#necbucket

9. The affinity impulse: The ALS Ice Bucket challenge helped those who participated, feel connected to something bigger than themselves.

I can’t think of anyone that hasn’t heard of the ALS Ice Bucket challenge that swept the internet in 2014. I know from my own experience that I saw the majority of my friends participate and yes I participated as well. If I can manage to find it I’ll post the video from the one I did. There are many reasons that challenges like this are successful. Groundswell  highlights 9 specific reasons. The first reason is to maintain friendships. In the world of social media you want to have exciting things to post and share. Just as much as people want to watch and like exciting things that their friends are doing. Challenges like this create a sense of excitement. It’s fun to look at facebook and find out who else has participated in a challenge. The second reason is to make new friends. By sharing experiences like the ice bucket challenge you might connect with other like minded people who see your posts. These sort of connections forge new friendships. A third reason is succumbing to social pressure. You don’t want to be the only one or your social group to not participate. You want to be cool, you want to show your support. No one wants to be left out right? It’s important to be part of the group and have people think your cool, isn’t it? In the instance of the ice bucket challenge there was a pay it forward type reason, reason number 4. The ice bucket challenge was created to raise both money and awareness for ALS. When participating in the challenge it gave the participants the feeling that they were part of the greater good. This also ties into the 5th reason which is the altruistic impulse. Doing something for the greater good, doing something just because it’s right and not because it offers you any personal gain. People participating in the ALS ice bucket challenge felt as though they were helping to support a good cause. The 6th reason is the prurient impulse, watching people complete the ice bucket challenge was fascinating. Some people failed with elaborate attempts, watching them provided endless hours of fun. The ability to be creative while completing the challenge or the creative impulse is the 7th reason. People were able to show off different ways that they completed the ice bucket challenge in a new and unique way. The 8th reason is the validation impulse. People completed the ice bucket challenge in order to get validation from their peers. People could post the challenge and then see how many likes and comments it got, all while feeling good about what they had done. Lastly is the affinity impulse. The affinity impulse means that you can connect with people over a shared interest. The common base of experience was the will to fund research to combat a disease. Whereas the majority of people have not experienced ALS first hand, they can rally around wanting to find a cure for a disease that could affect them or loved ones.