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Vodka Eyeballing "Trend" Jumps the Pond
By
John Del Signore
Published May 27, 2010
Modified May 27, 2010
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By
John Del Signore
Published May 27, 2010
Modified May 27, 2010
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If you thought Bros Icing Bros was genius, you're gonna love this new teen trend: pouring vodka directly onto your eyeball. The Daily Mail reported on the phenomenon a couple of weeks ago, and now it's catching on in America, according to a scary report on CBS2. The news show doesn't have any evidence to support this "alarming" and "shocking" claim, but they do talk to people on the street to get their reactions.
"That sounds like the most idiotic thing I've ever heard in my life," opined Alex Fast of the East Village. Stupid indeed, but is it really catching on? The Daily Mail did find one 22-year-old woman whose eye is permanently scarred by vodka eyeballing. "I'm in constant pain because of what I did," she says. "And I'm terrified that it will get worse. I wish I could turn the clock back and change things. But I can't." The Mail also says this is "a popular nightclub trick performed by waitresses for tips" in Las Vegas. And there are hundreds of YouTube videos of people supposedly knocking back vodka eyeball shots. So, good enough; let's call it a trend and cut to the scaremongering: Your children are coming home from college blind in one eye, you know!
But why? CBS2 doesn't actually have any attributable quotes in their segment, but they watched a lot of the YouTube videos and report that "the pain gives way to an instant high and then a deeper state of drunkenness." Which sounds pretty boss, because it's so annoying waiting around for vodka to hit your bloodstream. However, Dr. Richard Rosen of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary warns, "It's like using paint stripper on the surface of your eye." Okay, then, definitely sounds like something you want to avoid... unless of course somebody dares you.
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vodka
vodka eyeballing
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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