The "Ice Bucket Challenge" has been invading social media lately. The pitch is quite simple : either you give a hundred dollars for the ALS research (or another cause) or you fill a bucket with icy water, dump it over you head, and post the proof on social media.
The movement has taken quite a turn in Boston in early August, where friends and relatives of a former Boston College baseball player, diagnosed witht ALS since 2012, used it to raise awareness for the disease. Over 200 people doused themselves in Copley Square. The ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's Disease) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that paralyses muscles throughout the body, the cause of which has not been found yet.
Once the "Ice Bucket Challenge" is completed, one gets to name 3 or 4 other challengers, each of whom has 24 hours to complete it. From here, challenges have been accepted by all kind of participants : Silicon Valley CEOs (Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates), Politicians (President Obama declined, though), Sportsmen, Singers, Actors, and Marvel Superheroes.
The idea of a "social media challenge" in itself is not new. Challenges have been appearing on Facebook for months, with various degrees of danger and stupidity. One consisted of spraying yourself with an inflammable liquid and to light it on fire (" The Fire Challenge"), another one of binge-drinking and recording it ("Necknomination", which led to the death of 4 people in the UK), another one of either throwing yourself to the water or paying a restaurant bill to your friends (leading to a death by drowning of a 19 year old boy in France).
What has been new since last winter is using these challenges in mass to raise awareness and donations for a cause. Similar challenges have attracted athletes, politicians, doctors, accountants and construction workers. They can take all sorts of forms: no-makeup selfies to raise money for cancer-fighting causes, cold-water plunges for kids' camps....According to the ALS association, over 5.7 million of dolllars have been donated to the association between July 29th and August 13th, which is 5 times more than in 2013.
And the videos in theirselves are quite fun...
My personal favorites are the following, which can be all found on youtube and twitter :
Mark Zuckerberg : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baeLtRZbwgY
Bill Gates : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS6ysDFTbLU
Ben Affleck : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuBX9en_OXA
Chris Pratt : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_iCIg2oCCs
Battista : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWzGJP_y48o
Robert Downey Jr : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM3cAyA5jAo
Tom Hiddleston, who just challenged Benedict Cumberbatch, so there is a good chance it will break the internet : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzmNI1JFOnM
