As first pointed out by Deadspin, while plenty of people either poured a bucket of ice water over themselves or had someone else do it for them, plenty of failures happened along the way.
Prepare yourself for three minutes of dropped buckets, falling over, unexpected participants and much more. While some of these may be staged (here’s looking at you, drunk Mario) there’s plenty of physical comedy to go around.
As with any Internet craze, its exact point of origin is unclear, but the Washington Post points out that when it first started to go viral, the Challenge involved some sort of donation, not necessarily for ALS.
Matt Lauer from the Today Show was one of the first high-profile people to take the challenge, but apparently it was former basketball player Peter Frates, who has developed the disease, who helped definitively associate the Ice Bucket Challenge with ALS.
The rules of the challenge are simple but variable. On social media, someone takes part in the challenge and nominates three people to do it as well. Some rules say that you can either do the challenge or make a $100 donation to ALSA, while some rules stipulate a $10 donation for doing the challenge or $100 for passing on it.
The challenge, of course, has its detractors. Some have called it a slacktivist cause, since many Ice Bucket Challenge videos are done without any donation to a charity. Former Jackass star Steve-O has been especially vocal about this, commenting that a lot more money should have been raised considering the star power involved. Celebrities from Ben Affleck and Justin Bieber to Martha Stewart and William Shatner have done it.
Despite the backlash, the Ice Bucket Challenge has done some tangible good for ALS research. The charity, as of writing, has raised $13.3 million in donations since July 29. During the same period last year, ALSA raised a comparatively small $1.7 million.
This isn’t the first time a seemingly simple Internet craze has gone awry. Back in the beginning of 2014, some dealing with the worst of the polar vortex tried tossing a glass of hot water into the air to watch it instantly freeze. At least 50 people were scalded attempting the trick.