Anthony Carbajal, a 26-year-old photographer from California, is challenging all the “ice bucket haters” online to watch his 7-minute ice bucket challenge and reconsider the angst they’ve directed at the seemingly never-ending new trend.
For two minutes, he spices up the ice bucket challenge with his own twist, washing his car with ice cold water in a bikini top and short shorts brandished with “Kiss My ALS.” He dumps a bucket of ice water over his head and nominates Ellen Degeneres and Miley Cyrus to do the same.
Then, he gets real.
“ALS is so, so fucking scary, you have no idea,” he says. The degenerative disease has affected his grandmother and his mother, and this year at 26, he was also diagnosed.
“People are getting frustrated about seeing the ALS ice bucket challenge right now, and that’s fine, that means our awareness is working…I promise your news feed will go back to cat videos and ‘Let It Go’ covers, but right now, the ALS community has the main spotlight. For once in my entire life, I’ve seen it in the forefront.”
“Right now my hands are starting to atrophy away. They’re getting weak, I’m having trouble starting my car and buttoning my shirt. Eventually I won’t be able to use my arms or hands at all. Eventually I won’t be able to walk, talk, and breathe on my own.”
A fundraising page for Anthony explains that he was recently engaged, and is no longer working in order to focus on his health and spend time with family. If you’d like to donate, visit Youcaring.com.
deltabadhand
His story is sad. The disease is awful and we need to raise funding to research and cure it. But the challenge is still stupid. Just post a fucking link and challenge people to donate $$$$.
DarkZephyr
@deltabadhand: Well, its successfully raising money. And this is getting it in people’s conscious in a way that just posting the link wouldn’t. Who cares if the challenge is stupid? Its working.
jjose712
@deltabadhand: Wrong, they are getting way more money (specially since celebrities started to do it), so it’s working really well.
If you don’t like it, it’s very easy to not watch the videos
Marc
What an amazing young man. Sending many blessing sent his way.
Marc
@deltabadhand: Ju”just post a fucking link”??? Oh, that’s a bright idea! Thebottom line is that this challenge may be silly, it is for a good cause and has brought more awareness than just a link.
friscoguy
I am glad the stunt is making them money so we unfortunately have to put up with the fact that many celebrities are exploiting the challenge for their own self promoting narcissistic life.
DarkZephyr
@friscoguy: Way to cheerfully look at the bright side! 😉
Ms Urethra Johnson
How does raising money help create a DNA altering cure?
Or is this “challenge” just another “Hollywood” fantasy treatment?
Sexualizing / sexy-izing ALS is just plain offensive and way TACKY.
Make it stop.
20 years since my father died of “it”. Withered away in 2 years.
I still drink myself to sleep every night. Makes me want to hit them over the head with the phukkin bucket.
You really want to help? Send MY doctor the money. Angela Genge from McGill University and the Montreal Neurological Institute. She personally tested my father and I.
Here’s the link:
http://www.mni.mcgill.ca/neuro_team/cru/angela_genge/
Kidomega123
@Ms Urethra Johnson: Perhaps the concept is the more money raised the more money ALS charities have to budget towards research to help develop a cure -OR- THERAPIES in treating the illness. He clearly states in the video that ALS research has been underfunded due to the nature that *it is* a very hard disease to figure out; but does that mean people shouldn’t bother trying? Furthermore, funding ALS charities isn’t exclusively about finding a cure. Some charities budget a large part of their funds towards providing education, advocacy, and services to people who are currently living with Lou Gehrig’s Disease; so that they may receive compassionate care and support. These are services that might possibly be beneficial to you or your family in some way. I dont pretend to understand the frustration that you are feeling, but I also dont understand the need to attack individuals who are trying to help.
dazzer
I’ve not taken the ALS challenge. Trust me, no one would want film me taking my top off and pouring an ice-bucket over my head. However, this campaign has made me make a £100 donation to the Motor Neurone Disease Association (the British version of ALS) in my country.
So, as campaigns go, I reckon this one has been pretty successful.
dazzer
@Ms Urethra Johnson: how do we actually donate at that site? To be honest, if you really wanted donations you’d have to set up a proper donation site with your real name and everything.
If you’d really wanted money, I’d have really donated.
Ms Urethra Johnson
On the right side of the page; it says: “How to Help”
Beachman
I too lost a love one to ALS a few years ago. A dear friend/brother thought he had back problems for 2 years before he was properly diagnosed, and then we lost him within 9 months. All at age 42 and healthy! He left behind a beautiful wife and 2 infant daughters…so this disease has hit home, and I think the publicity it is currently receiving is amazing.
However, recently it appears the original message and mission of the challenge is getting lost in our self-absorbed and narcissistic culture. Its becoming more about being in a video and raising ones’ popularity than about the disease itself and raising $$$.
Also, according to the ALS Association, initially an enormous amount of $$$ was raised, but that has now tapered off. And although the ‘ice bucket challenge’ has become more popular, less $$ is making it to ALSA.
So I’m not a hater…just wish we can bring the message back to its original goal.
DarkZephyr
@Ms Urethra Johnson: I see, so you denigrate HIS campaign and then insert one of your own. Gotcha.
@Beachman: Isn’t that the point of the above message…?
blackhook
What are you doing Urethra?
You got the rest of the union to help you along
…What’s going wrong?
Kidomega123
@Beachman: Yeah, that’s actually not true. If you go to the ALS Association’s website they’ve been posting daily updates on the amount of money being donated. When I made my Ice Bucket Challenge video on Monday, I went online to make my donation and at that time the tally was $19 million; an AMAZING amount by anyone’s standards, right? It’s now Friday afternoon and the tally sits at $53 million. I read a different report that stated $10 million of that was donated in the last 24 hours alone. So I’m not really sure how it is that you can assert that the Ice Bucket Challenge isn’t raising enough money via donations when there’s almost no way to quantify the massive amounts of funding taking place here. It’s actually quite extraordinary. I can understand being miffed because *some* people are participating for the wrong reasons -but- the important thing is that they’re participating, and that it’s working.
Kidomega123
@Kidomega123: Oh, I also meant to point out that by this time last year the ALSA had only raised $2.2 million in donations. So if by some strange reasons $53 million dollars doesn’t seem like enough, it’s still $51 million more dollars than they had last year. Lol.
Kangol
@DarkZephyr:
I’m with you hear. It has sparked so many people to donate money, which is a good thing. I also saw that for the religious right stem cell folks you can donate to the John Paul II Center that uses a particular kind, so that objection is addressed. Carvajal’s story is very sad. I pray that researchers can figure out a cure or a way of halting ALS’s progress very soon, for his sake and the sake of everyone else who develops disease.
Kangol
@DarkZephyr:
With you here. Typing too fast and mental homophony = typo!