Questão 18 - Uri Erechim Medicina 2021

AN ICE COLD SUMMER

 

     In the summer of 2014, a weird and wonderful craze swept across the world. Everywhere you looked people were
pouring buckets of freezing water over their heads. The craze soon had a name – the Ice Bucket Challenge – and the
idea behind it was to raise money for charity.

    Despite the popularity of the challenge, not many people knew where it came from. In fact, it was the idea of an
[05] American named Pete Frates. He had been a promising college baseball player who seemed to have a bright future with
the Boston Red Sox. His career was cut short, however, when he fell ill with a disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
(ALS, for short). ALS attacks the nervous system and can cause speech problems and paralysis. It can also kill. Frates
wanted to do something to raise both money and awareness to help sufferers of ALS. He had a simple but brilliant idea.

    The idea was to choose a couple of friends and challenge them to pour a bucket of freezing water over their heads.
[10] If they did it, then they paid $10 to the charity. If they refused, they paid $100. To prove they had done it, they had 24
hours to post a video of their challenge online. Then it was their turn to nominate two more people and challenge them.

    Soon, the Ice Bucket Challenge had gone viral, with plenty of celebrities worldwide joining in, including Usain Bolt,
Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Taylor Swift, Cristiano Ronaldo, and even former U.S. President George W. Bush. U.S.
President Barack Obama and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron were also challenged, although they both refused to
[15] do it and donated the $100 instead. All in all, more than 2,500,000 videos were posted on social media sites from at
least 150 different countries. And millions of dollars were donated to the ALS Foundation.

    Not everyone viewed the Ice Bucket Challenge in a positive light, however. Some people felt that it put too much
pressure on people who did not want to (or maybe could not afford to) donate money. If you were chosen by a friend and
decided you did not want to take part, you were seen as being mean and not joining the fun.

[20]    Some misunderstood the challenge, thinking that they didn’t have to donate if they poured the ice water on
themselves. Some people did the challenge but didn’t donate. One study found that even though over 15 percent of the
British population had done the challenge, only 10 percent actually gave any money to charity. Other people pointed out
that so much attention on one charity pulls attention away from other, equally worthwhile charities. ALS research profited,
but other research efforts received less money than usual because of it.

[25]    So, was the Ice Bucket challenge a good thing or not? That will always depend on who you talk to. Nevertheless, for
a few hot months back in the summer of 2014, the Ice Bucket Challenge brought millions of people from all over the
planet together for a “cool” cause.

Fonte: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/07/03/ice-bucket-challenge-5-things-you-should-know/448006001/

How did the challenge begin?