#drinking culture

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Bars that offer only alcohol-free options have opened in Kelowna and Metro Vancouver, as they hope to stir up the province's drinks scene with a dry twist. Bevees in Port Coquitlam and Sobar in Kelowna believe they are the first "sober bars" in British Columbia, with both promising a sophisticated, inclusive bar atmosphere without the expectation — or, indeed, option — to drink alcohol. "They're [for] the people who want to enjoy Sunday morning as much as Saturday night," said Hanna Spinelli, co-owner of Sobar, which opened in downtown Kelowna on Friday. It joins a list of sober bars that have popped up around the world, including in Toronto, as demand for non-alcoholic beers, wines, spirits and pre-mixed cocktails skyrockets.

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Tagging @politicsofcanada

[aromanticduck]

As a sex-repulsed asexual who dislikes the taste of alcohol, I can draw a few parallels between the two things.

The idea that you just haven't found the right person, or a drink that you like, yet.

Being told you need to try instead of assuming you don't like something (even though you've hated every other alcohol you've tried/you've never liked the idea of sex)

People thinking you're prudish and no fun, or worse, assuming you judge people who do like alcohol/sex.

Being seen as childish because drinking/sex makes you grown up.

[thehollowwriter]

We had a class discussion the other day, mostly about harmful actions like drinking, drugs, etc (our teacher asked how they could get teens like us to listen to them when they say that stuff is bad) and the topic of alcohol was a very fascinating one, especially for me.

The main reason is that alcohol is an extremely normalised thing in our society. If you don't drink, you're a prude or a bore, you don't know how to have fun. You're only let off the hook if you're pregnant or an ex alcoholic, and maybe if it's a religious thing.

Drinking is seen as a great way to relax at the end of the week, the best way to have fun with your buddies. You get advertisements for it, it's a constant in movies and TV shows, in shows aimed for teens or young adults, drinking is a sign of "coming of age."

Often, after work hangouts and social meetups are at places like bars, and you are the odd one out for not drinking. If you don't serve alcohol at YOUR wedding, guests get upset, because the norm is that the supposed best day of your life is something half the people there don't remember because they got blackout drunk.

However, if you're a drunk driver or a violent alcoholic, suddenly nobody can understand where this came from or why you can't control yourself. You're judged so harshly, treated like a monster, even though society essentially encourages it.

It's fascinating because smoking was treated similarly, but now advertising cigarettes or any tobacco product is illegal, and they have to put a disclaimer on the box telling you it will give you cancer. I... don't see any of that with alcohol, even though it can kill you and others so easily.

Drinking is good, apparently! If you can't go a weekend without a taste of it or if you need a long swig after dealing with the kids, lmao #relatable. You can be an alcoholic, but only as long as you aren't causing problems and don't, well, actually say you're an alcoholic.

Everybody seems to think that there's this huge gap between being a "normal" drinker and an alcoholic, some mistake you have to make. But no, the gap is tiny. Sometimes, the difference between the violent alcoholic and the guy who likes to have a bit of fun can simply be that one of them is violent.

There's a similar problem with teenage drinking. "Ugh, stupid teenagers, acting out." "Ugh, I don't know why teenagers let themselves be pressured into this." But... drinking is seen as a sign of maturity, of being an adult. Everyone around you has drunk before, and it is seen as the norm. Your mom tells you that your friend saying that you're no fun for not drinking is stupid, but just the other night she was teasing her friends for being a bore and not drinking some wine.

There is so much societal pressure to consume a substance that is basically poison.

You can die from alcohol poisoning after rapid consumption in one sitting, you can die in a crash while driving and probably killing others, you can die from doing something stupid because your brain is muddled by alcohol and there's nothing there telling you to stop. You can put others in danger too with drunk driving, becoming violent, spending money without much worry if you have a family, etc.

Being an alcoholic is something that is demonised by a society that praises you for drinking. This has always been so strange to me, and I kinda just wanna investigate the *why* of it all.

[yinwaryuri]

I think I'll elaborate on this better after the series has ended and I've had a proper amount of time to analyze things more thoroughly, but as a queer adult who doesn't drink, I really appreciate how Be My Favorite allows a main character to specifically choose not to drink.

I was actually kind of excited to see that Kawi didn't in the beginning, and then got a little disappointed when he chose to become a drinking disaster, even if it did happen in a funny, gremlinesque sort of way befitting of his character. There's essays worth of commentary about the culture and the many different ways people will drink and why. Alcohol isn't good or evil, but from a social perspective being a non-drinker is often being the boring person and that myth has needed busting for eons. I do love that Kawi has an arc of going from non-drinking to drinking and then making a firm, conscious decision to become sober again.

Again, there's a lot more discussion to be had about it and what Be My Favorite has to say about it, but I want to wait until the show is finished to write the full piece.

[eclecticwordblender]

i never stop being fascinated by alcohol as a cultural artefact of cultures as a whole and individual families.

someone’s view, choice and habits of alcohol consumption tell so much about their culture, society and their family.

ALCOHOL IS SUCH A COMPREHENSIVE CULTURAL ARTEFACT.

[liskantope]

The webcomic Questionable Content dropped its 5000th comic on Friday, and throughout the weekend and today I binge-reread all of the most recent thousand. I've never had the impression that many of my followers care about QC (not ~8 years ago when I started to blog about it, nor today), but I do have a tradition, after each thousand of its comics, of writing a post reviewing that thousand. Here is where I blogged after the 1000th comic, reblogged after the 2000th comic, and reblogged again after the 3000th comic (this was all during my early months on Tumblr when I was more into reblogging my own posts), and here is my post from 2019 from after the 4000th came out.

When I look back on the pivotal moment clearly scheduled for QC's 500th comic, when it seemed that QC had already been going on quite a while and developed into a really involved storyline that had built and built to this moment when Faye would finally reveal her traumatic backstory, it's astounding to take in the fact that QC has now reached ten times that milestone.

I'm not sure I have a ton to say that isn't essentially a (perhaps more refined) regurgitation of some of the things I've said in the previous reviews, but I do feel like the webcomic has evolved somewhat significantly in its last thousand comics (though perhaps less so than in the previous thousands), and I have a few thoughts/feelings/opinions.

[Note: all of this post is substantially edited since a few people reblogged the original version.]

I would say that this is the first thousand-strip period where my enjoyment of the comic actually went downhill. (Although I would say my feeling is more positive when skimming back over the most recent thousand comics at once; it is still overall fantastic and there's a reason I've stayed so dedicated to reading it.)

It's hard to entirely pin down why I feel this way. I think it has a lot to do with the continued introduction of new characters, at a pace which has never shown any signs of slowing despite the massive accumulated cast the comic already has. While this means that some old characters are more or less abandoned or kind of shoved to the margins (which in some cases I'm quite sorry to see), by and large the comic has stretched out to make room to be shared by an ever-growing cast. At the 4000th strip, I was still doing fine with this, but by the 5000th, I'm starting to feel a little fatigued and past my capacity for keeping track of who's who (and also who knows whom; I have to give the artist credit for keeping careful track of this in the storyline and bringing it up in the dialog when long-already-established characters meet each other for the first time). Many more of them are AIs now, and I guess it may one day be judged as something-ist on my part that I find them more difficult to recognize and distinguish in my memory. Too many of the personalities are somewhat interchangeable too, which is something I should try to expand on just below.

I continue to describe the QC universe to myself using the term "utopia", even though I know this has to be somewhat of a misuse: as I've pointed out before, the characters in that universe are very aware that the broader society they live in is unjust in many ways, and some story arcs (though thankfully not most) are focused on rather futile battles against that injustice. But within the (quite large) social bubble that makes up the immediate QC universe, I have a hard time coming up with a better descriptive word than "utopia" -- maybe this could be modified to "social micro-utopia" or something? (I'm reliably terrible at coming up with terminology.) As I've been reading Peanuts steadily starting from its debut throughout much of the same period I've been reading QC, I actually see a likeness in these "social micro-utopias" and have been meaning forever to write an effortpost delving into this, but as it happens the 5000th-comic milestone has arrived first and that other post will have to wait for another time.

The attractions of indulging in the dynamics of a fictional social bubble which is this idyllic are that it provides a sort of pleasant escapism and that it's inspiring in a way that might enable someone to enact some of the practices and values seen in QC in their own IRL social lives. QC is a feel-good comic; it never tries or pretends to be anything other than a feel-good comic; and (at the risk of sounding trite and cliche) we all need more feel-good things in our lives, and I clearly continue to enjoy it after 8 years of keeping up through 5000 installments. At the same time, some of this... constant and slightly implausible pleasantness... has just gone a bit overboard for me by this point. Maybe a lot of this has to do with the fact that what little I have of a social life feels a very, very long way from satisfying (and I see that I remarked this in my post after comic #4000, with some language reflecting some optimism related to the fact that I was preparing at the time to move back to the US, and it's a reminder of how things really haven't improved for me to any significant degree. To state the obvious: completely unexpected earth-shaking pandemics really don't help. Neither does continuing to get only temporary jobs.) But back during the first half of the 2010's when I had a happily thriving social life, there was no lack of serious drama, tension, real struggles to tolerate one another's eccentricities, and undercurrents of discord. I keep waiting for the social dynamics between the QC characters to get a little more gritty somehow, to feel a little more real. I know this is an unfair expectation, since as observed above, QC never purports to be genuinely gritty.

One thing that has become a symbol for me of the seemingly incessant cheerfulness that characterizes around half the personalities in the comic is... I don't know if there's a term for this that cartoonists use, but you know the technique of drawing closed eyes so that they're concave down, meaning that it's the lower lids that are showing? Maybe this could be called "upturned closed eyes" or something? In cartoons they signal cheerfulness and easy-goingness. And sometimes it feels like half the QC characters go around showing this on their faces all the time, to the point that it's gotten monotonous and maybe a little sappy for my tastes. (This is part of what I meant above about personalities being interchangeable.) It's a constant reminder of how all the characters are pretty much automatically and immediately in lockstep on Major Social Values / Preferences, which I find pretty unrealistic for a hodgepodge of young-ish people who all gradually met kind of randomly. I honestly feel bad that this bothers me quite as much as it does, but it does kind of bother me. There could actually be some dissonance between the characters in terms of their beliefs, values, and ideas of a good time (example: a few, leaving aside Faye who is a recovering alcoholic, could view getting really drunk in social situations as kind of immature, unhealthy, and un-classy behavior -- even some 20-something people do see it that way!).

(Of course, as always, there are occasional characters who everyone has serious problems with, but they are either complete villains who get dealt with and then written out, people who are pushed to the periphery of the social circle but are visibly Trying To Be Better (actually, Sven seems to be the only one in this category), or once-somewhat-hostile characters that the cartoonist obviously wanted to keep around so had to immediately and pointedly mellow and humanize, like Yay a.k.a. Spookybot and probably like five others.)

The comic continues to follow tropes that I call Everyone Is Hot (and half of them are openly attracted to each other), Everyone's Parents Are Remarkably Cool (by the standards of young, socially progressive culture), Everyone Is Woke (in both an ideological and a "young and with-it" sense), and Most People Are LGBT+. I find the first two slightly irritating from time to time and don't mind the last two, but find all of it somewhat unrealistic.

While there is much less dramatic development regarding Faye and Bubbles, I'm glad that Faye remains sober, and that their relationship is still going strong. The profound and powerful love between them is exhibited by the most exquisite writing that the artist has done in all of his work on QC, I would say. Other relationships are going strong, too, and I'm glad. I seem to be asking for more social drama above, but I don't actually care to see loving relationships fall apart. The deep friendship between Faye and Marten is still visible although very much sidelined compared to the comic's old days. The big new relationship is between Clinton and Elliot, and it is adorable from beginning to end (although, see the Everybody Is LGBT+ trope above; there has IMO been a rather unrealistic proportion people convinced they were straight but conveniently discovering they weren't).

And now... there has been a really long story arc about Claire getting offered a job at Cubetown and visiting there with Marten, and all the while, through the very real possibility that Claire would take the job and she and Marten would move away, I have found myself steadfastly rooting against this happening. Because while I complain about there not being enough drama and dissonant changes and it being unrealistic, etc., I don't want that much of a change. The lack of turnover among the social group is absolutely unrealistic in my experience (perhaps partly because I'm a young academic who tends to know other young academics), but I guess it's a part of the escapism that I unreservedly love. Despite my criticisms (and as I've said, it's always easier to expand on criticisms than positive things in reviews!), I've obviously come to care deeply about these characters and their wonderful (if sometimes sappily and implausibly peaceful) dynamic, and I can't imagine the comic being the same with the initial main character and his girlfriend out of the main scene. Plus, their visit to Cubetown has already introduced us to a raft of new characters and... ugh, this comic's world is just getting too big for the comic to hold up.

And (spoiler), as of just the most recent five comics out of the 5000, it looks like Claire is taking the job and this move -- the most drastic change in the QC universe -- is really going to happen. I wonder if the cartoonist draw out the interim period of Marten and Claire preparing to move, have Dora and Tai's wedding as the last major event with them all together, and then retire the comic altogether. (He is certainly not retirement age yet but may have been planning to bring it to a close one of these years.) We'll see, but I can't say I'm thrilled at this very, very recent development. It's hard to imagine what kind of (questionable) content I'll be commenting on if/when the comic reaches its 6000th installment.

[EDIT: I just saw an announcement by the cartoonist that he does not intend to wind QC down, that he initially wanted to get Marten and Claire riding off into the sunset, but now he feels investigated in following both the original setting and the new Cubetown setting. The groaning-under-its-own-weight situation is about to get much worse... *sigh*]

Anyway, here are a few stray observations to finish things off:

The very slight drama that transpired when Clinton and Elliot were trying to feel each other out and there was sort of a romantic interest triangle -ish with Brun is another example of a subcultural norm that has always been baldly present in QC (and that I'm pretty sure I've aimed at describing before), and that I've come to realize is common in poly and queer groups, where people are much more open than I'd be inclined to be about their romantic/sexual interests in each other. Not only that, but it's the way they treat it as something rather matter-of-fact, not in the sense that they don't get worked up over it (they obviously do), but in the sense that it's dealt with sort of... practically? Where everyone is able and expected to just get over their feelings once they find out the party they're interested in isn't reciprocating, because it's not rationally helpful or constructive to hang onto those feelings? I don't know, I'm probably not expressing this well, and I can't judge that norm (it seems like for the most part it would be really nice actually and make for healthy social groups and I'm all for the people who can pull it off), but it's another one of those things that doesn't reflect the way the world really works for me. And I think I bear a grudge against it because it's in line with the fantasies of the anti- Nice Guy activists of a decade ago, who would go around saying, "And he should just get over it and want to still be friends even if I'm not interested in anything else! Otherwise he was just objectifying me the whole time. I'm entitled to the guy who I just spurned to feel like still being friends with me anyway!"

Every single thing about Aurelia as her Mommymilkers avatar is hilarious, the most I've laughed out loud over the last thousand comics. Sure, she's an implausibly "cool" parent, but she's a really enjoyable character.

Bemused nitpicky comment: the cartoonist Jeph Jacques makes a point of making all his characters very much "in the know" about what is "woke"/PC these days (e.g. Renee gently admonishes Brun from using the word "crazy" to describe someone) but appears to have a blind spot with the word "janitor", which I thought had been replaced by "custodian" in socially conscientious circles quite a few years ago.

The term "goblin" comes up a lot. A lot. (Half the time relating to Marigold somehow, but also in a bunch of other contexts.) I didn't entirely notice this until the past few days when I was doing my binge-reread. I'm not sure why Jeph Jacques is so amused by the word "goblin" that he is this fond of using it to refer to characters.

[bli-o]

if you’re the type of person who thinks people who refuse to drink are all pussies/religious sticks in the mud i simply ask you to reflect on reasons people might have for avoiding alcohol.

especially marginalized groups and ESPECIALLY people with vaginas and ESPECIALLY feminine presenting people

also religion is a valid reason for avoiding alcohol. Any reason is a valid reason for avoiding alcohol because it is *your choice*.

also minors(people below 25 if you were to ask me) should not drink, not because its the law, but because it will likely legitimately fuck up your development and mental health.

(i say this because i’ve seen a lot of dangerous portrayals promoting underage drinking and while i do strongly believe in bodily autonomy i also think harming your health is bad☝️)

also you dont need any type of history with it to have general fears around drinking.

if you’re uncomfortable in a situation involving alcohol you are 100% within your right to remove yourself from said situation for any reason no matter your history, your identity, what you look like, etc.(<-im talking to you, men. you’re not weak for making boundaries)

the only situation where you should dislike someone for their opinions on drinking should be if they think their abstinence makes them a “better person” or want to control other people’s rights to bodily autonomy.

I treat alcohol like poison in my personal decisions around it, primarily because i am a minor, but i will definitely continue to do so most likely till the day i die.

I present femininely(not really by choice but yk), and while even the masculine cishet white man is allowed to share this, I have a general fear of losing my ability to make rational decisions to any degree, especially in public spaces, because of that.

i get pretty tired of people who dont drink being portrayed/thought of as pansies. a lot of the time by people who don’t understand the experiences of people like me, trans, queer, assigned female at birth, and feminine presenting, who are at exponentially higher risk of being mistreated while intoxicated.

the choice to drink is entirely your prerogative.

[daydreaming-in-daisies]

i hate to sound that *that* girl but i really wish i had friends who were down for non-alcohol related activities like having cute picnics together, going to cat cafes, shopping dates, stargazing, and things like that. i'm in this huge group chat for girls in my city and i come across SO many people who just wanna go to the club every weekend and blackout. like people will propose an event that doesn't involve alcohol and no one will respond (or if they do solid plans aren't made, another pet peeve of mine ugh), but if you suggest a bar crawl or some whack ass club everyone is in. shit is boring af like can we please come up with something else?

[ly-prince]

i won't even lie being a cute little asian girl has saved me so much money

[thehollowwriter]

Ik everybody hates drunk drivers but to me it's very weird to be all like "They CHOSE to drive drunk" when the person in question is in fact under the influence of a substance that inhibits your ability to think clearly and make proper decisions. So no, that claim isn't really correct? Instead the focus should be on the fact that they didn't have another person there to drive them or something.

Another thing I find weird is everyone being like "Every driver shows remorse but more people do it and don't stop till it's too late" and then try to frame it as "humans are selfish" but like... why are we sitting here judging drunk drivers and alcholics when not only is this addictive and damaging substance that prohibits clear thinking and rationality and makes you more reckless LEGAL AND SOLD ON MASS but it's also ADVERTISED EVERYWHERE and a HUGE part of modern culture.

Okay, I know the reason why. It's because of the stigma against addicts and the fact that it's far easier to just frame them as morally bad people than face the reality that anyone can become an addict, you just need the right circumstances and a slight difference in the wiring of your brain. It's also because if we actually challenge drinking culture and how such a dangerous substance is normalised, praised, and profited from, then there's a chance the focus might shift from the drunk driver to the huge industries encouraging the drunk driver to have another drink, and that's not good for business.

[untypicable]

Schrödinger’s Pint: How Physics Ruins Pub Philosophy

The pub is a sanctuary of casual musings and spirited debates, where life’s greatest mysteries—what is happiness, why are we here, and whose round is it—are pondered over a pint of ale. But what happens when quantum mechanics, that infuriatingly bizarre branch of science, barges into the conversation? “Schrödinger’s Pint” is a thought experiment no one asked for but one that hilariously…

[perfectgardenerninja]

Certaines tasses sont également équipées de couvercles et de poignées ergonomiques pour une prise en main facile, particulièrement utile pour les boissons chaudes. Les styles varient entre des designs minimalistes modernes, des motifs colorés ou des finitions artisanales pour un look plus rustique. Que ce soit pour le bureau ou pour une pause détente à la maison, ces tasses deviennent des compagnons pratiques et esthétiques pour vos moments de plaisir.

[howifeltabouthim]

'Pity you all have to get drunk to enjoy yourselves, isn't it,' said Peter. 'I suppose that's the result of a higher education.' 'A little higher education in good manners would do you no harm,' said Axel. 'What you people call good manners is just hypocrisy and buttering each other up. I happen to prefer the truth.'

Iris Murdoch, from A Fairly Honourable Defeat

[forgottenbones]

Drinking culture in Japan and Korea

[stephanieviolet]

I am turning 40 this year, and what I learned is that I hate feeling the effects of alcohol. It is the most off putting thing about alcohol now. In my 20s & 30s drinking was fun and there was the whole "Wine Mom" culture that crept in and gave my friends to drink in secret or excess.

"Its wine-o-clock somewhere!" My friends, family and neighbours would gleefully chant, anything to relieve the guilt of day drinking before the acceptable 1pm someone arbitrarily said was reasonable.

Everyone says it's a problem if you wake in the morning and want a drink, but what about whenever your kid cries or screams or there is so much stress at work and when you get home, so much more to do?

No one talks about how you feel deep guilt for sitting down "relaxing" to watch a show or movie, but if you pair it with vino it's acceptable to relax, to take a moment. To rest. With a glass of wine.

Or how the only way to get your friends to go out, away from their children, 'letting' their husbands be the only parent in the house, is by enticing them with dinner and/or drinks.

"Be there at 5! Happy Hour ends at 6pm!"

Sitting and drinking, being goofy and relaxing, bitching about husband's and kids, all over "another drink please."

When you catch up with your friends and their kids at a park, they always joke: "I could us a drink rn." When complaining about husband's or kids or school PTA meetings, or dealing with their kids fighting.

The "Wine Mom" chic is so deeply ingrained in being a mother, it took me years to realize I actually hate the taste of fermented grapes. I'd rather have grape juice, or pop. After seeing friends fade away, because they got really into religion after getting sober, or into RW politics because of the pandemic; after seeing how my husband's "Whiskey Collection" is revered as a thing of beauty and class; alcohol has no value to me. It doesn't do anything but numb the pain for a few moments. It's a bandaid to a wound that needs stitches, or surgery. And I refuse to put myself behind a veil designed for me to be a socially acceptable way to hide.

It was easier for people to accept me as me when I was drinking. It was no longer: "You're weird," with a disgusted tone, but "You're funny!" With laughter behind it. On the days when I began to stop drinking, I'd have one, then be sober for the whole night, allowing others to think I was drunk. It was easier than explaining why I was so weird, that my ADHD and Autism made me less acceptable, unless there was a drink in my hand.