Editorial — Ice Bucket Challenge losing its novelty

THURSDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — The Ice Bucket Challenge is losing its novelty.

True, as of Wednesday the ALS Association had raised $97.3 million in donations via the Challenge, compared to $2.7 million during the same period last year, July 29 to Aug. 27, thanks to 2.1 million new donors.

So why is it losing its lustre?

It was inevitable. Any good idea, no matter how good the cause, runs its course.

Its success has been its own fuel, and that fuel is gradually burning off. The Ice Bucket Challenge has been hijacked by every well-meaning celebrity and small-market television announcer on the continent seeing an opportunity for a cute story, a bit of publicity or, yes, doing something good.

The concept of the Ice Bucket Challenge is fuzzy, but thanks to social media it has been a phenomenal success. Theoretically, if somebody challenges you, you have to either make a donation or dump a bucket of ice on your head.

In practice, you’re supposed to do both, one for the good of the cause and one for “fun,” then challenge somebody else, who’s supposed to do the same within 24 hours. Not everybody has joined the bandwagon. President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron declined the ice, but made donations. Actress Pamela Anderson refused because ALS research uses animal experimentation.

Now there’s concern that the Ice Bucket Challenge is attracting so many donations that other good causes, some of which affect more people, will suffer for lack of funding.

Still other criticism suggests the Challenge has done little to raise awareness of ALS other than by its association with baseball great Lou Gehrig. Most don’t know ALS stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or what it does.

Fortunately, only one person has died in connection with the challenge when a Scottish teen jumped in a quarry after supposedly dumping ice on his head. Others have been injured in various ways, such as a woman running into a pole and knocking herself unconscious but it’s a stretch to blame the Challenge for such unfortunate occurrences.

The growing challenge for the Challenge, though, is that you can only watch so many videos of sputtering, shrieking people having ice poured on their heads before it becomes mundane. After awhile, been there done that.

And when a fund-raising stunt becomes boring, its time is done. Maybe the Ice Bucket Challenge has a few more days of life left in it, but somebody will have to come up with a new idea to make raising money for some other cause fun.

It’ll be hard to top the Ice Bucket Challenge, though.