re: Who comes up with these lame challenges?

The Louisiana-Mississippi Chapter of the ALS association was extremely helpful to my aunt and uncle when he contracted the disease, and it gets funded by this (directly and through the national association), and this has obviously been a great year for them because of this trend. They provided equipment, support, access to other families suffering through it, so you can't just say money never gets there. Here's the local chapter's link for anyone interested or worried about a direct local effect. Gleason's is awesome, too. The ALS wing he built on a New Orleans hospital is just amazing

LINK

here's team Gleason's
Gleason

As far as it being a fad, I said this in another thread, but yes it is just a fad. It will eventually pass, sadly, and people complaining to an Internet forum about it can find something else to be bothered by. But when it does pass, people with the disease and their families will be grateful this likely one off, momentary fad will have raised 30 million more dollars to fight that horrendous disease (even if every single video maker didn't make a cash donation). That's like 25 years or so of normal fundraising at zero cost to the ALSA, so anyone claiming this goofy fad has no effect is being obtuse. So the great struggle that the complainers had to endure to make it to the bottom of their Facebook feeds will not be for nothing.

eta Gleason's link, also.