Can this bucket challenge please just kick the bucket already?
I'm referring, of course, to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.
For those living under a Wi-Fi-free rock the last couple of weeks, in the social media-spurred #icebucketchallenge people dare friends to dump a bucket of chilly water on their heads within 24 hours ... or donate $100 to the ALS Association, which is dedicated to curing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease).
Don't get me wrong; I'm all for raising consciousness and funds for a worthy organization.
But this challenge -- involving ice water in the hottest month of the year -- has some seriously soggy logic.
On my Facebook news feed, I've seen not one check-writing video (too boring)? But I've seen countless videos of well-meaning celebrities and friends splashing and squealing and in this modern, modest version of a wet-T-shirt contest. How exactly is this healing the sick?
Oh, right. It's about "raising awareness."
A few water-filled weeks later, are we any more educated about the disease that sees some 5,600 new diagnoses per year in the United States, affects two in 100,000 people and gives only a two-to-five-year life expectancy from the time of diagnosis?
I wasn't.
So I went to the association's alsa.org website to find that above stats and this explanation: ALS is a "progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed."
That's more sobering than a voluntary wash of frigid water any day.
Early on I had lost my patience for the prank, er, campaign that seemed more about promoting attention for oneself than for a cause. And when a friend, a local media type, posted his video, I was the only cranky comment amid the attaboy kudos.
"Thank you for making me aware ... of just how cheap you really are," I wrote, softening it only slightly with a winky-smiley face emoticon.
(For the record, nobody ever challenged me. But I had my answer ready: "Sorry, I'm too busy taking part in the cake-in-the-face obesity awareness challenge. Mmm!")
I failed to see the sacrifice in making a serious condition a silly, self-serving comedy stunt then. And I still do now, even as everyone from Oprah and Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Martha Stewart and LeBron James to Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber to Ethel Kennedy (but she's 86! Won't she get pneumonia or hypothermia or some other "-ia" we'll then have to virally raise awareness for?) has participated.
How is that helping anyone?
Oh, wait, The New York Times reported that as of last Sunday, the ALS Association had received some $13.3 million in donations -- 260,000 of them from new donors -- since July 29, compared to just $1.7 million at the same time last year.
It appears I'm the one who is all wet.
Break the ice, email:
jchristman@arkansasonline.com
Spin Cycle is a weekly smirk at pop culture.
Style on 08/24/2014