Warm enthusiasm only melts the ice bucket

The Ice Bucket Challenge is becoming more of an entertaining fad, rather than a campaign for a good cause.

By Ng Yi Shu

Budget airline Scoot PR executives has joined in the ice bucket challenge. Is it a publicity stunt or an act of charity?

It’s all the rage these days — the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which came from the United States, has reached our shores. The challenge, usually videotaped, is meant to raise awareness of Lou Gehrig’s disease — or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), the most common form of muscular dystrophy.

In most cases, ALS eventually causes permanent paralysis, leaving patients in a state described as a ‘glass coffin’. Peter Frates, an ALS patient from Boston, kicked off the campaign by first challenging his friends and family to do the Ice Bucket Challenge or donate to ALS research.

Today, the campaign is all over Facebook and Twitter feeds. Radio duo The Muttons had an icy water fight. Satire website SGAG, known for their Hokkien genitalia-themed internet memes, pushed their unwitting representative into a swimming pool. Local budget airline Scoot poured ice water over the heads of its public relations team with full ‘Scootitude’, whatever that word means. Even our very own students have done it.

The viral campaign had spread through the West like wildfire — everyone, from philanthropists to A-list celebrities, subjected themselves to the challenge. Bill Gates had set up a high tech contraption that allowed him to pull a rope which dumped ice water on him, in what was said to be the “nerdiest Ice Bucket Challenge video of all time”.

Bill Gate’s ‘dorky’ Ice Bucket Challenge video

Former president George Bush insisted that it “wouldn’t be presidential” to take part in the challenge, but had a bucket of cold water poured on him anyway by his wife, Laura. Former Two and a Half men star Charlie Sheen poured money on himself to represent how much he was going to donate to ALS research. This, of course, isn’t an exhaustive list, with many celebrities getting in on the act.

The Ice Bucket Challenge has now grown so big that it has become confusing — many variants of the challenge exist. One version requires you to dump iced water on yourself and donate $10 or to stay warm and donate $100. The other version requires only the dumping of ice water with no donation. Either way, the campaign has garnered more than USD $50 million for the US-based ALS Association.

Such ‘challenge-type’ campaigns are certainly not new. There is the ‘GetYourSockOut’ campaign, which included men taking pictures of their nearly naked selves, save for socks on their knobs, to raise awareness for testicular cancer. There is also the ‘#NoMakeupSelfie’ where women take selfies without makeup to raise awareness of breast cancer. Such campaigns seem to be one of those ‘slacktivist’ and ‘feel-good’ things that people are urged to do. For the Ice Bucket Challenge, participants videotape themselves pouring ice water over their head and nominate friends to do the same.

They post their videos on social media and garner likes, and then they donate (or not) towards the ALS Association. All this is done while feeling satisfied that they’ve done something important to raise awareness about the disease.

Yay.

And for the rest of us on social media, we watch these videos and ‘lol’ along. We find it funny seeing British heartthrob of Sherlock fame Benedict Cumberbatch get splashed five times. And who doesn’t get a little turned on when bodylicious celebrities like Tom Hiddleston and Cheryl Cole wore white shirts while getting cold and wet?

It’s notable that most of the videos circulating online do not really explain ALS. Most merely attach links at the end of their videos, long after the fun part dies down.

Even celebrities themselves don’t really understand what this cause is about. Celebrity blogger Wendy Cheng (popularly known as Xiaxue), in a moment of refreshing honesty, told her followers in a Facebook post: “I did this (Ice Bucket Challenge) only because my friends asked me to … I didn’t think too much into the deeper meaning of it, and I kinda regret doing it.”

The truth is, many people don’t want to sit through a boring 10-minute scientific video about ALS. Scientific facts can wear people out — and boy, are they mood-killers.

Despite that, it is important for people to realise that those who benefit from ALS research are also human beings. These people would be grateful for financial contributions garnered from the campaign, and could even, one day, benefit from them. However, in the short term, they need tangible and constructive support. We should visit and talk to people with ALS and learn about their condition. Only then will we truly understand the value of lending our hands.

Presently, it might be a joy to laugh at celebrities and friends drenching themselves in icy cold water. Yet, when this fad wanes and the laughter dies down, will ALS patients truly be better off than when the campaign first started?