Ice Bucket Challenge and 9 Reasons for participation in a Groundswell.
ALS is a disease, commonly called Lou Gehrig’s disease. It basically slowly deteriorates your ability to move parts of your body. So if you had ALS, you might have trouble moving your fingers all of a sudden, well eventually you won’t be able to move your fingers at all. And it spreads throughout your body and eventually you cannot talk or move on your own and eventually you cannot breath on your own. The Ice Bucket Challenge basically gives people a sense of what ALS is and how it feels. The ice water numbs your body and limits your movement temporarily, so the people get an idea of what it’s like. Plus, when you do the challenge you nominate others to do the challenge and that spreads the word around to pretty much everyone so that they will donate money to help the ALS cause. A lot of celebs were both doing the challenge and donating money. I think it is helping bring money and awareness to the disease despite the participant’s intent. It’s doing a lot of good. I always heard of the disease but before this challenge I never actually looked in to it.
Here are the nine reasons for a participating in a groundswell that apply to an Ice Bucket Challenger:
1- Keeping up Friendships- the Ice Bucket Challenge was featured on social media causing it to go viral allowing friends and family to view, comment, and share and nominate others to do the challenge. This lead up to supporting friendships for those who are affected and have followed and shared the challenge through others on social media.
2- Making new Friends- the Ice Bucket Challenge allowed the videos that were posted to be seen on other peoples news feeds of different social media accounts. The challenge allowed strengthening relationships and creating new friendships in supporting, raise money and awareness for ALS.
3- Succumbing to social pressure from existing friends- Peer/social pressure plays a big role for individuals. This challenge went viral so quickly that when it so happen to be you that got nominated, the pressure builds up as well as emotions leading to humiliations and embarrassment if you refused to do the challenge.
4- Paying it forward- Forwarding the challenge to someone else is a source of support as well as entertainment for yourself and others knowing you all did it and can talk about each other’s experience.
5- The altruistic impulse- Helping and showing support for a disease that is need for a cure helps to make a difference in people’s lives. By doing the Ice Bucket Challenge, it showed how many people that was willing to help and try to build the funds for finding a cure.
6- The prurient impulse- There are plenty of people who love to get attention, especially on social media and the chances are it will go viral pretty fast! This challenge most definitely had many attention grabbers showing support and helping to find a cure for ALS.
7- The creative impulse- The more creative a person can be the more attention you grab by coming up with creative twists in doing the Ice Bucket Challenge in your own unique way.
8- The validation impulse- Validation is important to those who want to be known and take credit for what they have done for supporting the cause.
9- The affinity impulse- Thanks to social media the Ice Bucket Challenge became so popular. This challenge went on for a good while and at least one conversation per day with someone or even checking my News Feed was all about this challenge. I knew many people who have done the challenge but I never got nominated to do so. This challenge has also created a huge connection for many people worldwide by supporting, donating and help raise awareness on ALS.
