Why the Ice Bucket Challenge is Bad for You
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LA 12 Article of the Month Pre-Assessment Name: Per:
Directions:
1. Show evidence of a close reading. Mark up the text using a variety of active reading strategies: questioning,
summarizing, predicting, commenting, connecting, comparing, clarifying, and visualizing.
2. Write a one-page reflection on your own sheet of paper. See possible ideas for your reflection at the end of the
reading.
Why the Ice Bucket Challenge is Bad for You
The ALS campaign may be a great way to raise money – but it is
a horrible reason to donate it
by Scott Gilmore, Macleans
August 24, 2014
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is
bad for you.
I don’t mean you will catch a cold
(you won’t), or look like a craven sheep
(you will). I mean that when you are
inspired by a viral fad to donate your
limited dollars to a charitable cause, you
ignore the diseases that genuinely
threaten.
The marketing gimmick is very clever. It is short, immediately understandable, and like
the most popular forms of slacktivism, it is easy to do, entertaining to watch, and
narcissistically self-promoting. Every screen on our desks, on our walls, and in our hands is
filled with celebrities, neighbours, porn stars, and politicians showing off their earnest
compassion and occasional humour. The ice bucket’s ubiquity rivals other famous charitable
stunts like Movember, Livestrong, or the infamous Kony 2012.
As a result, the ALS Association has received more than$70 million so far, compared to
only $2.5 million during last year’s campaign. It is a great way to raise money — but it is a
horrible reason to donate it.
We, as individuals and as a society, have finite resources to donate to medical
research and other worthy causes. When we decide where to spend our charitable dollars, we
need to consider three factors.
1. Where is the greatest need?
2. Where will my dollars have the greatest influence?
3. What is the most urgent problem?
The ALS challenge fails all three of these tests.
First, ALS research is not an especially great need in public health. It is classified as a
rare disease and, thankfully, only about 600 people die from it every year in Canada. That
sounds like a lot, but that is not even close to the top 20 most fatal diseases according to
StatsCan (the top three being cancer, at 72,000 deaths per year; heart disease, at 47,000; and
cerebrovascular disease, 13,000).
Second, it is already extremely well funded. As this chart from CDC data shows, last
year ALS killed 6,849 people in the U.S., and attracted $23 million for research (a ratio of
$3,382 per death). Heart disease, by contrast, killed 596,577 but only raised $54 million (a
paltry sum of $90 per death). If you want your donation to make the biggest difference, fund
the diseases that need the most money.
Finally, ALS research is not an urgent need. If you want to help where time is of the
essence, then look to Syria(greatest international refugee crisis in a generation),Ebola (now a
full blown global health emergency), or the Central Africa Republic (quietly bleeding to death
unnoticed by the world).
We aren’t rational, though. Typically, you will spend more time considering where to
order a pizza and what to put on it, than you will deciding where to donate your charitable
dollars. As a result, the real threats, the diseases that are far more likely to kill you and your
loved ones are ignored. This is why the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is bad for you, and me, and
all of us. Instead of supporting what is most needed, we support what is most amusing.
But you can change this. Print the simple reminder below, fold it up, put it in your
wallet. And the next time you reach for your credit card number, pause and actually think.
Good reasons to donate:
1. Need
2. Influence
3. Urgency
Bad reasons to donate:
1. Ice Buckets
2. Wristbands
3. Mustaches
Citation:
Gilmore, Scott. "Why the Ice Bucket Challenge Is Bad for You." Editorial. Macleans Canada.
Rogers Media, 24 Aug. 2014. Web. 05 Sept. 2014.
.
Ice bucket challenge: Why ‘charity narcissism’ is good
By Chris Baraniuk, BBC News
September 2, 2014
What has ice bucket achieved?
The media is reaching
saturation point in its coverage of
the ice bucket challenge. But what
has actually been achieved?
It is August 2014 and a
new viral craze is sweeping the
internet. Thousands of people,
from your next door neighbour to
A-list celebrities, are standing in
their gardens and throwing
buckets of ice water over
themselves. The videos are promptly uploaded to Facebook or YouTube and shared for all to
see. Ostensibly, it’s in the name of a good cause – fundraising for ALS or motor neurone
disease charities. But it’s got some people very upset.
“It’s social media exhibitionism, more about attention-seeking than philanthropy,”
writes Michael Hogan in the UK’s Telegraph newspaper. American TV star Steve-O points out
on his Instagram feed that many fellow celebs have forgotten to state the charitable
motive behind the trend in their videos. And digital magazine Vice really goes to town. “There
are a lot of things wrong with the ice bucket challenge, but the most annoying is that it's
basically narcissism masked as altruism,” concludes Arielle Pardes.
Yet is a bit of narcissism OK if it helps make the world a better place?
For W Keith Campbell at the University of Georgia, the ice bucket challenge has taken
root in a culture of rampant narcissism. Campbell argues that in today’s society, narcissism
isn’t just prevalent – it’s an “epidemic”. Campbell and his colleagues have analyzed Western
culture over recent decades and argue that, from booming reality TV shows to plastic surgery,
we can’t get enough of ourselves. One journal article co-authored by Campbell even found
that song lyrics between 1980 and 2007 have mirrored this trend. “Use of words related to
self-focus and anti-social behaviour increased, whereas words related to other-focus, social
interactions, and positive emotion decreased,” noted the paper.
“If you’re narcissistic it’s good for starting relationships, it’s good for getting hired, it’s
good for getting elected to public office, it’s good for being a reality TV star or for risk taking,”
explains Campbell. “It has these positive short-term qualities. But it also has more negative
qualities which are that you’re often more willing to manipulate people or take advantage of
others. Your ethics suffer, so it’s very much a mixed bag.”
Yet this modern self-regard gets complicated when it is exploited to encourage
altruism, as various charitable campaigns have done recently. Some of the most popular
campaigns appeal to our social identity and our interest in our own looks.
Moustaches and make-up
The Movember campaign, for example, allows men to play with their image by
growing a moustache for the month of November. The altruistic motive here is to raise
awareness of men’s health issues such as testicular cancer or mental health. Earlier this
summer the #nomakeupselfie craze saw thousands of women, including many celebrities,share photographs of themselves sans make-up. In Britain, it raised £8m for Cancer Research
UK in just six days.
Although these campaigns suggest
that people love others taking notice of
their looks, it’s interesting to note that
none of these actions is about appealing
to socially acceptable standards of beauty
or attractiveness. Moustaches are quirky;
make-up remains de rigueur for women,
and not many people look good after
having ice water dumped on their heads.
This, indeed, appears to be why President
Obama was one of very few to refuse to take part in the ice bucket challenge (although he did
make a donation). The Daily Dot astutely notes that high-profile politicians often regret
appearing in public wearing unusual costumes or with funny things on their heads.
These campaigns may well be narcissistic, but it’s a narcissism which at least plays
with established notions of what we “should” look like.
Green show-offs
It’s not just charities and one-off funding drives which are benefitting from the rise in
narcissism. A fascinating paper published earlier this year by Iman Naderi and David Strutton
concluded that narcissistic tendencies could boost the sales of environmentally friendly
products and services. Narcissists, it turned out, were more likely to “buy green” when the
probability of being seen and admired by others for doing so was increased.
As the authors noted: “This research demonstrates why and how the prevalence of a
disdained personality trait might be leveraged to generate net environmental gain, as a direct
consequence of normal narcissists’ propensity to engage, as expected, in highly self-absorbed
consumption behaviour.”
This supports the notion that good behaviour is enabled and augmented when it is
visible to our peers. Today’s social networks are capturing this in a way that previously might
not have been possible. Generosity was once much more anonymous, or at least less
publicized. With social media, the network of people and their friends’ excruciating awareness
of good deeds is everything – that’s what has powered the ice bucket challenge from day one.
If we’re all involved in a giant good deed together, realizing that is made much easier online.
Studies have shown that Facebook and other social networks may well encourage narcissism,
but they’re also places where we go when we want to experience empathy.
In some ways, we’re all now doing what celebrities appearing on TV telethons have
done for years – donating their time and money in exchange for some positive publicity.
London publicist Catherine Lyn Scott, who works with many television stars, says that she
often encourages her clients to get involved with a charity in order to help a good cause and
raise their profile in a positive way. “It’s 50-50, and I’m very open about that,” she says.
And now that we’re participating in this world of self-promotion too, it makes the
success of these charitable campaigns all the more likely. Scott notes that the ice bucket
challenge has been extremely successful in cementing the sense of the global village – a world
in which celebrities and members of the public alike can do something good together.
“I think it brings people close to the stars they like because they can do exactly what
they’re doing,” she explains. “They’re nominating their friends on Facebook and the stars are
nominating their own high-profile friends. I think on this occasion it makes them feel very real
to us.”Or to consider this behaviour in a more positive light, ice bucket challenge videos
don’t just reaffirm our idea of ourselves as special people who deserve attention. They
reaffirm our belief in our society as collaborative, valiant, geared to doing “the right thing”.
Viral ignorance
All of this is not to say that a culture of narcissism isn’t problematic. A sense of cultural
righteousness often leads to oversimplification of complex issues, for example, as noted by
PhD student David Banks in a blog post about feel-good clickbait phenomenon Upworthy.
Sharing Upworthy videos to show your peers how compassionate you are can help the spread
of false information. Many gloss over inequality, or present complex socio-political issues in a
simplistic light, says Banks. “Ignorance goes viral,” he quips.
In addition, measuring one’s worth in terms of one’s visibility may not, in the end, be
very healthy as author David Zweig argues in his book, Invisibles: The Power of Anonymous
Work in an Age of Relentless Self-Promotion. “We’re in an environment where we are reliant
on recognition for our self-esteem,” he writes. Perhaps it would be better in the long-run if
our actions were motivated by the idea of something bigger than ourselves?
But as Naderi and Strutton noted in their paper on how to make people go green,
“altruistic narcissism” is certainly effective. There is too the fact that we don’t necessarily do
good things unless we’re adequately provoked.
Call it what you will. A necessary evil. A means to an end. Narcissism isn’t going away
any time soon. But while it is here, it might as well be harnessed to make the world a better
place.
Citation:
"Ice Bucket Challenge: Why 'charity Narcissism' Is Good." BBC Future. BBC News, 2 Sept. 2014.
Web. 08 Sept. 2014. .ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is not a catalyst for long-
term behaviour change
The viral campaign has made a splash, but success is likely to be
short term when it comes to changing charitable giving
By Tess Riley, The Guardian
September 5, 2014
We’ve done it in onesies, we’ve done it with desert sand, Matt Damon’s even done it
with toilet water. But phenomenally successful as the ice bucket challenge may appear, what
kind of long-term behaviour change potential does it really have?
Over the last month, Facebook walls have been drenched in videos of people taking
part in the ice bucket challenge. From scantily clad celebrities showering themselves in ice, to
friends, family and the cookie monster doing their bucket thing, to a group of very merry Irish
nunsgleefully dousing one another, it’s been a challenge for anyone using social media to
miss.
But while the eye-catching stunt raises momentary awareness of amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis (ALS) – also known as motor neurone disease – and is reported to have raised over
$100m to date, opinion is divided as to the longer-term impacts of the ice bucket challenge,
just as it was over the likes of movember and #nomakeupselfie in the past. Putting aside the
justified backlash spearheaded by those dismayed by a campaign centred around disposing of
water in a world struggling to cope with areas of widespread drought and a lack of clean
drinking water, how does the ice bucket challenge measure up?
Miriam Laverick, head of campaigning at PR agency Four Colman Getty, points out
that when it comes to raising the profile of ALS and the ALS Association, this campaign has
been a significant achievement. She said: “They have had way more than their 15 minutes of
fame. Charities campaigning on diseases like cancer are always going to have a bigger
presence in people’s lives, so to cut through into the public eye and become part of everyday
conversation in this way is a big success. You could even argue that media critical of the
campaign have contributed to raising awareness of a disease that people knew little about
beforehand.”
It’s this awareness that Rachel Collinson, digital innovation consultant forXtraordinary
Fundraising believes is a key catalyst for long-term behaviour change. She said: “People
change their behaviour when it becomes a societal norm. The ice bucket challenge is going a
long way to make giving to charity part of that normal pattern of behaviour for anybody, and
shaming those who don’t. Like it or not, that’s what happens.”
Niel Bowerman agrees that the ice bucket challenge was a run-away success for those
raising awareness about ALS. However, the co-founder of the Centre for Effective
Altruism argues that overall the campaign has the potential to do more harm than good.
“Evidence suggests that people have a total ‘donation budget’, so donating more to
one place means much less to another – something my colleague Will MacAskill refers to
as funding cannibalism,” he said.
“Different charities have different cost-effectiveness – for example, the ALS
Association estimates that it costs on average $200,000 per year to support someone in the
final stages of the disease. In comparison, the cost of an extra year of healthy life from
distributing bed nets to tackle malaria is only $100. You could therefore argue that if the ALS
fundraising drive has moved money from a more cost-effective charity to a less cost-effective
one, this would be harmful overall.”While Collinson is acutely wary of this method for assessing a campaign’s
effectiveness, seeing it as “an incredibly narrow definition based on capitalist economics and
some fundamental assumptions about what makes life worth living”, she and Bowerman
agree that it is vital to ensure that a viral campaign is translated into ongoing commitment if
the benefits of that campaign are to be realised. There are three pieces of advice Collinson
would give the ALS Association: educate new donors about the difference their money will
make; start a thank you campaign that aims to be just as viral as the original; follow that up
quickly with a series of welcome messages explaining more about ALS and countering some of
the rumours that have circulated about their spending.
The lesson? Being prepared and proactive matters. Kony 2012 is a memorable
example of a publicity disaster that ensued when the campaign’s success span out of control
without adequate resources to support it. At the time, Dan Pallotta wrote that the three
founders of the campaign against the Ugandan rebel warlord, Joseph Kony, were being
attacked “not by Kony, but by critics whose voices are raised louder about this video than they
ever were by Kony’s atrocities”. This chimes with Laverick’s assertion that many organisations
are not used to unleashing a campaign over which they have little or no control once in the
public domain.
Ultimately, doing just that has paid off for the ALS Association. Now only time will tell
whether they can convert their highly successful viral campaign into one that engenders
positive, long-term behavioural change. Critics are dubious. And even if a proportion of their
current donors do engage with the charity and its cause on a deeper level, there will always be
those who argue that the money should have been directed elsewhere to start with.
Citation:
Riley, Tess. "ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Is Not a Catalyst for Long-term Behaviour Change."
Theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 05 Sept. 2014. Web. 08 Sept. 2014.
.
Possible topics for your reflection:
1. What are some of the obvious reasons why a person might choose to participate in the ALS Ice Bucket
Challenge? What do the articles say might be subconscious or hidden reasons propelling people to take the
challenge?
2. Did you or someone you know participate in the Ice Bucket Challenge? What were your motivations for
doing so? What ideas/concepts expressed in these articles resonated with you?
3. Overall, do you think the Ice Bucket Challenge reflects positively or negatively on our society? Why?You can also read
