The fad has already passed, but the impact isn’t going to be forgotten so quickly.

For most of August, Facebook and Twitter were “deluged” with videos featuring the Ice Bucket Challenge, meant to raise awareness for ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease), a fatal neurological disorder.

Except it didn’t really accomplish that.

The main gimmick of the campaign was that anyone challenged had to either dump a bucket of ice all over themselves, donate $10 and challenge three more people or simply donate $100 and challenge three more people. What could go wrong?

It may have been a great idea, but the execution was terrible. While the ALSA got an insane amount of money, many people did the challenge without donating, essentially turning the challenge into cries of “Hey, look at me, I’m doing something for a cause!”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that the ALSA was getting so much money. It’s just that there are so many other charities that miss out on money because of the challenge.

The other problem is that people were getting roped in that absolutely did not want to do the challenge, myself included. I’m not one to turn down something like that normally, but seriously, why should somebody be telling me who to give my money to?

A lot of water got wasted as a result of the challenge. That’s already bad enough when California was going through a drought this summer, but consider that a billion people on this planet can’t get clean water. Gallons upon gallons of perfectly good water were wasted.

This sort of fundraising has been going on for years (just look at Relay for Life and St. Baldrick’s), and it’s not going to go away anytime soon. But if people want to give money to a cause, they should do it as a meaningful gesture of charity, not just because they feel the need to hop onto the social media bandwagon.