The Ice Bucket Challenge
Every
season is popular with something. Summer is usually famous not
only for perfect weather and vacation flings, but also for dance
party songs, movies and open air festivals. This summer is not an
exception, but The Ice Bucket Challenge can be, probably, the best trick
for remembering it. These days when you open your profile on social
networks and look through your friends’ news, the only video you see
is when one celebrity douses herself/ himself with a bucket of ice
water, challenging others to do the same. Why do they do it? Some people say
it’s for a great cause to raise money for a charity fund, created
by ALS Association. But others consider the phenomenon to be absurd.
Let’s consider some arguments for and against this contagious Internet
activity in order to decide whether it is good or not.
Since
The ALS Association started the ball rolling by inspiring people to
action, they have received $70.2 million in donations to the
organization. It is an unbelievable number compared to the same time
period last year. Do celebrities deserve some credit for it? Everyone
should decide for himself/ herself. he vast majority of people
didn’t know about ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) at all. But celebrities
could attract a great number of new sponsors and raise the public’s
awareness about the decease. In these videos you see ordinary people who
have the same emotions and feelings as we do. And their behaviour attracts
attention.
Even
Gaza took part in the Ice Bucket Challenge to draw attention to
the crises in Palestine. But they renamed it to the Rubble Bucket Challenge to
illustrate the situation at the present moment. So, even such a phenomenon
can help organizations send the message to people about some world problems and
their potential solutions.
However,
as a result of its success, a group of companies stuck like a leech
and tried to earn money in the hope to freeload. In particular
South Korea’s Samsung Group. They decided to poach this media virus to
make money and push aside their competitors by challenging them. (Samsung Group
showed their dominance over their competitors’ goods.) Perhaps it was a
brilliant business move, but was it morally right?
But
some people express their opinion about the organization of this Internet
activity and it’s not quite positive because, as they say, it creates the mood
of fun and amusement. Many people (it doesn’t matter whether they are famous or
not) make no reference to the main issue, ALS, in their videos. Some of
them don’t even ention
the information of donation. Besides, a lot of people prefer to douse
themselves without giving money to the charity fund. All they want to do is to
have fun,
many people don’t understand the main idea of this viral media.
As
for me, it never crossed my mind that such a thing could be helpful. Firstly,
I was suspicious of these actions. Even after reading several articles
it seemed to me that it was just a pathetic attempt by celebrities to
attract us to their personalities. But I was not exactly right. On the
company’s website you can find the results of ALS research, sum donations and
the description of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. When I saw it, I changed
my mindncompletely,
of course, but now I’m ready to consider some possible steps toward
solving serious things using the unique abilities of celebrities to raise
money.
Кравченко
Христина
Константиновна
ПФ
ПГУПС, 2015
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