Bros Icing Bros: Dear New York Media, Smirnoff Would Like To Thank You For Selling This Stupid Drinking Game

Have you heard of the once-legendary and now-kinda-dead urban terrorism drinking game Bros Icing Bros? It involves the fermented sugarpiss known as Smirnoff Ice, your friends, and casual alcoholism. For a while, it was all the alcoholic hipster-rage, and then, last anyone had heard, the website where the "game" originated had been shut down. This was after being written about and covered extensively by the New York Times, New York Post, The Atlantic, Gawker, The Awl, AOL's URLesque, CNN, and Fox News, and Nightline. And of course, us.

It was, admittedly, an easy, pageview-happy beat to cover for all involved: People are binge-drinking, they're binge-drinking something ridiculous, the company behind it -- Smirnoff distributor Diageo -- was being coy about their non-involvement in it as a promotional gimmick or ad campaign, and it involved people terrorizing each other with bad booze and the real-time tracking of an "urban trend," whatever that is. It made for compelling "content."

But as previously mentioned, when we last checked, it'd appeared the "game" -- at least on the official and original Bros Icing Bros website -- had been shut down, for good. That doesn't mean it still can't live on in the hearts of (now-underground) Bros with penchants for Icing other Bros, but in its official capacity, it appeared to have been "ended" by Diageo.

A few months later, however, and if anything's evident, it's that this was all The Media's fault. Realize: the New York Times was covering a binge-drinking game. If there was ever a time to accuse institutions like this one of forcing something terrible on the public, now would be a surefire time to land a shot square where we deserve it. And apparently, even Diageo knows it.

Apropos of (insofar as I can tell) no other reason, a bunch of media people have been invited to get drunk on Diageo's dime, in the wake of The Icing Armistice:

Yes, you're reading that correctly: New York's media is the hardest working in the world, they write. [They've obviously never interned at the El Fasher Tribune] Please enjoy a drink on us as we toast to you.

Of course, one could argue that this is an wild extrapolation of the facts, the circumstances in front of us regardless. And yet, I'd say we, New York's Media, earned our "keep," which probably amount to -- in a fair world -- gross profit points. But that's blood money, New York Media! White, sugarpiss blood money. Take it at the risk of your dignity, SIR.

Or even worse, being "Iced" by those assholes.

[fkamer@villagevoice.com]