The recent Ice Bucket challenge seemed to start trending in only a few days and soon spread all around the world, with people competing in the challenge. The challenge was created by students at the University of South Carolina (USC) who were advocating for more mental health awareness, hence the name, the “USC Speak Your Mind Challenge”.

The USC Ice Bucket Challenge to many seems like a remix of the original Ice Bucket Challenge back in 2014 that was used to bring awareness to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The 2014 challenge gained worldwide attention and had everyone participating, even many notable celebrities such as LeBron James, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lady Gaga and many more. Now in 2025, this new ice bucket challenge has a more general message for overall mental health awareness.

The challenge is pretty simple. A participant is elected by a friend or family member through a social media platform tagging them in a video electing them to do the ice bucket challenge, giving them 24 hours to respond. Then you have to dump a bucket of ice water on your head and elect another person to do the challenge, keeping the challenge going.

Challenges like this have become increasingly common in recent years in hopes of bringing awareness to certain issues. Whether or not challenges like these are actually helping to bring awareness to mental health is increasingly up for debate. Students have a wide range of opinions on the topic.

“I did do it for mental health awareness but I feel like the meaning behind it has been lost,” said junior James England. “I feel like the same thing happened with the ASL one, where people did the challenge but forgot the meaning behind it. I think people just want to be part of a trend and they forgot the reason things became a trend,” England said.

“I think it’s a good thing, but I don’t really understand how it promotes mental health awareness,” said junior Zoe Huelster. “I think its fun though, just doesn’t really change anything,” Huelster stated.

A common opinion across the school seems to be that the trend had good intentions, but the meaning of it was lost quickly and soon became just another new challenge. Many across the country have realized this and have posted the meaning of the USC Ice Bucket Challenge along with a video of themselves doing it. Some people, however, did not see any point in the challenge at all.

“That challenge was so corny, I’m not even going to lie to you,” said ninth-grader Yacqub Ali. “I did not participate even though a lot of people nominated me for it,” Ali said. When asked if the challenge had done any good, Ali stated, “No, it did absolutely nothing.”

The recent Ice Bucket Challenge took the world by storm quickly, with the intent of spreading mental health awareness, whether or not their goal was achieved remains uncertain.

Updated 5/14: A previous version of this story stated that the challenge was created by students at the University of Southern California, instead of the University of South Carolina.