Over the last week the ALS ice challenge has appeared
everywhere. If you haven’t seen it yet somehow what happens is if you are
nominated by someone, you have 24 hours to record yourself dumping a bucket of
ice water over your head, followed by donating $10 to Lou Gehrig’s disease
research and then nominate another three people to do the challenge themselves,
or alternatively you can pay $100 to the ALS foundation and avoid the water. I
believe this is a very noble cause that will help many people in the long term
suffering this disease.
However there has been a mixed reaction to this challenge, I
have heard on numerous occasions that this is just a publicity stunt that is
not actually contributing to the research, even though in the last week the
challenge has raised over $12 million for research. With this amount of money
raised it demonstrated the power of the internet to overcome challenges on a
global scale and it is incredibly interesting how viral something like this can
get. I believe the trend has also reached the level of saturation it has by the
sheer amount of public figures participating, from Bill Gates to Charlie Sheen
(who in fact did not pour ice over his head but $10000 instead which he donated).
Regardless about how you feel about these viral trends, the
results speak for themselves and it is unbelievable that something that has
raised so much money could be dismissed by so many people.
(I am also including a video of my brother taking part in
this challenge)https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10153171432178782
