A rant about the ice bucket challenge and how it needs to just stop

ALS stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. It's a disease of the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movement. It's also known as "Lou Gehrig's disease." Lately a challenge designed to raise awareness of ALS and to get people to donate money has gone viral. Everyone from Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC to George R.R. Martin has done their version of the challenge. The thing that disturbs me though, is that people are participating in the challenge for selfish reasons that are doing more harm than good.

We have Henry Cavill in his Superman outfit doing the Ice Bucket challenge. Hoo Rah! right? I mean it's Superman, but it's also free marketing for an upcoming movie. This really puts a distaste in my mouth...the fact that Hollywood would use a challenge to raise awareness on a disease that kills people to say "Hey we're filming Batman vs. Superman and this seems like a great way to get people talking early about the film." Why couldn't Henry Cavill just have done it outside his uniform?

And what about the Scottish teen that died because of the challenge? I think it would make everyone who has ALS very sad to know that a challenge designed to raise awareness of their disease has claimed the life of Cameron Lancaster who was only 18. How the f*ck do people die by just getting ice cold water poured over their head? Well that's just the thing: they don't. Cameron died because people are making more of the ice bucket challenge than it really is. They are making it harder, adding levels of difficulty, blowing it way out of proportion, all to get a few YouTube hits.

And let's not forget the platonic form of a failed ALS ice bucket challenge involving a guy in camo cargo pants and an American flag vest, waving an even bigger confederate flag, and he sets his own hair on fire. It seems clear to me that the ice bucket challenge has lost its way. It's no longer about charity as much as its about bragging on social networks. "Everything you can do, I can do better." So the result has been everything from dumping water on someone to having some person shoot another with a stun gun so that they fall backward into ice water.

There is no reason to do this:
Or this very dangerous activity... I just don't get it. How could something so seemingly simple...small bucket of ice water poured gently on head...turn into something so disastrous that it actually claims lives? Are people really this stupid? /end rant