People like Pammy Fake Tits would like you to believe that the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is a bad idea. Like her extensions.
by Shimbo
I love people. Except when people are busy being “people”.
One of the natural by-products of the Internet Age is an increasingly solipsistic point of view; how could it be any different? So often we sit behind our computer monitors or our smartphones, and digest everything the internet has to offer, while filtering it through our own ideals.
Sometimes the overload of information becomes jarring, and then something that has positive intentions all of a sudden becomes a “problem”. Take, for example, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. As far as I’m concerned, the Challenge is an example of the internet done right. Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but then people aren’t perfect either. In any pure effort, there are offshoots and hangers on.
There are people who don’t take it seriously, and while all of that exists, one thing is certain: when something good happens, when it works, the results are clear. As of Monday, August 25, The ALS Association (ALSA) received $79.7 million in donations compared to $2.5 million during the same time period last year (July 29 to August 25).
These donations came from existing donors and 1.7 million new donors to The ALSA. The difference is undeniable. The Ice Bucket Challenge, in a large way, built not only awareness of a dreaded disease, it also built a sense of community among people. Whether you were rich or poor, black, white or whatever, Republican or Democrat, or even residing in different countries, ALS is a disease that, while rare, has to potential to effect just about anyone.
For a brief moment, we were all part of something that had meaning, and in a land full of porn and cat videos, the internet became a force for palpable good. And yet, people are somehow unhappy. Not that their individual happiness matters in larger situations such as this. Because of the internet solipsism that I mentioned, people use their instant pulpits to decry something that they don’t want to be a part of, and since the internet belongs to them, and them alone, they want to make sure YOU know about their displeasure.
Certainly, if the internet leads you to believe that only your opinion is valid, it’s only natural that a certain amount of selfishness, or self-serving behavior would come to the fore. Take aging sexpot Pamela Anderson: For years, her pet cause (pun intended) has been PETA (People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals). As an animal activist, she took the opportunity to use the Ice Bucket Challenge to forward her own views, because to her, those views were the most important thing, and something that YOU needed to know.
Of course, Pammy Fake Tits wasn’t the only example of internet solipsism telling you that the good thing you did wasn’t all that good. In the early days of the challenge, snarky bloggers wasted no time letting you know that the Ice Bucket Challenge was more a distraction than a good idea. For me, in my equally solipsistic point of view, that’s bullshit. In fact, all I had to do was see this video of a young man named Anthony Carjabal who did his own version of the Challenge, and the reality of it is heartbreaking at best.
Listening to Anthony’s story puts yet one more face on the horror, or for him, the impending horror of ALS. Make no mistake, he’s fucked. His future is grim at best, and he knows it, as he’s taking care of his mother, who also suffers from ALS. And while the future is bleak, every dollar given to the ALSA ensures that maybe Anthony won’t suffer the same fate as his mother and grandmother.
Sometimes a chance is enough.
Further research found that the Challenge features a number of people who are suffering the effects of ALS willing to be doused in ice water because it means that much. ALS isn’t a “sexy” disease. It’s not one that immediately comes to mind when people are choosing a cause. The sad reality is that despite the nearly $80 million raised, it’s only a drop in the well. Federal government cuts took a huge bite out of research efforts, where the National Institutes of Health once allocated as much as $30 billion.
Regardless, you aren’t reading Daunted.Net. You’re reading NeverDaunted.Net. Here, we believe that this is a fight worth fighting…well, maybe not all of us. Earlier today, Ed Button threw his two cents into the debate, where he went as far as to say that the practice of the Challenge itself was tantamount to peer pressure, as if somehow being challenged to donate or take an ice bath (hopefully both), were somehow compulsory. In all the stories that are out there in circulation, there hasn’t been one story about people feeling undue pressure to douse themselves or give money.
More importantly, our friend Ed admits to not even receiving a challenge. So how can one feel peer pressure when one hasn’t been nominated for the challenge in the first place? Of course his conscientious objection was in lieu of offering up a charity of his own to be a part of, which is shrewd, and also why I decided to publish it, because we should have a choice of charities, but while we have that option to help available, it shouldn’t be a competition. Charity isn’t nor should it be a “This, not That” proposition.
All that said, I do have a few problems with how some people are carrying out the challenge. First and foremost, little kids shouldn’t be doing the challenge, because how could they make a donation if they somehow didn’t want to take the ice bath? That’s pretty dumb, and it helps the internet solipsists make their argument stronger.
For the record, I have yet to receive a challenge, but as soon as I do, I will happily accept it, and I will pass the challenge on to Ed, because while he doesn’t have to donate, I think a little ice water will do him (and others) some good, more importantly, it’ll make his decision to abstain make more sense, you know, because he’ll actually get a nomination.
So to those so inconvenienced by the ALS Bucket Challenge, I say this: Chill the fuck out, no one’s holding a gun or bucket of ice to your head. There’s plenty of porn and cat videos and cat porn for you to distract yourself long enough to let this thing run it’s course, hopefully after more money gets raised, and more people get soaked for a good cause. Besides, it’ll be cold soon.
God forbid we pour ice water all over our heads when it’s cold outside.
Hashim R. Hathaway (Uncle Shimbo) is the host of the Never Daunted Radio Network, and proud father to NeverDaunted.Net. You can reach him on Twitter @NeverDauntedNet