Carnivalizing Other's Misery: From Human Ice Cream Sundae to Polar Plunge to Ice Bucket Challenge.

Reflecting on Shing-Ling Chen's experience of being a Leukemia child's mother encountering others' seemingly hurtful support of her misery, the authors address the ethics of having fun activities as fundraisers for victims of traumatic events. The authors question the adequacy of hosting entertaining activities to fundraise for victims of Asian Tsunami, or patients of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS; that is, the ALS ice-bucket challenge) and cancers (e.g., polar plunge), and so on. The social dynamics and communication processes involved in these events are analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]