By Dylan Hackett, News Editor
The game of beer pong (according to Wikipedia) was fashioned 40 or so years ago by Ivy League boneheads with too much time on their hands. The activity has come a long way since then, now largely played by suburban boneheads willing to mess up their parents’ basement furniture with spilled lager and crushed ego. A decent tournament of beer pong is easier to maintain than a piss-up at a brewery, and has the potential to be just as awesome.
A proper game of beer pong makes the drunken brojocks of the party smile toothier than a drunken blowjob. For those weary of drunken brojocks (and drunken blowjobs), invite them to the game anyway. Watching (semi)grown men shuffle their arms overtop arrangements of Solo cups is worth the price of admission. You can probably even say, without any irony, “do you even lift?” to half of these guys and have your banter reciprocated. That feels good, right?
Fill your cups with a lager or really fluffy ale like Alexander Keith’s. Neither brownie nor bro-points are allotted to those who swill back quarter-filled cups of limited edition chocolate stouts and you’ll look like a complete knob when you hold back the game by belching out your intestines on the table. If you’re looking to parade your refined taste for craft beer, then your evening is better spent fawning over ale selection and overpriced nachos at St. Augustine’s.
Don’t be a dick at the beer pong table. Celebratory dances, handshakes, hugs, multi-step fists bumps, and rear slaps are, of course, mandatory but don’t be the pair of losers who retaliate against the winning team. Shake their hands and acknowledge their victory like a decent human being. In my days of underage imbibery, sodden by tall cans of Lucky Force 8, I sprayed the victor team with lilac-scented (I doubt it tasted like lilac) cleaning spray and my co-loser teammate proceeded to run across the table and punch a hole in the wall. Don’t be us. We were dicks.
Four types of people around the beer pong table and how to beat them
Entry-level bro
Equipped with a sixer of Coors Light Iced T and the valorous confidence that comes with being assistant captain of his house-level midget hockey team, this eager victim of Hollister advertising enlists himself in the competition in an earnest attempt to be “one of the lads.” You’ll find him embarrassingly groping his best bud’s butt cheeks by the third round with the intention of participating in the pseudo-homoerotic banter practiced by his alpha-level idols in the upper echelons of “brodom.” Incredibly prone to sexual intimidation by the opposite sex (hell, the same sex too), his performance is often curbed in the throes of rosey-cheeked bashfulness when you call him out for staring at your girlfriend’s chest. In between rounds, offer to take him outside for a Vanilla Primetime—which, if inhaled, will provide him with a dizzying niccy-rush that at best, will have him puking, or at least throw off his hand-eye coordination for the next 20 minutes.
Craft beer guy
Either taking the appearance of a geek, a hipster, or an Astronomy major, this fellow plays beer pong with commendable dexterity but limited social ability. If paired with you, this prick will expect that you drink most of his 9% ABV Tripel Belgian imperial organic unfiltered IPA cups when scored against and subsequently brag throughout the night that he finished them all in a passive aggressive struggle to prove he’s kind of, but not really, tough and hard. Avoid teaming up with him at all costs. To get his game to falter, goad him into an argument by claiming that Granville Island and Rickard’s are the best local microbrews or that Guinness is the best lager on the market—trivial arguments occupy the bulk of his over-gorged prefrontal cortex and his motor skills will suffer. For added effect, drop a few misquoted Simpsons references when his turn to throw comes up because he will correct you and thus be further distracted.
“One of the guys” chick
There’s no defeating her by conventional means; she’s mastered the craft of being a flirty socialite. This isn’t just the girl who deviates from marginally-typical gender norms in her hobbies—she’s unofficially knighted as the jocks’ best lady pal. She’s more charming and socially gifted than Gregor Robertson loaded up on Valium. Unless Julian Casablancas is throwing Ping-Pong balls across your recreational furniture, she’s also probably the coolest person at the party. Running up against her at beer pong is a matter of divide and conquer.
The self-appointed referee
Flexing his ego through macho posture, mutant bicep girth (brought on by creatine bulking and steroid abuse), and rule enforcement, the self-appointed referee and wielder of a twistedly-rigid mental rulebook is everyone’s worst enemy at the table. If this stereotype takes the form of an Engineering major, expect the jackass to bring out his measuring tape and make sure your cups take the shape of a perfect pyramid. Expect him to bring up a made up rule regarding your elbow positioning and posture to discredit any cups you score. If the game takes place in his resident municipality, expect him to hide behind “PoCo rules” or some other contrived regulation guided by over-resolute city boundaries.
To take down this creatine cretin, this whey-weary charlatan, make him aware of the effect that alcohol has on testosterone production. He’ll either fuck off altogether or hop on the “guyet” and buy a twelver of that wheaty piss marketed as Molson 67. Either way, his table presence is kept in check.
If you’re throwing a party, you should also throw a beer pong tournament. It’s better and more inclusive than other recent party favourite, flippy-cup. It also requires more skill, a reputable ballistic finesse, a refined three-finger jump shot—flippy cup basically hands your liver’s fate over to the bounce of a stupid red cup. Buy a table tennis setup or make use of your dining room furniture. You should also invite me.
