The Not so Nice Side of Neck Nomination

As we are all aware the phenomenon of Neck Nominations has been filling up our Facebook home pages for the past few weeks. Believed to have started off in Australia, where I assume Fosters made a regular appearance, this is the drink and dare game where the nominee is expected to drink a pint of some concoction of alcohol and video the challenge. Previously The Tab revealed how this game no more originated in Australia than cricket did!

Sure, why not try having half a dozen eggs and increase your protein intake lads!

However, drinks are going beyond the cheeky pint to becoming pure poison, with all kinds mixed together going beyond the realm of drink to grass, living worms and last night’s Chinese take away. One video shows a young guy on the toilet who proceeds to drink a blend of drink and his own dump. People are drinking their own excrement to try and beat the ‘challenge’ of the nominator, how is this not ridiculous!? Other ingredients including the delicious athlete foot’s powder, enticing WD40 and flavoursome Vaseline.

Neck Nomination = beer, milk, red wine, prawn crackers and Chinese

The Irish have, of course, gone one step further to keep their drinking reputation with a ‘future’ solicitor from Newry swallowing a living fish. Amid a barrage of resulting death threats this woman has proceeded to change her Facebook name and tried to justify her behaviour; ‘I’m young. I was drunk’. The excuse given by all drunk students somehow does not seem to cover it in this situation.

‘I love haters’ – good job for the Newry fish supper

But this weekend the fun and games seemed to reach something more serious. An Irish DJ was found unconscious in his home in Dublin, and although the post-mortem is not complete, it is believed his death was linked with his involvement in neck and nominate. Whether his death is indeed linked to the drinking craze or not, it’s raised awareness, and a tidal wave of media moral panic to the increasingly crazy lengths people will go to to impress with their neck nominations.

Following this death, Irish 19 year old, Johnny Byrne, was found drowned in the river following his neck nomination. His family have since called for a boycott to the neck nomination trend, with Byrne’s bother tweeting; “This neck nomination s**t has to stop right now. My young 19-year-old brother Jonny Byrne from Carlow died tonight in the middle of his nomination… He thought he had to try and beat the competition and after he necked his pint he jumped into the river…”

Sure we all like a good drink but, and for every neck nomination horror story there are some harmless and even impressive stunts (although amongst the barrage of crap Facebook attempts they’re few and far between) as students, it is becoming harder to distinguish between a casual chug and something which is utter madness, just to be seen as a ‘mental drinker’ and to impress people on the internet. Especially for the Irish who supposedly drink 2.7 litres more of pure alcohol a year than the average European.

Now, we students are renowned for not really heeding the advice of Alcohol Awareness such as #drinkresponsibly, and we all sometimes regret that decision the next morning, but with something like Neck nominations where you jeopardize not only your liver but also your future and even your life, we should perhaps think that maybe some drinking games could be one shot too far.