Guest Op Ed: Why Bros Get Iced, Bro
From time to time, we offer free editorial space to common folk with something to say. This is one such time, in which a fratty bro of our acquaintance explains what exactly is going on with bros. Spoiler: It's not good!
You may have heard about this new thing the kids–white males in their 20s, mostly–are doing? DRINKING SMIRNOFF ICE, AGAINST THEIR WILL, AT RIDICULOUSLY INOPPORTUNE TIMES. Seriously.
The rules are simple: hand a Smirnoff Ice (the warmer/more disgusting the flavor, the better) to a friend (your "bro"), and he must get down on one knee and chug the malt beverage, regardless of location and situational appropriateness. HOWEVER. If said friend happens to have a Smirnoff Ice on his person, then the bro who initiated the battle has to chug BOTH Ices.
This is known as an Ice Block.
The obvious questions:
WHERE DID THIS START?
According to this interview with one of the founders of Bros Icing Bros, an online compendium of photos of Bros getting Iced, "While Icing started in South Carolina at some of the frattiest schools in the union (College of Charleston, Wofford College) it has now spread nationwide. Current hot spots are New York, Texas and other Southern fraternity-dominated schools."
The url for BrosIcingBros.com is registered to Jim Greg of Atlanta.
DO PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT IN COLLEGE–WHICH IS TO SAY, PEOPLE WHO THEORETICALLY HAVE ACTUAL RESPONSIBILITIES AND WHO ARE EXPECTED TO NOT BE DRUNK 24-7–ACTUALLY DO THIS THING?
Shockingly, yes. While commodities traders at Goldman Sachs don't appear to be chugging Ices at their cubicles (yet!), the phenomenon has so far invaded laxer corporate environs. [UPDATE: An icing at Goldman Sachs—on the premises, no less—has just been confirmed by an employee that asked to remain anonymous.] A friend at Vice reports that someone brought a 24-pack into the office just this morning. Bros have been Iced during early-morning meetings at IAC's CollegeHumor office. I've also heard of this going down at advertising agencies, including Wieden+Kennedy, the Portland-based giant behind Nike.
WHY SMIRNOFF? ARE WE SURE THAT THIS ISN'T A CLEVER STEALTH VIRAL MARKETING CAMPAIGN?
Smirnoff Ice, like most malt beverages, has long been considered among "feminine" beverages, despite the attempts of advertisers to change this perception. (Sorry, Mike's Hard Lemonade. Still not buying it!). So I guess the joke is, in part, "bros chugging girly gay drinks, ha ha"?
But no, this doesn't appear to be an in-house guerrilla marketing campaign. For one thing, in all the icing videos, commentary is issued about the disgusting state of Smirnoff, and an icing is usually greeted with "fuck you."
For another thing, alcohol companies tend to dance very carefully around the subject of binge drinking. Take, for example, Miller Lite's new "Vortex Bottle," which has rifled neck-grooves that serve no other conceivable function other than to facilitate the flow of beer into the drinker's mouth. As Slate's Seth Stevenson points out, the ad for the Vortex Bottle "doesn't explicitly mention this benefit (I have to imagine there'd be some dicey liability issues involved in advertising a way to get drunk quicker), but if the bottle truly serves this purpose, word will soon spread."
Elsewhere in the interview with the founder of Bros Icing Bros, it is mentioned that people have been iced "while driving cars." Probably not the behavior a liquor company wants to be associated with. As Ricky Van Veen, the co-founder of CollegeHumor who has taken to walking around his office wearing a fanny pack that holds one Smirnoff Ice as a pre-emptive Ice Block, says, "The last thing Smirnoff wants to do is encourage drinking games/binge drinking."
Still, you can never know. I've left messages with both Smirnoff as well as with its ad agency, JWT, and I will update if they respond.
So basically, if someone hands you a 24-oz, room temperature Green Apple Smirnoff this weekend, it is your duty to take a knee and chug it. Even if you are a lady bro. FOR AMERICA. The more you know.
Fratboy Slim is a bro in New York who doesn't want to lose his job for writing about the joys of icing bros.
The 40 oz Ice is to be known as an ICE WHALE.
Haters' Ball is going to be so full of ICE.
This is eventually approaching some sort of singularity where if one bro takes his dick out the other bro has to give him a HJ then and there, right?
But then there would be nothing special about your months spent as a pledge!
It's not gay if it's a dare, bro.
Other situations where it is not gay:
The lights are off (Maybe he was a chick! Who knows!)
It's after 1 am (like I am expected to be responsible for my sexuality at that late hour)
Just touching the tips of your dicks together (It's just, like, a male dominance ritual. Like noble elk grappling with their antlers.)
If you are both uncircumcised the term is "docking." Please do not ask how I know that.
Ha! Noble elk!
I tried clicking on "brosicingbros.com" but it redirected to the Bel Ami website.
Also, I'm not going to watch that second video clip because I have a terrible feeling someone does something mean to that cat.
Other situations when it is not gay: if you are a hot Iraqi Vet with a girlfriend that I pick up at a dive bar.
Win.
Goons, a vet friend of mine explained that in Iraq they use the magic code phrase "no homo" afterward to make any situation not gay. Handy!
I would like to second the recognition of the brilliance of "noble elk."
Here it is also instructive to note the color of this particular beverage.
@HG – and they say liberals don't support the troops.
sup?
but if the other bro is already hj-ing himself, what consequence does the initiator suffer?
Ookie cookie?
Goons says "Iraqi Vet" — so I am picturing Sayeed from Lost. Much, much hotter, because I am a leftist TRAITOR.
Don't even get me started on what I had to do as a Pledge!!!
Well, from the Salon article I've yet to read, I'm hoping.
Barthel, I'm pretty confident that a proper docking can only occur with one circumcised and one uncircumcised male member. The physics required to form an appropriately tight seal between two uncut dicks just doesn't compute.
Can't wait for ReamaWithaZima.
My mom used to buy me Zimas when I was eighteen. She knew what's up.
The drink of 1990s gentrifiers.
“Are those free-range burgers?”
“Who cares? Have a Zima.”
I made this joke tonight when I was telling my friends about icing and it went over like GANGBUSTERS.
ICE ICE ICE ICE ICE ICE EVERYBODY
THE WHALE IS COMING FOR YOU, BRO
DO NOT SEEK THE WHALE. FROM HELL'S HEART THE WHALE STABS AT THEE.
Advantage: the Olds.
If someone gets iced 9 times in one day, is that the Vonnegut?
Only if the icings are in a very specific pattern.
If someone gets iced 9 times in one day, they're dead… the Dylan Thomas?
The Charles Bro-kowski
-Conferring with Younger FratBro PT Coworker to sample validity-
-Conclusion: Not in his house. YET. Response was positive, may conduct further tests!-
-Update: Young FratBro PTCW has promised Source of Inquiry (me) that SoI can expect a random Icing in the upcoming calendar year. YFB also boasts of his prowess at hiding objects in random locations.
Further Conclusion: Source of Inquiry is totally screwed.
Takeaway Conclusions: Avoidable risk in "planting seeds", could develop into "hostile vegetation".
Perhaps in the future you'll let sleeping bros lie.
D.O., I never learn, do I.
DON'T ICE ME, BRO!!! AAAAAAAGH, etc.
Why is the collective white-people internet that I read trying to make this happen today? Can we please kill the ironic (or maybe not-so-ironic in this case) use of the word bro already? And if this is a real thing that grown-ass men are doing then I've maybe never been so ashamed of my gender.
Yes to this! No more bro, please, please, please.
brosicingbros.com is not ironic, sadly. Prepare to enter the shame spiral!
I use the word "bro" to refer to a specific type of man, so for me it is a technical term. Do not try to take it away from me!
"Bro"/"Brohammer"/"Broheim"= all tongue-in-cheek proper-noun terminology that I use, (derisively) towards actual subjects who "fit the bill"- to their faces. Downside: they never seem to mind, or even register the mockery. (fail, shame spiral, etc.)
This is all very distressing. There's a reason I didn't engage in bro culture during my admittedly brief stint in higher education. But why anyone would want to continue the lifestyle past the point of it being a necessary function of their social status/financial means is completely beyond me. I think I'm just gonna sit the internet out for the rest of the day.
I'm down with the term for taxonomy purposes, but making everyone a bro–dadbro, altbro, oldbro–that shit gets annoying.
We used to call them "stripeys," referring of course to their untucked, popped collar, Express Men shirts of choice. Unfortunately it requires explanation when they're wearing the Ironic T-Shirt/Puka Shell Necklace/Cargo Shorts that is often the summer costume.
@Atencio: I thought I would be able to avoid the larger BroCulture-creepage by attending Art School. Whoa, did that turn out to be a misleading preconception.
Bros lurk behind every doorway, my friend. They cannot be avoided, they cannot be contained. They are like the wind.
@Art Yucko: Yeah, I thought I'd be able to avoid BroCulture by dropping out of college and pursuing a film career in Los Angeles and HOO BOY maybe never been wronger about anything in my whole life?
@C_D: Don't forget the Grandaddy of Horrific Mall-Fashion, the
diagonal-stripe shirt(I have to strike it for fear of Sartorial Voodoo.)Also: There are clearly a pair of CROCS visible in Video #1. What further warning shot did we need.
@Atencio: "Hey Bro! (extends fiver) I'm Tucker Max BUT YOU AND THE WHOLE WORLD KNEW THAT ALREADY, HAHA, yeah so dude. So the Sequel to my TOOOtally EPIC first feature just got FUCKIN OPTIONED. THERE WILL BE TITS. And YOU'RE gonna be my cameraman because you're a broke-ass bitch and you need my $5, right? DrinkUP, BITCH."
@City_Dater – here in Georgia, at least, the horizontal striped polo is year-round. They just switch from mainly navy to mainly pink/yellow for the summer.
@Atencio the industry in LA is like one gigantic frat, isn't it? Dargis's piece about women in film from a few months put it best: "you see one guy after another smiling in a baseball cap. It's all guys making deals with other guys." And after they make a deal, they ice each other.
Brah, possibly worse.
SAY NO TO 'BRO'
This is the worst thing to happen to the word "ice" since Vanilla.
Eugene O'Neill is rolling in his grave.
-this-
The Ice Bro Poundeth? (Still filthy.)
An Ice for the Misbegotten Bro
Further proof that you simply cannot leave frat boy culture behind after graduating college. Thank god I work from home, in the company of only my dog, who I doubt is lurking around with a bottle of Smirnoff Ice.
My cat prefers hard ciders.
I slipped the dog five bucks to make it a Twisted Raspberry.
Oh yay! This will dovetail nicely with the Webututuatuaautnnnte Ball!
"Chill out." – The Governor of California
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNaDZIrxh-0
On the upside: if I had to drink anything with the word "Lite" on the label I'd want it to Vortex down my throat, bypassing all taste buds and also preventing that smell from running amuck.
As a professional alcoholic, I must take umbrage with this.
Getting drunk is AN ART.
This is like finger-painting.
Correction: this is like paintball.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_art
(yes, I'm too lazy to use the back end of WordPress)
Are you allowed to Ice bros who are twelve-stepping?
Sure. It's known as "Slipping on the ICE."
Or "falling off the ice wagon"?
Bros Icing Bros: The new Circle Game?
Is the circle game the one where you put your bro's foreskin over the head of your penis, or am I thinking of a deleted scene in Old School?
i think it's a stock scene in catholic school
Why you guys always hating on us fraternity (not cool to just say frat unless you are one) boys?
Do you know the level of academic achievement we have to meet to stay in good sta….
LULZ…couldn't finish that… still you don't get to shorten it…
This right here is why I'm a shut-in.
Seriously, what are the social/legal consequences if one simply refuses to drink this vile swill down when a bro hands it to you? Are you deported?
"Not cool, bro. Not cool."
UB GAY
at least in arizona, if you can't show proof of Ice ownership.
if you can, the nearest cop has to drink 2 ice.
we're gonna send you some smirnoff ice
Poor Jaegermeister.
don't ice me, bro
This guest columnist turned out so much better than that horrid Mormon from a few weeks ago!
yes, what happened to him? Did he chicken out?
Personally, I prefer the term "broseph" (and it's feminine "brosephina" – sometimes used on a weak male to connote their weakness).
prometheus:fire :: brometheus:ice
Some say the world will end in fire / some say in ice
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire
but if it had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
to say that for destruction ice
is also great
And would suffice
(Frost, of course.)
This is an absolute recipe for bro rape.
Farging iceholes.
Dear Miss Manners,
If some bro ices me, may I glass him?
Is Edward 40 Hands national?
It made it as far as Texas, where I went to school.
Edward 40 Hands is international; I'm going to school in Vancouver and been to an E40H night.
What a coincidence that the domain registrant gave a fake address that happens to be a few miles away from JWT's corporate office! FAKE MEMES MUST DIE!
The mensa brigade here says:
"The address doesn't seem to exist but the zip is near Atlanta. The phone number though maps to a land line in Lilburn, GA which is also near Atlanta.
Shockingly an office of Diageo North America (Smirnoff parent company) is located in Roswell, GA not far from either location.
I'm sure it's just a coincidence."
MadMen = 1960s
SadMen = 2010s
BRO!!!!
The dude at Goldman Sachs probably told you some bro got iced at the same time he told Newsweek that Icing is a stupid, played-out meme.
This is too funny. Check out cops icing bros…
http://www.squidoo.com/bros-icing-bros