Carnage UK advertises itself as the UK’s No1 student event (as voted for by the readers of NUTS; a ringing endorsement indeed). There idea is a simple one.
To get lots of students (particularly fresher’s) drunk as humanly possible by visiting lots of local bars and nightclubs in the vicinity of the local university.
Sort of Club 18-30 but at home, in the cold.
Carnage UK has come to the attention of various newspapers and student unions who are rapidly distancing themselves from the organisation after one of their clients, Philip Laing was caught pissing on a war memorial while out on a Carnage UK event in Sheffield (bless him, without a coat on a cold northern night).
Philip Laing will now live on in internet perpetuity, forever young, forever shamed, forever getting the gall of Daily Mail readers everywhere (almost worth the trouble).
So Carnage UK has suddenly come to the attention of anyone over 25, and Philip Laing is its poster boy, and well, there is outrage. It has been no secret that students like to drink and some would indeed argue that drinking is a vital part of the student experience, it was certainly was of mine. As well as being a fledgling student I was also a fledgling alcoholic so the blatant binge drinking was my raison d’être and therefore made it easy to blend in.
What is the issue here?
Its that Carnage UK can’t possible exist as it says it exists.
Its blatantly presenting itself as a credible ‘student event’ organisation with the obligatory message about safe drinking on its website implying it actively agrees and promotes safe drinking.
When it doesn’t.
It lies.
What does Carnage UK imply to you?
A couple of nice glasses of wine and some interesting conversation? Or throw back as much alcohol as humanly possible till you can’t stand, get your willy out and pee on whatever is in front of you?
To anyone under 25 Carnage UK does exactly what it says on the tin, it gets you messed up.
Severely.
Consider that the guidance for safe appropriate drinking is 14 units per week for a woman and 21 for a man, not all at once, obviously, but spread over a week. This would mean at a Carnage event, the men would be limited to 2-3 pints and the girls to 2- 3 small glasses of wine. Now Carnage UK visits over 10 bars on an average night, as well as a club, and the events go on for hours. The bars are the kind that everyone is made to stand up and have loud music pumped out thus disabling all social interaction leaving one with the only option to drink (Duh!). Their smart these people, they know what there doing. And it’s not what they’re telling you they are doing.
Their words say one thing, “safe drinking” blah, blah, but there actions say quiet another, their actions are actively encouraging and enabling binge drinking to the point of recklessness. After all Carnage doesn’t make their money from the students they make it from the bars and clubs where they can guarantee hundreds and hundreds of willing punters. Imagine if everyone stuck to 2 or 3 drinks that would totally kill their buzz.
There is some recognition of what they are actually doing, they always have a qualified level 2 medical professional at their events? What!!!! Is this what its coming to? Each pub comes equipped with a trained medical professional because we can’t face up to the hypocrisy?
That we are pretending to only go out for a couple of pints where actually we are going to have 9 or 10 because; frankly it numbs the pain of our miserable existence. Or as a student it helps you ‘fit in’ as does the one-night stands, hangovers, missed lecturers, self-loathing that seems to follow that level of drinking.
Why can’t they just call it that?
It’s not the booze I protest about, it’s the lies.
And from students, who are notorious for protesting and holding up a mirror to societies hypocrisy.
Just trying to keep it real.