At the risk of sounding like an asshole... · 4:11am Aug 21st, 2014
OK, on the topic of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.
Fucking... what is it going to accomplish? All you're doing is making yourself look like a complete and utter tool.
Apparently if you get challenged you're supposed to donate $100 to a charity if you refuse, or $20 if you do the challenge. I don't know how true that is, it's just what I heard.
Granted it raises awareness I'll give you that much, but you're making yourself look like tossers.
People get diagnosed with illnesses every day. People die every day. What makes the dude that got diagnosed with ALS (aka Lou Gherigs Disease) so special? Publicity. Why do more famous people generally get the spotlight when it comes to things like these? There are people that have it worse than whoever the dude is, there's nothing special about him aside the publicity.
What things like this come back to is people like to think they're a good person by participating and thinking they give a shit about some poor sod that has a debilitating disease.
Famous celebrities die? OH BOO FUCKING HOO WHAT A TRAGEDY LETS ALL CRY AND MAKE MEMORIAL PAGES AND DO RETARDED CHALLENGES. What say some average Joe's family member dies? What if he makes a memorial page about his family member? Bet it won't get 10 likes, and I bet that person will get hate mail for trying to get attention or whatever.
There is literally no difference between a well known person dying, and a homeless person dying on the streets. You are NOT a good person if you care about one and not the other, more so if you're willing to do retarded challenges for the former and not the latter. I don't see anyone doing retarded challenges for the latter.
I guess what I'm so pissed off about is I've had by grandmother die a few years ago, my uncle died last week, and they didn't get nearly the same attention as those goddamn tools. WHAT MAKES FAMOUS PEOPLE SO SPECIAL!?!?
It's just how stupid and unaware our society can be. For others though maybe a celebrity really did change their life. Said person then has a real, meaningful reason to be sad. You're uncle probably impacted some people in his life, including you. You had a meaningful reason to be sad. You honored him and his spirit just by being there and thinking about and loving him. Ignore the rest who want to flow with the crowd and keep with the trend. Your individual actions are important and make you who you are. Never forget that.
There's a stupider challenge, where teens must light themselves on fire
2387590
Anyone that does any sort of stupid challenge in the name of anything deserves the darwin award that follows
i agree with some things, and disagree...but I thought that ice challenge thing would help more people not just one
good thing i'm not famous then 
I thought it was Ice Water, not Ice Bucket? Either way, I take offense to the beginning due to the fact that my girlfriend has been nominated to do it, and she plans to. Aside from that, however, I agree. And I don't understand why death is considered a sad thing. People should be happy; that person isn't suffering anymore. It's the people that are experiencing torture that should be receiving the attention, and by that I mean attention that will actually help them.
2387758
I still think she is crazy. There are more notable causes out there than this silly trend.
2387758
Doing the ice challenge is stupid and retarded. I would not hesitate to say that to the face of influential and powerful individuals like Obama or the Queen if they got nominated to do it. Give your girlfriend a Darwin Award, she deserves it.
When people idolise celebrities, and treat/think they're god like, revere them etc etc. It disgusts me, it realy does.
What is a celebrity, someone famous, who may have done a movie, made a song, or whatever, but at the end of the day what are they, they're human like the rest of us.
And in modern society its pretty much like this, someone dies in a community, it will be a tragety for that persons family and friends, to a lesser extent the rest of the community depending on how well people in the community knew that person.
If a celebrity dies "oh god sweet jesus its a global tragety, we should all wear black armbands and go into mourning *breaks down crying*". Don't get me wrong, if a celebrity dies yes it is sad, but god damn unless you knew that person personally turn off the water works.
As for that Ice water challenge, is it for a good cause, yeah sure, is the way people fund rasing it stupid, yes it is, because people have died from doing it.
I've given money to charities like the cancer foundation before, but when you're fund rasing, and doing something stupid like the ice bucket challenge, and forcing people to pay either way, I'd tell them to fuck off. and I have had an incident my school.
First was some weedy faggot that nobody liked decided to jump in with a group of people going around seeing if anyone wanted to volunteer to shave their head for cancer (completly optional) and he decided to harass me about it "until you say yes" his exact words. Now I'm a guy with long hair, and I told him I wouldn't mind throwing in $10 for a donation but didn't want to cut my hair, he kept harasing me to the point of saying "you have to cut your hair for this you fucking wanker". There were teachers around too, (the relaxed sort who don't mind a bit of swearing here and there) But it got to the point after 40 minutes of this I told him to "Fuck off, or I'll come back tomorrow with my hunting knife and fucking scalp you" He promptly ran away like the pussy shit he was, and a teacher had me up for swearing (yet he'd been swearing to my face 10 minute near non stop) and making threats. End life story.
2387911
Not entirely true. You die from doing something completely retarded during it. One dude I heard about in New Zealand drank a whole bottle of whisky during his challenge. Alcohol poisoning.
2387918
Yeah disregard what I said, I got had by a hoax article........my bad......need to learn to read again......
And yeah, I actually live in NZ, Saw it on the morning news, a 40 year old man dies after consuming about a liter of Jim beam bourbon then doing the ice water challenge, then having a heart attack, he was resucitated and taken to hospital, only to die two days later in the night from another heart attack. But yeah alcohol posioning.
2387934
Well shit, I live in NZ too O.O
Twitter is abuzz with the shit that's going down in Ferguson, Missouri.
Meanwhile, Facebook is obsessed with Ice Buckets.
Says it all, really.
If indulging people in their own arrogance/narcissism raises money for a good cause, who gives a shit?
Let them dump ice water on themselves. Who loses in this scenario?
Seriously, are you just upset because its everywhere you see? If that's the price of a good cause getting attention and money, it's a price that can't be beat.
2388104
I'm upset because people piss and fucking moan like no end when famous people die. They don't give two shits when starving kids in Africa die.
If you care about the former more than the latter, you're not a good person.
I challenge Justin Beiber to the Boiling-Fucking-Hot Water Challenge.
You have 24 hours to respond Justin.
Have fun.
Alcatraz, my best friend's grandfather died of ALS about two weeks ago. That's why I did the challenge.
My mother died five months ago of a lung infection. Slightly unrelated, since it wasn't ALS, but still.
This challenge isn't just for celebrities. Unfortunately, they get much more publicity because they're, well, celebrities.
People are shallow and fickle, but don't be angry at everyone just for doing the challenge. Some had other things in mind when they did it.
I agree. Famous people piss me off; like, who cares if you got laid by someone who wasn't your husband? Who CARES if you stubbed your toe down the street? And who cares if you died??
Those magazines that follow like, Justin Beiber and the other latest 'hottest people'...? They are killing trees for THOSE magazines? I see like, little girls getting absorbed in the 'Selena Gomez reveals how to have hot sizzling sex with her period!" articles and I just wanna kill everyone. I HATE those magazines, HATE celebrities, and if it were up to me, would banish them all to an island full of tigers. No, not even tigers - I LIKE tigers, and wouldn't subject them to celebrities.
And I agree; who cares if they died? People in Africa and people with cancer die every day, but do THEY matter? No, apparently not.
I can TOTALLY understand your frustration. Really. I am right up there with you.
2388174
I'm sorry to hear that. :(
HOWEVER.....if it is people like Matt Damon, I don't mind occasional updates on him, because they are just that- occasional! He runs a good life, a wife, kids, and is a good actor who deserves the recondition, like any good artist or author does. He doesn't revel in the fame, and so he is good in my books.
Same with Robin Williams - not many people knew he suffered from such severe depression, and so when he killed himself, it actually WAS a tragedy. But did they play on it like, forever like they probably will JB if he dies? No. Will it raise awareness? Yes. Will it hopefully let people know that celebs really aren't the god/esses you think they are, that they are regular humans and as fucked up as you and me? Yeah, hopefully.
I pity celebs, actually. They thrive on all the attention, and that is just pathetic. I mean, they have to be real lonely to need a bllion people to 'love' them. Not.....that I can't TOTALLY relate - I do sorta thrive off the attention I get off my writing, from random viewers, and revel in their attention. But in my eyes, its because I worked for it, not just because I'm 'hot' or something. - I put time and blood and sweat in my writing, and the reward is reviews. So there.
That is it for my rant today, it expires my quota. Wow, so early too.
Stay strong Alcatraz, and I totally commend you for having such an open, honest opinon on things. It is a joy to read your posts, because they are so blunt and real. :)
2387953
Really now, Which Island North or South?
I didn't even know about the celeb having it. I've just been aware of the disease for a while and did the ALS ice bucket challenge to hello support all people with the disease.
The famous people thing is awful, though. Famous dude kills himself? The whole world is upset. my cousin kills himself? Nobody gives a shit.
2388822
North
2388116
People piss and moan when famous people die because that famous person actually evoked an emotional response. People remember laughing when Robin Williams told a funny joke. They remember the way someone like that evoked an emotional response.
The sad truth of the matter is, the starving people AROUND THE WORLD, don't touch our lives in the same way because we never met them. They never had a chance to be a part of our lives. Let's not forget the people dying from ebola, the people dying from cancer, the people dying at the hands of child soldiers, the child soldiers themselves who never get to grow up, the people who die from dehydration simply because they have no access to clean water...
There are more people dying every second than you can fathom from things you'd be better off not thinking about. They simply never had a chance to impact our lives.
Couple that with the fact that there is very little we can do to stop their deaths and yes, they won't have the same impact as some famous people.
Every life is important, but we can't fret about them all. The only thing we can do is move forward. The ice bucket challenge doesn't even represent a certain celebrity. To say that it does is to ignore the other people who die from it.
How about the child that loses her father to als? Do you not care about them? By your logic, not caring about them also makes you a bad person. It's all about perspective. One person's life or death does not mean more than the other. It's simply different. I would personally strangle an entire nursing home full of old people if it meant I could bring my fiance back.
Yes, I'm making a value judgement on people's lives there, but one of the things you learn when you grow up is that you can't save everyone. You can't change the world. You can only cause a ripple, and with that, hope it means something.
And finally, one last thing to think about: You can't outlaw death. It's coming for us all. In the end when it does, you have to ask if what you left behind made a difference, and that's a question I ask myself every night.
2389064
Thank you for proving how much of a horrible person you are by pretending you care about celebrities and not starving kids. You've never met famous people before. You've seen them on TV and in movies, comparible to seeing starving kids in movies and on TV. What makes one more special than the other?
Yes, lets not forget them. Yet, why do so many people do just that?
Why do people fret about famous people, then?
You're the first one to make a comment disagreeing with me to some degree. I don't care if YOU think I'm a bad person, if I've got people that think better of me for posting a controversial post that they agree with on some level than how much of a bad person can I be?
I think it's going to be appropriate to post this again. Even pricks turn into top blokes after death.
2389093
I never said you were a bad person. I don't think you are. There are no right answers here. People have been theorizing, pondering, and philosophizing this stuff hundreds, if not thousands of years before we ever took our first breath.
"the personal attack is the last refuge of the scoundrel who has nothing of substance to say"--Edmund Burke
Because they're not omnipresent in our lives. Do you cry for every person who died of malaria? How about the children who died of influenza? Are you truly telling me these people whose name you don't even know mean as much as to you as your mother, your father, girlfriend, anyone else in your life?
Do you cry for the dying people around the world the same way you did for your uncle and grandmother? I'm betting heavily against that.
I already told you that. That person made an impact, even a small one simply because you know their name. A number, no matter how tragic, means less than a name. To put it another way, you ever have someone tell you that someone you were related to died and you didn't really think much about it simply because you didn't know them? Same concept. It's an unfortunate fact of the world that the more you see death, the less of an impact it makes. I've seen a lot of death.
First, just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're against you. Healthy discussion is how we learn.
Example.
Person 1. "I like persona 4!"
Person 2. "I like persona 4 as well!"
This conversation, while pleasant, doesn't really teach someone something. One person made a statement, the other agreed, nothing was really accomplished. A healthy discussion however...
Person 1. "I like persona 4!"
Person 2."Eh, I didn't. The story didn't seem to hold up to me."
Now, right there, you had a disagreement. Persona 1 could just say, "shut up, people agree with me!" and plug their ears, or, they could listen to that statement and think about it and see if it matches up to their own experience. Person 1 may even come up with a reason why they liked the story in persona 4 that person 2 never considered. It's the exchange of information and it really shouldn't be treated in a hostile manner unless served in a hostile manner.
Oh, but if I want to dismantle that last statement...
Hitler had quite a few people that agreed with him too. Didn't make him right. There are many people in the world who believe that a woman should have their external sexual organs mutilated to keep them from committing adultery. Lots of people say vaccines cause disease and autism and they have a following of people that agree with them.
Believing that you're right and dismissing other people's opinions and perspectives is not a healthy way to live. The best way to handle it is to think about their perspective, see how it lines up with you and your beliefs, and continue on from there. If your perspective or belief is so shaky that it can't stand up to scrutiny, chances are it wasn't very strong to begin with. You may not agree with the other person, but you don't have to attack them either. No one learns anything that way.
Regardless, it's clear you're hurting. I can point to thousands of people who have problems worse than yours. It doesn't mean that your problem is not as important. When I lost my fiance, I was pissed. I made lots of trouble for myself that I didn't need to, and I was even looking at prison time at one point. How dare the world keep on spinning while I sit here lost in the same moment of time?!
It took a long time for me to recover and it wasn't easy. Though it's very rare now, there are still nights where I relive the accident. I wake up crying and sometimes screaming. I call into work because the thought of leaving the house, or sometimes even the bed is too much.
It may not mean much, and you might hate me now after what I said earlier, but trust me when I say my heart goes out to you. If you need someone to talk to, vent to, or even yell at, you know how to get ahold of me.
2389050
WHOOO North Island for the win.
Now lets crunch it down even further, what region.