Last but not least: Three million flushed toilets

The Ice Bucket Challenge was undoubtedly the global web event of the year. To raise awareness of ALS and generate donations, people around the world doused themselves with ice water in front of the camera and then nominated colleagues for the challenge. They in turn had 24 hours to complete the task. The charitable snowball principle mobilized large numbers of prominent participants in particular (more on the reasons for the success: Beat Hürlimann in the advertising week).

Only a few dared to refuse the digital chain letter. Mehrdad Amirkhizi, Head of Department at Horizont, declined the challenge and - contrary to his fears - did not receive criticism, but applause. ARD newsreader Linda Zervakis also joined the ranks of the "refuseniks", citing more than just her pregnancy as the reason. She prefers to donate quietly - even to other people in need.

In Germany in particular, the number of critical voices increased over the course of the campaign. Many participants forgot the actual purpose of the ice water shock due to all the self-promotion and self-promotion. More or less prominent participants such as Micaela Schäfer, Verona Pooth and Helene Fischer presented themselves half-naked to an audience of millions in a highly publicized manner. Rapper Kay One made fun of the fact that his Archenemy to nominate Bushido. Was this really in the spirit of the now deceased inventor of the challenge? In particular, the fact that the amount of donations generated in Germany was extremely low compared to other countries raises questions about the sense and nonsense of the whole campaign. It seems that very few people were interested in the disease ALS itself - the hype surrounding the challenge, on the other hand, went beyond all limits.

The next point of criticism was not long in coming: For example, the association "Ärzte ohne Tierversuche e.V." ("Doctors without animal experiments") called for a Donation boycott on. The money would be used for torturous animal experiments, although it has been known for years that these are "a complete mistake" for ALS research. The challenge lost its luster. To make matters worse, the media also reported on two deaths that were said to be linked to the ice water.

And last but not least, the Brazilian NGO Ond Azul, together with the agency NBS, has now also "Empty Bucket"-movement was launched. Saving water with empty buckets. She calculates that around 20 million liters of water have been spilled worldwide in the course of the Ice Bucket Challenge. Water that could be put to better use in Brazil, which is plagued by water shortages, than pouring it over people's heads. For example, to fill 60 million glasses of water, wash seven and a half million hands or flush the toilet three million times.

Even if this trend is unlikely to spill over into our water-spoiled climes - and certainly not after this summer - people in Switzerland continue to donate diligently to charitable causes. Most of the time, it's done quietly - true to the modest motto: do good and keep it to yourself.

Thomas Häusermann