BEER PONG (Best Exhibition of Established Rules in Playing One Notorious Game)

“Heroes are made one cup at a time”

Beer Pong.It’s the most common drinking game found at any party. With people, a table, and just a bit of intoxication, this renown game seizes the nightlight and ‘raises the roof’ of the party. But as the game progresses, how does its participants and spectators abide by the rules while intoxicated? Shouldn’t the lines become blurred and rules ignored as alcohol decreases the sense of judgment? Maybe perhaps, playing the game surpasses the limit of sound judgment and absolutely isolates the player into a whole separate from that of reality.

This in itself is both exciting and frightening regarding society’s inner workings. I’m not trying to say that drinkings games are ruining society -they’re fun and just as interwoven into society as football games and politics are. But how we play drinking games like beer pong says a lot about how society revolves around the games we play.

At the state of intoxication, rules and boundaries begin to blur and abiding by ‘sober’ rules becomes incredibly harder; hence, the worst of crimes happen when people are intoxicated. According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism,

Conservative estimates of sexual assault prevalence suggest that 25 percent of American women have experienced sexual assault, including rape. Approximately one-half of those cases involve alcohol consumption by the perpetrator, victim, or both. Alcohol contributes to sexual assault through multiple pathways, often exacerbating existing risk factors. Beliefs about alcohol’s effects on sexual and aggressive behavior, stereotypes about drinking women, and alcohol’s effects on cognitive and motor skills contribute to alcohol-involved sexual assault.

But even at this extent of intoxication, beer pong’s rules remain as solid as ever among players. There were instances where certain players are beyond the point of memory (as it happens on certain hardcore nights), and still manage to play the game by the rules with little to no enforcement of said rules.

National Beer Pong Association

Luckily, the players themselves enforce the rules of beer pong to keep each other in check for the sake of the game. This is golden principle behind Lito Tejada-Flores’ “Games Climbers Play” where it is the community of participants that create and regulate the rules of play.

Players of beer pong, like most participants of sports, are isolated into Huizinga’s “Magic Circle” where the beer-pongers must abide by the rules of a ‘world’ separate from the party in the background. For example, those involved in sober and/or intoxicated games of beer pong seldom realize the amount of spectators or players on standby (those who called next game). The world for these players is solely governed by the desire to sink that ping pong ball into a cup, hence pulling them away from reality. But it is this crucial point that worries me the most. What if manslaughter becomes a sick game among a group of serial killers? Won’t they be too blinded by the goal in sight and go on a killing spree? What about Roman gladiator games? Do games separate us from moral boundaries for the sake of playing something?

Well, to be frank, no.

Games, in their very nature, is meant to be enjoyable as much as it is enjoyable to watch. In Suits’ “Grasshopper,” he argues that even in Utopia a carpenter will build a house for the sake of building for pleasure. Likewise, we as a society participate in such games like beer pong to enjoy ourselves and become ‘heroes’ momentarily by sinking that last cup or that island. In winning a beer pong game, the players are immediately reintroduced to the party as conquering heroes and brought back into society. In this way, beer pong players are the safest drunks (figuratively speaking).

In many forms, players of beer pong are constantly reminded of the society partying behind them. A high five here and a “so close, dude!” there is enough to remind the players of the party and society they all share. Hence, in this way the likelihood of some low-handed crime caused by beer pong players is slim to none when they are inside the magic circle.

There you have it folks! Go Party!

Even if society were to create some sick, twisted game, the governance of the magic circle and the participants will limit the extent to which the game is taken. Any game, especially beer pong, is played with mutual respect for one another -a beer ponger will not do unto another as he will do unto himself. It is this very reason that games are enjoyed in society.

No matter how great the fame and glory of victory, no one is allowed to surpass the moral and ethical limits of society. Because in doing so the player is no longer playing the game but has become someone else entirely -someone who is unfit to play on the great field of life.