[Chris is me]

The challenge didn't go viral and didn't find the success it has managed to have by one dude going "okay, Internet, you're all challenged, do it now or donate $100!" It caught on because the challenges following it were individual and targeted. This creates some social obligation to follow through, as well as an entertaining few second video clip of your friends covered in ice. Hopefully , ideally, that makes you stop scrolling through Facebook for a second to at least think about and research disorders like ALS. (Honestly, I think Facebook embedding videos on mobile is a huge part of why this caught on.)

Effective and useful (hey, $4 million+ isn't a joke), or pointless and stupid, whatever you want to call it, challenging 1000+ people all at once just doesn't work. It's so broad no one feels any obligation to do it, which was the main impetus kicking this meme forward. If I posted "the entirety of the Internet is now challenged", how many people would do it because of what I said? Probably nobody.

That said, it is by all means a worthy cause and I hope no one on the fence uses this post to rationalize not donating.