The reason this was promoted in the way it was is because it is such an effective method of raising money. It has exceeded anyone's expectations. Last year, they raised 8 million dollars (EDIT -- its actually 2.5 million) for ALS, and that was with extensive marketing and media campaigns, celebrity endorsements, etc.
The other day, the total for this year was 58 million dollars(EDIT - 80 million dollars as of yesterday TIME article). It is truly a worldwide phenomenon, not just America. Practically everyone on my facebook is either getting water dumped on them or donating money. It is everywhere.
I personally think it is fantastic. I don't care that it is gimmicky, or that people are jumping on a bandwagon, because it works really well. People's entertainment intake has switched mediums. It used to be that telethons and celebrity endorsements was how you raised money, and it was never that effective. But with this, they get all the celebrity endorsement's for free and get worldwide exposure because celebrities are just as obsessed with social networking as all us plebs.
This is just the way people get into shit now. And I think its remarkable that when before, people would just send a cheque (which is admirable), they now fully interact with the message. They make videos about it, look up other peoples videos, it's absolute genius. Each one of those people is seeing the letters ALS dozens of times and getting it worked right up into their brains.
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