grammatically incorrect if someone wants to fix that.
What Kim said. These posts mildly questioning methods are accolades compared to the water shaming my kids and I see in other venues. They seem to think they are so above it all. Wasting water. Belittling taking a video to broadcast that you got out of contributing. Long diatribes exalting the pros and cons, mostly the cons. Pictures of checks to show how much better they are. On and on. ALS organizations say that over 7,000,000 has been donated during this challenge, over 4 times more than the norm during this period. The ALS challenge was started by two guys with ALS to see what they could achieve and they achieved a lot, one of the biggest viral fundraising campaigns ever: the “Ice Bucket Challenge.”so give them a break.
The poster was merely making a conversation out of kids doing an act on Youtube and the true act of caring about people needing charitable support. Americans do an awful job at taking time to know what a charity is about. When I was a kid the school would hand a can to us that said “Milk Fund” and ask that we collect change. I still have no idea what the Milk Fund was about.
Calling the poster a clown and tell him to shut the F should have been cut off at the source.
(Lassy, it’s wry humor.)
Hoss understood what I was getting at- thanks. I wasn’t belittling the movement, just sharing my initial reactions to people who were doing it without any understanding what it was about- it became clear pretty quickly that what I had been seeing was clearly in the minority- thankfully. But – I was still seeing it, and it was worth questioning – to have people, including our own children, ask themselves why they are participating things and understanding the larger issues, regardless of the wider success of the effort.
If I needed to write that differently somehow so that all of you could understand my point – as a few of you clearly did not – then that’s fair – but please don’t invalidate the final paragraph of my post (and the link included) by calling me a clown.I was pretty happy at the level of conversation I had generated around this until that point.
And yes, “Is Our Children Learning?” was on purpose- it was an unfortunate (but still funny) flub from a speech on education from President George W. Bush.
I’m sorry Doug. I certainly meant to exclude the name calling and profanity from my “what Kim said” comment. I was responding out of frustration over comments seen elsewhere on social media and vented here instead. I got the funny, by the way, and it is. And now one of my other children has nominated me so it’s time to put my money and my video where my mouth is, so to speak. I told her I was too old and then I saw Ethel Kennedy’s video.
No worries.
There were a lot of articles saying” Don’t do the Challenge, just give” and other nonsense. I’m trying not to be lumped in with those folks just cynically knocking it down. I knew even asking questions the way I did would spark emotions and that’s fine – pointing back to my final paragraph, the discussions that resulted have been great.
It is in fact utterly important that we learn charitable concepts at a young age. In many countries charitable means something other than answering “Yes” when the Shaw’s cashier asks for a dollar for some Shaw’s-sponsored charity. There are in fact many inequities in Massachusetts’ generally generous charitable giving. Case in point in “One Fund”. The cash suck this fund took in the one year period after the one day bombing was huge in the local charitable world. If the terrorist event was instead a one-off local rage killing (like various school killings nationally), the emotions would have not been that high. Information and perspective in charitable marketing and fund gathering is more important in Newton as it would be in other areas. I’ve come to the conclusion that Newton gets it. We get it.
I,too, was not attacking Doug. The focus of my article was on my friend with ALS and a bit of gratitude for anything (no matter how zany) that might help to keep him alive.
No offense taken, Bob.