14 DAY TRIAL // Kim Kardashian is the latest celebrity to take the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, with the first of the two videos embedded below showing that she did it in front of a live audience on The Ellen DeGeneres show. The episode was taped in advance and aired last night.
Host Ellen had teased her fans on Instagram some hours before the show aired, with an Instragram video that showed the reality star about to have a bucket of ice water poured on her head, as she held a phone firmly in one hand, ready to snap the selfie of the Challenge.
Yes, Kim selfied her Ice Bucket Challenge, which is supposed to be a charity effort meant to raise awareness and money for the ALS Association, in the hope of finding a cure for the disease. Where Kim is concerned, not even charity trumps self-promotion.
Shameless self-promotion
The video below will show that the entire time Kim did the Challenge, all she could think of was that the water would be too cold for her to bear and that she might not be able to snap selfies that she would later deem ok.
In fact, she didn’t even make it halfway through the bucket, as she screamed and jumped off the chair, leaving Ellen still holding the bucket with some water. However, once up, she assured the TV host that she’d snapped some selfies that were pretty “good.” Priorities, Kim has them.
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has lost its meaning, is PR trampoline for attention-hungry stars
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge started as a very noble campaign that would either raise money or help educate those taking part in it on what it feels like to suffer from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease). The latter would be achieved by pouring ice water over the head and body.
Once you’re nominated for the Challenge, you have 24 hours to decide what you want to do: donate money or drench yourself in ice water, before nominating 3 or 4 other people and thus involve your friends too.
In recent days, more and more celebrities are doing the Challenge on TV shows, while doing promotional work, without a single mention of ALS or what their gesture stands for. We may as well assume that many of these celebrities don’t even donate money to the Association once their stunt is over.
Kim is in good company, but her gesture still smacks of pure shamelessness
Kim Kardashian isn’t the only celebrity to use the Ice Bucket Challenge for purely promotional purposes. Lindsay Lohan did it on a TV show, as also did British actor Idris Elba, and neither even as much as mentioned ALS or what the Challenge was all about.
In other words, the curvaceous reality star is in excellent company. Still, she is the only one that we know of so far (from celebrities, that is) to selfie her Challenge and not even be able to stand it from start to finish.
Saying “it’s for a good cause” when all you care about is getting the right selfie while you’re in the middle of doing “charity” work means you equate “good cause” with “myself.” This isn’t necessarily a bad thing because selfishness never killed anyone, but it’s offensive when you assume people watching are too dumb to tell the difference and will believe you on your word.
