Chilling for a Cause
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was a fundraising campaign in the summer of 2014 that to promoted awareness of the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and encouraged donations to research. In this challenge, participants were nominated to be filmed having a bucket of ice water poured on their heads, and then nominate others to do the same within 24 hours or forfeit by way of a charitable donation.
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was wildly successful for many reasons. Firstly it had a very specific and personable call to action. By having every day people call out their own friends, family, and colleagues it was much more personable than when large non-profits like the Red Cross ask a blanket audience for donations and support. The personable connection really gave the campaign an appeal to pathos and added layer of guilt; how could I possibly not support this cause when my best friend, mother, or Boss just asked me to support it? Also, since you knew the person nominating you very closely, it made the pressure being put on you on social media very real. These specific calls to action truly caused a ripple effect, which helped to spread the campaign so far.
(My bestfriend
and I participating in
the Challenge)
According to the New York Times, over the course of around 2 months (June 1-Aug 13th) people shared more than 1.2 million videos on Facebook, was mentioned on Twitter more than 2.2 million times and people joined the conversation using hashtags like, #IceBucketChallenge and #StrikeOutALS.
The ALS Icebucket challenge was also so successful because it had such low barriers for entry into the conversation. Everybody in the US has access to ice, water, and simple technology to record their video and post it to social media. These simple facts, and its far reaching campaign also made it appealing to celebrities who truly grasped onto this social media campaign in a way you don’t often see celebrity engagement. Everybody from Pop Icons like Justin Bieber, Lindsay Lohan, and Tom Cruise, to media moguls like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, athletes like David Beckham, and even icons like Oprah and The Obama family all participated in the campaign.
(Justin Bieber participating in the Challenge)
(Tom Cruise participating in the Challenge)
(Ellen DeGeneres participating in the challenge)
Where then, if anywhere, did The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge go wrong? Though public awareness and charitable donations undeniably soared through this social media campaign- nobody truly learned anything specific about the disease. Upon reflection many questioned the icebucket challege for its failure to start a meaningful dialogue about the disease and its effects. This idea of supporting social causes to boost your own ego without true understanding is often referred to as “Slacktivism”. This term, coined by Dwight Ozard and Fred Clark has been appearing in the media since the Mid 90’s as a way to chastise people who support causes for the personal gain and make very low commitments to a cause, such as signing online petitions, reposting statuses, or sharing a video of you dumping water on your head.
Other nay sayers of the ALS Icebucket chastised this campaign for other reasons. Willard Foxton, from the Daily Telegraph described it as “Middle Class Wet T-shirt Contest for Armchair clicktivists”. The Evening Standard was quoted as saying it was “Less about raising funds, and more about showing off your star pulling power”, while environmentalists and California officials were frustrated when in the middle of a drought an organization was encouraging such a huge waste of water.
No matter where you stand on this campaign, you can’t deny it had a global impact. It’s viral campaign in the summer of 2014 caused an outpouring of support for the ALS community. It’s easy to engage in social media was wide spread among demographics and it’s personable call to action made it irresistible. Now the only question left is can the proponents of the Social media campaign sustain the movement over years to come, as they have no so pledged? I guess only time will tell.