International Drinking Games

Introduction:

Alcohol and drinking has been a defining force of social engagements and dynamics as well as relationship creation itself. In addition, alcohol has been a force of entertainment. In almost any culture where drinking has found its place, people have developed drinking games to enrich their experiences of socializing while drinking. Drinking games meet the definition of a folklore as they are passed on by oral tradition and there is hardly any written record of such games. The whole purpose of drinking games is that they are orally introduced to other people at a table in a pub in order to enhance their ways of socializing.

These games have various meanings but reflect the pure nature of human engagement within diverse cultures. Some are purely for entertainment, some are a form of hazard. Some involve active physical movements and some are passive. The games reflect the genuine nature of human interactions as they are records of means of socializing in its purest form. It is one of the most intriguing ways of studying human interactions and how different cultures allow individuals to engage with one another. In this way, the folklore of drinking games may open new perspectives on societal developments and individual or group interactions across cultures.

For our collection project, we have gathered information about various forms of drinking games from cultures around the world.  This collection project includes a comprehensive set of drinking games from around the world along with specific rules for individual drinking games and an innovative means of identifying a category of a drinking game.

In categorizing the games, we have developed two main overarching categories: casual and competitive games. Within these categories, we have defined another of categories. The drinking games in our collection include word games, ball games (paddle included or excluded), miscellaneous items games (Coins or Bloody Knuckles for example), over-consumption games, and ice breakers. Ultimately, all of the drinking games could be characterized as an ice breaker. Some of the games just exhibit more characteristics of an ice-breaker.

Presentation:

International Drinking Games Presentation

Items:

 

Analysis:

Our fieldwork has proven that In almost every culture where drinking has found its place, people have developed drinking games to enrich their experiences of socializing while drinking. Drinking games meet the definition of folklore as they are passed on by oral tradition and there is hardly any written record of such games. The whole purpose of drinking games is that they are orally introduced to other people at a table in a pub, dorm, bar, or other venues to enhance their ways of socializing. There also are multiple existences and variations of a particular drinking game — for instance, different house rules and reracks for beer pong. Throughout our research, we have seen that drinking games aren’t exclusive to the United States, but they exist all around the world. Many of the games that we learned from the informants we interviewed had very similar “rules” or morphology. In our presentation, we showed that we could use the structure of the drinking games we learned to group similar games (i.e., casual, competitive, overconsumption, etc.). Our research have shown that drinking games, in particular, have a profound impact on our culture, in that they have been a driving force of social engagement and dynamic since alcohol was first created over 5000 years ago.

 

Collectors:

  • Henry Eilen
  • Jonah Jenkins
  • Oliver Bub
  • Matúš Petrovský

Tags/Keywords

  • International
  • Drinking Games
  • Ice Breakers
  • Social
  • Competitive
  • Casual
  • Global