Why would I make a pointless cringe-worthy exhibition out of splashing a small quantity of faintly cold liquid on my head at the behest of some other attention-seeking wannabe in the name of some charity that I didn’t really care about a week ago? I know, it’s a hypocritical use of time, bandwidth and water much less a challenge.
The practice of announcing the names of your 3 acquaintances to an overpriced smartphone before making yourself moist and posting it on Facebook reeks of desperate loneliness. One can only hope that the human race will at some point take itself outside, slap itself around the face and get itself some friends.
On the other hand, you have critics desperately seeking notoriety with nothing better to do than spray their particular brand of sneering condescension at other people’s silliness. Where do people get off telling others how to spend our free time, in the garden amusing the kids?
While the scummier part of the gene pool is off busily gambling our savings or designing ingenious methods of torcher and annihilation, how is it that as a species we find the time and energy to ridicule individuals for taking part in what is essentially a slightly sad online wet t-shirt competition?
You only have to watch Arlo’s ecstatic reaction to his dad making a tit of himself to know how much pleasure can be derived from a washing-up bowl and a half-full ice cube tray.
Bickering about which charity is more deserving of the windfall is symptomatic of our social media adolescence. We have only just begun to recognise the power of this technology and its awesome ability to spread ideas. And like television, the printing press or even some ancient religious parchment before, many messages will only be welcome by those with a predilection for nonsense. Imagine the enormous potential of many-to-many communication when we realise how we can use it for more than just poking each other in the ice bucket.
Where’s that towel.