Nearly
every Facebook and Instagram post recently is someone getting doused with a
bucket full of ice water, screaming in shock. All the other posts are rants
over the annoyance of having to see these videos 50 times a day.
The ALS ice bucket
challenge. You've seen it. You've clicked the hashtag. You've probably even done
it. (I'm doing it tomorrow. Peer pressure is real).
(Pics below)
In theory I really
like it. It's a viral way to raise money for something important. I like that,
and I've heard that they've raised over 41 million dollars from these ice bucket
donations alone. That's amazing! I love the idea of people coming together for
a good cause and getting such amazing results. So then, why are these videos
beginning to grate on our nerves?
I realized the answer
to my question tonight as I was washing dishes. This challenge is just a chain
letter disguised as a viral video. Think about it. When us 90’s kids were in
middle school, chain letter emails would consistently and annoyingly show up in
our inboxes, accompanied by that pleasant voice announcing "you've got
mail!" The voice however did not warn us about the type of mail we’d
received.
The dreaded chain
letter. They're all the same. First, they tell you some touching story such as
a young girl finding the man of her dreams after forwarding an email to 20
people. Second, they grace you with a “stunning” visual display that dances with
dashes and colons and greater-than signs as you scroll down the page. Finally,
at the bottom, they always leave you with a threat. "Forward this to 10
people or your crush will hate you forever." No one wants their crush to
hate them! So we hit the forward button and bugged our friends, relatives, and
loved ones. That is until we came to our senses and realized that forwarding
the messages would in no way impact how our crushes felt about us. If he didn't
like my acid wash fanny pack before, he wasn't going to like it after receiving
an annoying chain letter from me.
Flash forward to
today. Technology is more advanced and more clever; therefore chain letters
have become more advanced and clever. A Super Chain Letter, if you will (cue
the clawed, metal hand bursting forth from the pile of rubble). The touching
story is now more tangible: an actual disease, for actual people, that needs
curing. The fancy visuals are no longer 8-bit animations, but somewhat
entertaining videos of your friends screaming as they are showered
with ice. And the threat feels even more damning than before: "If you
don't pour a bucket of ice on your head within 24 hours, everyone will know you
hate science and love diseases." Okay, admittedly it's not that harsh, but
it has started to feel that way. The urgency
has also increased to Super status, requiring us to "forward this
message" within only 24 hours since, hey, we all practically live on the internet
now! The chain letter no longer sits in our inboxes for a few days because we
check Instagram and Facebook about every 10 minutes.
What’s next for chain
letters? We all move to third world countries, make videos of the surgeries we
perform, and call people out to Make The Move within 24 hours? Let’s hope not.
(Hey, at least I got to wear my cat towel at school!)
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