Recently, we have been seeing many videos being posted on different social media, promoting the awareness and donation for ALS. As expected, negative comments bashing on this campaign started to emerge. Why do people post their ALS ice bucket challenge videos on Facebook? Are these people doing it to raise awareness for the great cause or to draw attention to themselves? Why are people wasting water doing this? Don’t they know we are in the middle of a drought? Why does ALS ice bucket challenge matter?
Are people only posting ice bucket challenge video for attention? Yes. Isn’t calling for attention the whole point of this campaign? By posting up your ice bucket challenge video, you raise the attention of the campaign and educate other people about this amazing charitable campaign so they are encouraged to donate to the organization. I didn’t even know what ALS was before I saw my friend’s challenge videos on Facebook and I would have never known that there are people suffering of this illness and the cause for their suffer is yet to be found. Calling someone an attention whore just because he or she has done this challenge does not make you a better person, not finding the negative in this great cause and actually help bring awareness by donating does. So instead of sharing your negative thoughts on this challenge, why not take the time to actually click on the link and donate to the ALS organization?
“You’re wasting so much water by dumping a whole bucket of iced water on your head.” “We’re in the middle of a drought.” “America’s wasting so much water doing this ice bucket challenge while Africa is suffering from thirst because of the lack of clean water.” Yes, doing the ice bucket challenge does waste water, but let me ask those people who are questioning this challenge, have you always been this aware of the use of water? If so, have you not wasted a tiny bit of water before in your life, ever? There are so many things you do in life waste more water than doing the ice bucket challenge. Flushing the toilet, taking a twenty minute shower, watering the lawn in your backyard, washing the dishes, and the list goes on. Before you start empathizing the third world country and hating on the ice bucket challenge, think about how much you have actually contributed to the cause and what other ways you can do to find a solution to compromise not wasting water but still being able to do this challenge.
So why does posting ice bucket challenge videos matter? Because it brings awareness, it is what makes this great cause sharable and viral on the Internet. And most importantly, it is charitable.