What Facebook group boasts nearly 150,000 members and a collection of nearly 5,000 photos of young women passed out on the pavement, collapsed in shrubbery, peeing in bushes and vomiting in toilets (or on themselves)? "30 Reasons Girls Should Call It a Night."
Don't be fooled by the name -- the group heralds out-of-control drunkenness as a badge of cool. We're not just talking about slurred declarations of love, getting loose on the dance floor or vomiting in public, but, in some cases, a-couple-of-drinks-away-from-dead incapacitation. For instance, under the group's discussion of "worst place you ever woke up," one woman writes: "the hospital ... nouf said." The group also celebrates the, oh, minor embarrassments of drinking too much -- like having a photo of yourself taking a squat on someone's lawn published for the entire Facebook community to see.
Or, you know, having that photo republished in the Daily Mail. That's right: Along with an article about "ladettes who glorify their shameful drunken antics on Facebook," the paper published a handful of photos posted in the group's photo album (often by the subjects themselves). In one photo, a young woman is shown passed out in a bathtub, her miniskirt falling aside to reveal her underwear. Today she posted to the group's message board, "haha ... never expected to be in a UK newspaper when i posted pics here" and then a few minutes later, "almost famous I guess." She has a point -- when an up-the-skirt photo of you surfaces on the Internet you're in famous company.
The Daily Mail article is a public shaming piece, of course, despite being thinly disguised as compassionate concern about women's drinking habits. But it does bring up an obvious question: Why are young women posting blackout photos and drunken crotch-shots on Facebook for the world, including their friends, classmates and co-workers, to see?
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