How one viral trend created the internet as we know it

The Ice Bucket Challenge is back as a mental health awareness campaign , reflecting its lasting influence. It was a precursor to today’s viral memes and following strangers online. Facebook engineered its virality to transform into a video entertainment hub, shaping social media today.

If you’ve watched videos from strangers on apps like TikTok and Instagram or recently used ChatGPT to create an action figure of yourself, you can trace it back to a single online moment in 2014 that’s having a comeback. That was the Ice Bucket Challenge , an online stunt and charity drive in which one person dumped icy water over their head, posted a video of it and dared someone else to do the same. Back then, we watched billions of online videos with people chilling themselves to the bone, including Oprah Winfrey, Elon Musk and Taylor Swift .



The Ice Bucket Challenge is back as a mental health awareness campaign. And the revival has made me reflect on how the original version shaped our online lives today. I’m serious.

To understand the internet you use in 2025, you need to know about the influence of this decade-old viral moment. The Ice Bucket Challenge was a precursor to today’s constant churn of viral memes, the habit of following strangers rather than people you know online and Mark Zuckerberg’s warping of social media around his obsessions..