Dangerous Drinking?

Another day, another moral panic.  This time the root cause of the media's hand-wringing is the supposed social media game 'Neknomination', which is currently being blamed for every drink-related death in the UK.  It's amazing that something the overwhelming majority of us hadn't even heard of a scant week ago is now being hyped as the greatest threat to Western civilisation since Genghis Khan's Mongol hordes swept across Asia Minor.  Because, apparently, there aren't idiots out there who drink dangerous amounts of alcohol if it isn't part of some 'game'.  Believe me, people, especially young people, have been drinking like idiots since alcohol was invented.  Usually to impress their friends, potential girl friends or even just some random onlookers.  The only thing that has changed is that they don't have to do it in some grotty town centre pub, (or under a motorway flyover if they are underage), to an audience of fellow idiots.  No, now they can do it from the comfort of their own living room whilst their mates (and some random onlookers) watch via their webcam.

But that's not the way the media wants you to perceive things.  If we're to believe them, then none of the 'victims' of this 'game' would ever have tried to down a pint of vodka in one, (with fatal consequences), if it wasn't for the existence of Facebook.  Actually, I'm pretty sure they would have.  The fact is that it is drinking like an idiot and not respecting alcohol which kills people, not online drinking 'games'.  Damn it, when I was a student, I remember drinking some pretty stupid amounts of beer and some pretty ill advised alcoholic combinations - and the internet hadn't been invented then, let alone social media.   But the media loves a good moral panic, where they can blame something they don't understand or approve of for all kinds of moral degradation. Believe me, the fact that the press have latched onto this story at the same time as there is yet more discussion about setting minimum prices per unit for supermarket alcohol is no coincidence.  Just as it is no coincidence that only the other day we had a supposedly independent report trumpeting about how awful it is that, thanks to the web, we're all now only a couple of clicks away from hardcore pornography and that - surprise, surprise - people access it on their smartphones and tablets, oh, and children have smartphones and tablets, at the same time that the government is still trying to justify its censorship of the web by stealth through the alleged threat posed to children by internet porn.   That's enough ranting for now - someone's just challenged me to drink a pint of crème de menthe, so I've got to go...