So there are a few things I’d like to square away before I get into this. First of all, if you don’t want to donate to ALS after someone nominates you for the Ice Bucket Challenge then that’s fine. There are a number of factors that might be at play; you might not be financially secure enough to have the means, you might have another favorite charity that is closer to you, you might literally just not feel like it. All of that is fine. I might take issue with the last one, but that’s something to hash out on a personal level. Nobody can force you to donate to something you don’t want to and that’s not what this is about.
What this is about are the people who are actively going out of their way to explain the reasons that donating to ALS is a bad thing to do. Whatever excuse you come up with: saying that it’s a rare disease and we should donate to something more common, that some of the organizations in question have wasteful spending habits, that people are wasting water, or just that you’re just sick of people jumping on the bandwagon. No matter what reason you give, when you’re telling someone that they shouldn’t be doing something to raise awareness for a disease and donating to charity, you’re being an asshole.
So, first of all a concession: it is entirely possible that there are more worthy causes (to you) than ALS. Let’s get something straight, a LOT of the people donating right now to ALS as part of the trend wouldn’t be donating to anything else if this wasn’t going on. So when you’re out there shitting on the trend and the people doing the challenge, what you’re actually doing is encouraging them to do nothing instead. Let’s face it: this is a social media trend like Gangnam Style, Harlem Shake and Gallon Smashing. Good portions of the people doing this are those people. Some of these people probably haven’t made any sort of charitable action or donation in quite some time (sadly I’m forced to generalize here, according to this source about 62% of Americans reported some level of charitable donation in 2013, although it doesn’t mention how much they donated or if they’re lying on their tax returns). So, you’re encouraging the same people who were smashing a gallon of milk onto the ground for no good reason to stop donating to charity (or even if they’re not donating and just doing the challenge, still raising awareness for a charity). If they listen to you, they will just move on to the next stupid social media craze that has no social benefit to anyone at all. They won’t suddenly become champions of whatever cause you think is more worthy. They’ll just go back to doing nothing and taking selfies. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
