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My underage brother is planning a beer pong tournament
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I really appreciate your advice most of the time, Esh, but you tend to have a black and white view of, well, everything.
This involves not a party, but familial relationships that the OP had admitted are not very strong anyway. I agree that it doesn't sound like a good idea and that the brother appears to have his hands overflowing, but that doesn't mean that taking the hardline is the best choice.
I would simply encourage the OP to consider more than cold, impersonal data when making a decision like this. I suggest speaking to the brother first before the parents simply because this whole thing may or may not be a huge problem and doing a little research first (as well as providing family a small benefit of the doubt) seems the most effective way of making an informed decision.
This would be pretty funny if it weren't for the fact that his parent's would go be arrested and fined as well. Providing alcohol to a minor can be an expensive charge.
But hey, who cares if the kids get trashed and a neighbor calls the cops so the OP's parents end up arrested and fined out the ass. His brother is 20, man, so he should totally be able to host underage drinking parties all he wants!
Irony?
As I said, I drank before 21. What I didn't do was throw a party in my parent's house without their permission and then publicly announce said party.
Somehow, I doubt the parent(s) know if the OP is making the thread about it. If they do know, then I'll be the first to edit it.
Personally, I don't know many parents who would let their 20 y/o have a beer pong party in their house. That's just me though.
He's advertising a party that by design is going to encourage underage drinking, on freaking Facebook. He deserves to have his plans derailed. He'll get over it eventually, it may even turn out to be one of those "You'll thank me later" moments.
Wha? "But i'll be 21 in less than a year! Everyone does it!" can be used as a defense in court? o_O If nothing else, his parents can get nailed for allowing this to happen, serious fines and possibly worse especially if someone gets hurt/hurts someone else going home.
Do you think some 20 year old kid is actually going to admit that they may not have a handle on things?
He open posted a tournament with an entry fee on Facebook. Maybe if he had said "Oh hey, a couple buddies are coming over to drink a few beers and play some pong." I might have a slightly different opinion, but he didn't.
And again, it comes down to "Not his house". I don't understand why that's not clicking in people's heads. Just because you live there, doesn't give you any dominion over it.
I don't know, as a bartender I see people do some really stupid shit when they're drunk. Add underage and someone else's liability into that equation and it's just a bad idea.
Going to be more if somebody gets pulled over, or god forbid crashes into somebody else driving home
There are a slew of charges they'll be slapped with just for hosting. If someone gets pulled over it would be bad but if they get in an accident they're really fucked.
They've cracked down on this pretty hard in MA and while none of the parents' are serving jail time they're paying out the nose for the parties. No to mention the newspapers love covering these kinds of stories and printing the names of the parents' who let 30 under-agers get trashed at their house.
OP's had 20 years to get to know his brother. He has a pretty good idea to start with if he's capable of handling this, but you don't just ask 'is everything cool, it's all under control?' You find out what he plans to do if too many people show up, or someone's getting too drunk. Does he plan to take people's keys? Is there a plan to use some of the income for a taxi fund? Will people be able to get drinks without certain people knowing, or will there be people specifically serving and will they have a limit in place as to how much a single person can drink?
Partying at beer pong tourneys. I could care less that they're having a party or drinking, but when it's your fucking house they're going to be doing it in, and advertising the fact on twitter/facebook, then come talk to me about a couple of kids having fun. I would say as family you kind of have a responsibility to let mom know her house is going to get trashed beforehand, wet blanket or not. If he hadn't been advertising it on the net, nobody would be the wiser.
Honestly, a beer pong tournament doesn't sound too horrible. i think you guys are putting a stigma on that game that it's all about chugging beers. whenever i see people playing lately, they have water in all the cups and drink at their leisure. (granted i am older and questionably smrter) at 20 you aren't really at the point where you "want to be cool" and would let too many people come and wreck the joint anymore. is it technically a bad idea? yeah, is it definitely going to be a disaster? not necessarily.
i wouldn't tell your parents, but that's just me. but if you are already on bad terms with your bro, go for it if you feel so strongly. personally, i doubt it will be a big deal. please update tho! i'm interested to see what happens!
You put an awful lot of faith into drunk kids.
I was one of em once.
what the heck. OP you need to call your brother and tell him to make sure he doesn't do this, that's lame as heck.
That being said, I feel like we were better about it than most. Advertising on facebook we did not even consider, that's idiotic. That and it was only 25 people max.
I'd definitely tell your parents if you have any thought that this is going to get anywhere near out of control (which, from your info, it seems it will).
Something to keep in mind, legally, if you're charging entry and serving alcohol, you run into speakeasy laws. I have no idea what they are specifically in your area, but that could be an issue.
You have any friends that are cops? I'd ask him to (on the DL) "find" your brothers facebook announcement and talk with him about it. Kind of a slap on the wrist moment but if a dude in uniform swings by, it tends to put things in reality quick.
if beer pong was the dirtiest thing you did in college you should count yourself lucky!
Yeah my entire college did this, and the surrounding 10 colleges that were in the area. You LIKE getting sick every 2 weeks? Be my guest. I'll keep my beer in the bottle thanks.
Mop the floor and replace your rinse cup after every match. Easy Peasy.
#FreeScheck
#FreeSKFM
did you go to school in Europe or something? so weird. I played beer pong for years and neither me nor my friends got sick. we just poured the cups into our own drinking cup.
Nope, Massachusetts. Started my sophomore year or so. People started getting sick, someone suggested we could be less sick by just using water. Saves trips to the faucet during the night too!
That's cool for you, but I'm sure you know that a significant amount of kids home from school have parties with alcohol at their parents places during summer break, and that very very rarely result in susbtantial property damage or lawsuits.
I agree 100% that the facebook event posting is pretty dumb from what we know. If it's a private event that only his friends can see, it's still dumb, but not mindnumbingly retarded
edit: How many people were even invited/confirmed for this?
#FreeScheck
#FreeSKFM
Underage drinking is one thing. We all did it, and I agree that the rules in our country are archaic and should be changed. Putting your parents at risk by hosting a huge party guaranteed to get busted is quite another, and you should take the opportunity you have here to stop it and to make sure your brother knows what he is doing is not only stupid but selfish. He will probably have a problem with your actions because at 20 you're still half-retarded, but your job as his big brother is to protect him, even from himself, and do the right thing, even if it creates a temporary rift between you two.
weird. have you been out of school long? if that had been suggested at my school (big public university in the midwest) bad stuff would've happened.
though like I said, nobody ever got sick and we weren't drinking from the same cups, so
This pretty much sums it up.
it's easier too, i find. if one of the cups gets knocked over, no biggie.
also stacking the cups you are drinking out of is gross.
Wait, are you saying real life isn't like the movies?! Now I don't know what to believe!
It's not just this, to me, but the legality of it all. It is pretty disheartening to see how many people completely gloss over the fact that it is illegal for him to drink. Just because "hey, everyone drinks before twenty-one!" or that he is close-enough to the legal drinking age.
It's a poor defense and it is really hard to take someone seriously that takes the other side of the argument. I instantly assume that they too are underage and immature.
Its still happening in someone else's house, but that ain't my problem anymore.
And again, I totally understand that the guy's 20, hence my overall trepidation. The entire thing was simply that I didn't like he was advertising it and it was taking place in my mom's house.
I'm gonna need your mom's phone number, I know about all that porn you look at without paying.
edit: when I see someone's location is Indiana I instantly assume they're some undereducated hick.
How is the weather up there on your horse?
Glad it worked out in a way that didn't necessitate you putting yourself in a tight situation.
Having a pile of people over to do so (presumably) without his parents knowledge or consent is a problem.
Planning the event publically on Facebook and Twitter is possibly the dumbest thing I've heard today.
OP should mention to his brother that he's being retarded and should inform his parents. It's their house and the risk/liability they might be handed without any say in the matter outweighs "Dudes, it's just a little pre-21 beer pong!". While using subterfuge wouldn't necessarily make it any better, it would've at least lessened the risk of it getting completely out of hand.
If the OP's brother wants to act like an adult, he should behave like one. Doing something illegal, suggesting others join in on the illegal activity, and doing so in a place that could have consequences for his parents is irresponsible.
If it's that big a deal he should've either arranged it somewhere else, or start pondering how he might end up with a place of his own. Perhaps that can be arranged by the time he's 21, so he and his crew can have a riotous beer pong tournament legally and in their own space as they see fit.
Edit; apparently it's now a moot point.
Edit: Nevermind, problem is solved.
Eh, 21 is a pretty stupid and arbitrary drinking age anyway, only in America could you get sent off to die in a war on the other side of the world, but not be able to drink a beer. People are just pointing out that many many 20 year old college students drink and throw parties and that nothing usually happens. The only real issue is that the party organizer is advertising it, which is not exactly the best idea, and for that alone probably deserves to get busted beforehand. That's part of what it means to be in a family in that sometimes you have to be the bad guy, I think op kind of has a responsibility here to narc him out before this party turns into something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0IAUwtyquE