Vodka Eyeballing "Trend" Jumps the Pond

If you thought Bros Icing Bros was genius, you're gonna love this new teen trend: pouring vodka directly onto your eyeball. The Daily Mail reported on the phenomenon a couple of weeks ago, and now it's catching on in America, according to a scary report on CBS2. The news show doesn't have any evidence to support this "alarming" and "shocking" claim, but they do talk to people on the street to get their reactions.

"That sounds like the most idiotic thing I've ever heard in my life," opined Alex Fast of the East Village. Stupid indeed, but is it really catching on? The Daily Mail did find one 22-year-old woman whose eye is permanently scarred by vodka eyeballing. "I'm in constant pain because of what I did," she says. "And I'm terrified that it will get worse. I wish I could turn the clock back and change things. But I can't." The Mail also says this is "a popular nightclub trick performed by waitresses for tips" in Las Vegas. And there are hundreds of YouTube videos of people supposedly knocking back vodka eyeball shots. So, good enough; let's call it a trend and cut to the scaremongering: Your children are coming home from college blind in one eye, you know!

But why? CBS2 doesn't actually have any attributable quotes in their segment, but they watched a lot of the YouTube videos and report that "the pain gives way to an instant high and then a deeper state of drunkenness." Which sounds pretty boss, because it's so annoying waiting around for vodka to hit your bloodstream. However, Dr. Richard Rosen of the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary warns, "It's like using paint stripper on the surface of your eye." Okay, then, definitely sounds like something you want to avoid... unless of course somebody dares you.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in News on May 27, 2010 11:32 AM

Comments [rss]

LB

Dumb fucks !

wow 14th street

Really this is not new my Drunk parents would

get a tool and stick it in their eye after it

was soaked in Vodka, back then it was called a "Screwdriver".

everyAframe

Ideally this means taking less heat from chain restaurant managers when I do my butt shots.

Amanda Harletsch

are this idiots part of the BP payroll!

They are indeed dumb

Wza

If she takes a vodka shot over a money shot, she's not a keeper.

Guest

Eye Patches are sexy!!! ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

Manitoba

I think there was an episode of "MANSWERS" on Spike TV about this whole topic.

Sad that there is a show about this; more sad that I have seen it.

icedespresso

When I was young...wow...soaking tampons in vodka and sticking them up your poon was all the rage. My how times have changed.

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

Funny comments. :D

AYCE

Up next: snorting tequilla

From "lick slam suck" to "salt in the eye, snort, squeeze lemon in your ear"

Elizabeth

Actually, there's a name for something similar...it's called a Stuntman.

Do a line of coarse salt (up your nose, of course), slam a shot of tequila, and squeeze the lemon/lime in your eye.

I have been witness to this on more than one occasion.

HymietownHero

We call it the Mad Dog 'round these parts.

amg2000

Absolut Blindness anyone?

I guess it gives new meaning to getting blind drunk!

kane

Sounds more like the Jenkem craze a few years ago.

Guest

Reminds me of the movie Airplane. They must all have drinking problems.

BKWrxWgn

So we'll have a generation of blind disabled vodka eyeballers to support from our taxes or a new labor force that can work in factories at cheap cost. It's a win win if the masses are dumb enough to really get into this.

pinball29

Go to the head of the Darwin Awards line. De-evolution at its most profound. And as Chris Rock says "And all the got is a dog to drag your blind ass around"

eric

I'm with Alex Fast of the East Village on this one: "That sounds like the most idiotic thing I've ever heard in my life." If these kids knew what they were doing they'd be using Everclear instead of vodka. Imagine the bitchin' high you'd get from a straight shot of 190 proof grain alcohol right to the cornea. Get on it, kids.

Splicer

It's their life and their eye. Don't care.

hotstepper

there is no sexiness in this ocular barroom antic, therefore i cannot approve.

stick to the body shots ladies. body shots.

ides_of_march

Most sensible advice I've read all day.

ProfessorVonNostren

"It would be easy, of course, to dismiss Melissa as nothing more than a silly 'ladette'. But it is hard to reconcile that stereotype with the young woman she is today, fresh out of university in London with a first-class English degree, the privately-educated daughter of financiers, and an aspiring writer."

I'm sorry, but you are still an idiot.

fosiacat

nah man. she has a degree

rammyh

Seriously kids, if you've got the balls to do vodka eyeball shots, you've got the balls to sign up w/ the army and go fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and let some poor soldier stuck on extended tour get shipped back home.

Wza

Eventually, we're gonna end up like the movie "Idiocracy".

hotstepper

eventually?

Wza

haha...you're right.

:(

jibbly

Where's my vodka with electrolytes????

goyogago

it's what eyeballs crave!!

LeLY

That is what plants crave.

ChampionOfTheSun

"It's like using paint stripper on the surface of your eye."

Oh, good. Next time I run out of paint stripper for my eye, I'll know what to do.

BillyShears

It takes a special kind of stupid - at any age - to do something like this.

militza

really stupid, plus it sounds like the damage is irrepairable.

LeLY

Morons.

LeLY

"I wish I could turn the clock back and change things. But I can't."

I suspect her parents echo that sentiment.

fosiacat

hahahaha

+1

Kojak

Risking your liver through heavy drinking is one thing, but do you really want to risk going blind just to get high?

Stick to shrooms & pot children.

Gotham Extremist

next: vodka butt plugs

robingee

Vodka Ass-Stands! Insert bottle, stand on your head! Hey college idiots, get on this!

lucyvanpelt

The med students at my university used to do, essentially, this. I want to say that they called it a "Hawaiian enema." It gets you drunk *very* quickly.

robingee

Good Lord, and I was just kidding, saying the most improbable thing I could think of.

amg2000

Sorry robingee!

amg2000

Remember Mash IV Vodka? The first time I saw it, I had a feeling someone would be trying to use it as an enema.

You can see one here (the vodka bottle, not an enema!)