Money raised from the ice bucket challenge just funded a major breakthrough in the fight against ALS

It is often easy to dismiss viral charity campaigns as “slacktivism”, which lacks in real-world impact (we never did catch the warlord Joseph Kony, after all) but a breakthrough discovery bankrolled by 2014’s ALS ice bucket challenge may give the lie to that cynicism.

The ice bucket challenge was a phenomenon in the summer of 2014 in which people dunked a bucket of iced water over their heads in order to solicit donations before nominating others to do the same.

Scores of celebrities including Mark Zuckerberg, Anna Wintour, Tom Cruise, Charlie Sheen,Robert Downey Jr and hundreds more made videos, but the campaign was criticised by some.

Slate wrote that “for most of the people posting ice bucket videos of themselves on Facebook, Vine, and Instagram, the charity part remains a postscript”, whileTime called it “problematic in almost every way”, going on to say that “most of its participants ... didn’t mention the disease at all. The chance to jump on the latest trend was an end in itself. In fact, the challenge’s structure seems almost inherently offensive to those touched by ALS.”

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