The Internet is alight with the Ice Bucket Challenge, a silly joke that’s being shared on social media by billionaires. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg dumped a bucket of ice on his head. He was followed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who, in a playful video, built a contraption to do the dumping, and Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the drug development guru and chief executive of the Gates Foundation.
How it all Started?
One of the first ice-bucket-belittlers was Will Oremus at Slate. Oremus argues, fairly convincingly, that the ice bucket challenge initially had nothing to do with ALS (fair enough, but so what?) and then goes on to say that it seems unlikely that the campaign is actually increasing the amount of money being given to ALS – people are probably posting videos, but not donating.
Very catchy, very catty, Will. But the ALS Association has since said that it has raised $15.6 million as a result of the challenge, nine times what it normally raises in the same time frame. Another ALS charity, Project ALS, told the Washington Post that its donations were 50 times normal. ALS TDI, another ALS charity, says that has raised $580,000 since the beginning of August, 10 times what it normally receives.
Reasons behind the Viral Effect
The nature of the Ice Bucket Challenge is, in itself, inherently spreadable -- it's easy to do, you're being called out in a public forum, and there's a chain letter-like "pass it on" nature in tagging other people.
"People want to look good to others, so it’s hard to turn down a prosocial cause,"Jonah Berger, the author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On, wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. "ALS is a great cause, so when someone asks you directly to do this, it’s hard to turn them down without seeming like a bad person."
The Internet, after all, "revolves around" challenges, Zimmerman said, referring to the "cinnamon challenge," where people would upload videos of themselves attempting to gulp down a spoonful of cinnamon, and planking, where people would lay down in ridiculous places for the sake of showing they completed the challenge.
The Ice Bucket Challenge also has an element of hashtag activism, or slacktivism, said Zimmerman, who's now the editor in chief of Whisper, an app that allows people to share secrets anonymously. You can do something from your computer -- or from your yard -- that makes you feel good, but doesn't actually do anything. (In a versions of the challenge, you can get out of the donation if you douse yourself, which is something the campaign has been criticized for.)
Who can forget Kony 2012 -- and its hashtag #stopKony? -- the short video about the African warlord that spread on Facebook and Twitter, but was also criticized for, among other reasons, not actually doing anything other than "raising awareness"? This was also a criticism of the LGBT marriage equality movement last year, when 3 million people changed their Facebook profile pics to equal signs.
The Ice Bucket Challenge campaign has been great for the ALS Association, a nonprofit organization that does research and provides help for those with the debilitating neurological disorder, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The organization said Tuesday morning that it's received $22.9 million since July 29 -- up from $1.9 million over the same period last year. And the donations are coming not only from existing donors, but from nearly half a million new donors, the group said.
Celebrities have latched on to the cause, which has undoubtedly hastened the spread. At this point, it's almost difficult to find a celebrity who hasn't had ice water dumped on his or her head. Gayle poured water on Oprah's head. Jimmy Fallon and some celebrity friends did it. Kobe and LeBron have done it. Bieber's done it -- twice.
"If you're doing the same thing they're doing, it's as if you can stand in for them," saidJennifer Cool, an anthropologist at USC who studies Internet culture and history. "You too can be in the shoes of Lady Gaga or Bill Gates."
And, of course, there's the showing off factor. Facebook is, at its core, a place to show off and promote yourself, filled with incredible vacation photos, reminders to all that you're in love and musings about challenges overcome (ideally while on vacation, like hiking in South America). You may have some friends who've seemed eager to show off their bikini or swim trunk bodies in their Ice Bucket Challenge videos.
At this point, some celebrities seem to be trying to one-up each other. Bill Gates released a highly produced (yet charming) video of himself designing an intricate method of dumping water on himself. Hockey player Paul Bissonnette, for some reason, had a helicopter drop glacier water on him. And Tyler Perry's video seems to have an element of "check out this ridiculous pool I'm standing in."
Celebrities also seem eager to name drop in their nominations. "I know where you live," Oprah says to Steven Spielberg as she nominates him to take the challenge.
Very catchy, very catty, Will. But the ALS Association has since said that it has raised $15.6 million as a result of the challenge, nine times what it normally raises in the same time frame. Another ALS charity, Project ALS, told the Washington Post that its donations were 50 times normal. ALS TDI, another ALS charity, says that has raised $580,000 since the beginning of August, 10 times what it normally receives.
Reasons behind the Viral Effect
The nature of the Ice Bucket Challenge is, in itself, inherently spreadable -- it's easy to do, you're being called out in a public forum, and there's a chain letter-like "pass it on" nature in tagging other people.
"People want to look good to others, so it’s hard to turn down a prosocial cause,"Jonah Berger, the author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On, wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. "ALS is a great cause, so when someone asks you directly to do this, it’s hard to turn them down without seeming like a bad person."
The Internet, after all, "revolves around" challenges, Zimmerman said, referring to the "cinnamon challenge," where people would upload videos of themselves attempting to gulp down a spoonful of cinnamon, and planking, where people would lay down in ridiculous places for the sake of showing they completed the challenge.
The Ice Bucket Challenge also has an element of hashtag activism, or slacktivism, said Zimmerman, who's now the editor in chief of Whisper, an app that allows people to share secrets anonymously. You can do something from your computer -- or from your yard -- that makes you feel good, but doesn't actually do anything. (In a versions of the challenge, you can get out of the donation if you douse yourself, which is something the campaign has been criticized for.)
Who can forget Kony 2012 -- and its hashtag #stopKony? -- the short video about the African warlord that spread on Facebook and Twitter, but was also criticized for, among other reasons, not actually doing anything other than "raising awareness"? This was also a criticism of the LGBT marriage equality movement last year, when 3 million people changed their Facebook profile pics to equal signs.
The Ice Bucket Challenge campaign has been great for the ALS Association, a nonprofit organization that does research and provides help for those with the debilitating neurological disorder, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The organization said Tuesday morning that it's received $22.9 million since July 29 -- up from $1.9 million over the same period last year. And the donations are coming not only from existing donors, but from nearly half a million new donors, the group said.
Celebrities have latched on to the cause, which has undoubtedly hastened the spread. At this point, it's almost difficult to find a celebrity who hasn't had ice water dumped on his or her head. Gayle poured water on Oprah's head. Jimmy Fallon and some celebrity friends did it. Kobe and LeBron have done it. Bieber's done it -- twice.
"If you're doing the same thing they're doing, it's as if you can stand in for them," saidJennifer Cool, an anthropologist at USC who studies Internet culture and history. "You too can be in the shoes of Lady Gaga or Bill Gates."
And, of course, there's the showing off factor. Facebook is, at its core, a place to show off and promote yourself, filled with incredible vacation photos, reminders to all that you're in love and musings about challenges overcome (ideally while on vacation, like hiking in South America). You may have some friends who've seemed eager to show off their bikini or swim trunk bodies in their Ice Bucket Challenge videos.
At this point, some celebrities seem to be trying to one-up each other. Bill Gates released a highly produced (yet charming) video of himself designing an intricate method of dumping water on himself. Hockey player Paul Bissonnette, for some reason, had a helicopter drop glacier water on him. And Tyler Perry's video seems to have an element of "check out this ridiculous pool I'm standing in."
Celebrities also seem eager to name drop in their nominations. "I know where you live," Oprah says to Steven Spielberg as she nominates him to take the challenge.
"It's practically on the way out," said Zimmerman, who's critical of the celebrities and billionaires "co opting" the challenge for possible PR purposes. "Someone pushes it over the edge then it spends two weeks, three weeks in the news cycle and then fades."
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