A little over a week ago, my Instagram feed was inundated with the USC Speak Your Mind Ice Bucket Challenge, a challenge where people would get their friends to throw gallons of ice water onto their heads before nominating two to four other people to do the same. 

There was one large reason why this trend took off in the first place; it’s just fun. It’s fun to open up Instagram and then see people you know get drenched and freak out a little bit. It’s fun to meet up with your friends and just throw water on each other. It’s fun to nominate others to do the same thing and to keep the cycle going. I participated in the challenge myself after being nominated, and it was fun, especially when I got to see my friends who I nominated do the same. However, in the midst of all the fun people were having, the purpose of the challenge got lost.

The challenge was intended to raise awareness for mental health problems and gain funding for Active Minds, a nonprofit dedicated to destigmatizing mental health and increasing mindfulness, especially on college campuses. In part, the challenge did meet its purpose, as it raised over $400,000 for Active Minds. However, when comparing this to the ALS ice bucket challenge in 2014, which followed the same strategy, the results are meager, as the ALS challenge raised over $115 million. 

I think a reason for the discrepancy in the funding can be attributed to the small range of people who participated in the Speak Your Mind challenge. The challenge was largely concentrated with high school and college students, which hurt its ability to fundraise. However, a more alarming problem was that most people just didn’t seem to care about the challenge’s purpose, instead just wanting to do it to follow a trend. In a majority of the videos I saw, there was no link to donate and no mention of Active Minds. When the trend originally started, it took me dozens of videos to even learn Active Minds was responsible for the challenge in the first place. I’d say only one in ten videos of the challenge did include either a mention of Active Minds or a link to donate to the organization. While the challenge was ultimately successful in a way, I just feel like it could have done more if more people were willing to do some research on the challenge’s purpose and origins.

Despite its flaws, the challenge was a net positive. The ability of some college students in South Carolina to fundraise $400,000 is a great feat which should be celebrated. These students saw a trend which was popular in 2014 and successfully co-opted it, knowing it would take off again because doing an ice bucket challenge is just plain fun. Despite these positives though, I do think more could have been done, which is slightly disappointing for me especially as someone who comes from a family of people with mental health challenges. I just wish the challenge’s lasting impact was its ability to fundraise rather than its ability to be fun for one weekend. 

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Ryan Sharp at [email protected].