The Ice Bucket Challenge appears to be taking over the world. It's gone nuts.
Facebook timelines and social media channels are clogged up with soggy friends having ice cold buckets of water deposited on their noddle.
I was nominated yesterday. I found it a splendid opportunity for those of us who are saddled with chronic vanity and narcissism to rip off the shirt, flex the pecks and get semi naked on social media. All in a good cause.
Brilliant! A Freedom pass to display rampant vanity. This is an opportunity that doesn't come about very often. When you post a selfie with your guns out you quite rightly get tons of abuse for being a twat. That kind of vanity stirs all kind of hatred in people. "What a self obsessed wanker" most people will mutter.
But stick a charity viral social media craze onto it, bolt on a good cause of raising money & awareness for a little known disease and bingo. Those haters cannot hate. It's impossible to have a pop at anyone's vanity if they've bunged £10 into the pot.
It's a very modern fundraiser. Tapping into our endless vanity and 'selfie' obsession generated by social media. We are becoming ever more narcissistic as a society and this taps into it nicely. First we had 'no make up selfie' for breast cancer, then it was 'cock in sock' for testicular cancer. (No chance I was doing that. Not having my tackle in a pop sock laughed at on social media) and now we have 'The Ice Bucket Challenge' for ALS. The idea is that the feeling of ice cold water is as close to the feeling people who suffer with ALS have all the time yet a thousand times worse.
It's perfect for the modern culture. I mean lets face it most of us don't give a shit do we? I mean we say all the right things and donate when we can because we're all decent people, but how many of us knew what it was? How many actually bothered to donate, or actually do anything?
It's not our fault. We live in a world of immediate messages and every expanding distractions. We are constantly bombarded with requests for money. But beyond the normal, "Oh isn't it terrible let's give some money" we move on and go back to our normal lives of essentially thinking about ourselves most of the time. It's the human condition.
Unless you have a family member or someone close who has been affected by a disease it's very unlikely that we will actually give too much attention. After all there are so many diseases and suffering it's impossible to donate or give attention to them all. Plus charities are becoming increasingly sophisticated, clever and aggressive to raise money. The charity space is crowded and there is only a limited amount of money available that people can give. Yet this is a success. Because it's more about US than the charity. Sorry to say the harsh truth.
From my perspective, I've done several marathons and Ironman triathlons for charities and raised several thousands of pounds. So I feel I am able to comment on this. Some of them I've done because I wanted to do the marathon more than raise the money. The charitable money raised was a by product of what was essentially a selfish act. That's what the ice bucket challenge is and it's genius.
Utilising technology, social media and the psyche of modern culture to generate funds and a little awareness. I'm on board with it.
Despite me being cynical and not a 'joiner inner' of modern fads, I was nominated and I felt it a duty to get involved. Plus as I said I had a guilt free opportunity to get the guns out. Perfect.
Plus on a basic human level it does connect friends, people from across the world and celebrities as one. Kind of makes you feel closer as mankind (well, for 5 minutes anyway)
There are of course many knob-heads that fall over, do it on a wall or a quarry and are accidents waiting to happen. That is natural selection. There will always be idiots in this world. That's just the way it goes I'm afraid. Part and parcel of human nature. Plus accidents are accidents - some of which if you search hard on Facebook are fucking hilarious.
It will soon be over. Another few days and our timelines will be back to normal with endless videos of dogs smiling or people exclaiming "YOU HAVE TO WATCH THIS!!!!!!!
If you are a miserable sod like all my 3 nominations and not do it, be old school and donate quietly.(link below) £48 million in less than a month. Impressive, I think I may have to think up a viral craze to fund a book and speaker tour.
http://www.alsa.org/donate/
Together We Are Stronger
Nicholas E Evans
No comments:
Post a Comment