HE KEPT US waiting, but Benedict Cumberbatch has finally revealed his ice bucket challenge.
Nominated by Tom Hiddleston two days ago, the Sherlock actor has produced a two minute video of unrelenting soakings; in the shower, on a rooftop, on a motorbike and on the street.
He’s an ambassador for the UK’s Motor Neuron Disease Association, and so his video was posted on their YouTube channel.
It’s already well on its way to virality, being shared extensively on Twitter and across online news sites.
Cumberbatch’s phenomenal popularity is due in part to fans on Tumblr, the blogging site where he’s so revered that his name features in their terms of service:
When Cumberbatch was nominated by Hiddleston it was predicted on Twitter and Tumblr that he would ‘break the internet’ when his Ice Bucket Challenge was finally posted.
Not literally ’break the internet’ of course, but cause a significant stir.
You see, Cumberbatch has form in this area. When the season three finale of Sherlock aired on BBC in January of this year, Tumblr crashed.
The finale also generated more than a quarter of a million tweets in under two hours.
When Cumberbatch took part in a Reddit Ask Me Anything session last October, the questions were coming in at a rate of a thousand in two minutes. The Daily Dot proclaimed that he had ‘broken the internet’.
When he appeared at San Diego Comic Con in July his panel interviews for both Penguins of Madagascar and The Hobbit were arguably the most written about, and he prompted headlines like this:
And then of course there was his Oscars U2 photobomb, which was one of the main talking points of the ceremony
Now Cumberbatch’s latest connection with his fans is set to dominated Tumblr and large portions of Twitter for days to come.
Within 20 minutes of his Ice Bucket Challenge video appearing online GIFs had begun to take over the Tumblr dashboard.
Already being hailed as the ‘most epic Ice Bucket Challenge yet‘ (sorry Chris Pratt), he hasn’t quite broken the internet today… but he’s not fair off it. Watch this space when Sherlock finally returns to screens at Christmas 2015.
