Downing drinks is a key part of student life. Your ability
and willingness to down drinks will be a deciding factor in how much people
respect you and want to party with you.
Everyone knows at least one person who
claims to have downed a pint of some spirit or
the other, usually Sambuca or
vodka. A lot of people may have seen it done. A few of us might have done it.
But you’ll all have almost certainly tried downing something at some point;
whether a regular pint, dodgy king’s cup, Jagerbomb or “as much Frosty Jack’s
as you can”.
Well Neknominate is a new trend online that pretty much is
exactly that. You down some ridiculous quantity, often in a fairly ridiculous situation (skateboarding down a busy road, jumping off a bridge, surfing, the usual idiotic stuff really), upload a video of you doing it
to the internet and then nominate someone else to do the same. It seems to be
usually a pint of vodka, although I suspect that at least 80% of the videos are
actually of people downing water and pretending, in the hope they can get their
friends to do the real thing.
Obviously, as with any drinking game or trend, the media is
having a hissy fit about the dangers associated with it. YES, it is stupid to
down a pint of vodka, no-one’s disputing that. But it’s likely to always be a
thing; needless competition is a part of life, and drinking is one of the
easiest things you can compete in. Sure it is dangerous, but is it being overblown? (Well skateboarding down the road while necking two pints is pretty fucking dangerous, see the first video below - Ed) And if you exaggerate the dangers too much,
no-one under 30 is going to believe there’s any danger worth noting, which is where it
actually gets dangerous. So if you’re really concerned about it, stop exaggerating
the dangers and calm down.
Of course, commenters on the trend are less concerned with
safety. Actually, they seem quite in favour of the trend as a great means for “culling
idiots”. Fair point really.
Here are a few of the most popular clips:
Here are a few of the most popular clips:
Ari Carrington