Save Beirut

Underground activities inevitably change character when thrust into the limelight. Comedy Central made remote-controlled fighting robots famous with its show Battlebots, and in doing so contributed to the rapid burnout of the sport. Snowboarders lost their counterculture mystique, and their boards are more plastered with corporate logos than your average NASCAR racer. And baseketball? Don’t even get us started.

Beirut is facing the same fate. Lebanon is being slowly Westernized despite continuing political strife, and it’s character is gradually changing under the weight of French and American corporate interests. Stores from Starbucks to Zara cater to an increasingly Western-aligned upper 10 percent, while poorer Lebanese are largely excluded from the benefits of their country’s metamorphosis.

Just kidding. We’re talking about the drinking game.

Beirut really is facing the same fate. Whether you know it as “beer-pong” (technically played with paddles) or Beirut, the game is the same. The point of the game, elegantly summed up by a senior at Drexel University quoted in The New York Times, is that, “If you win, you win. If you lose, you drink. There’s no negative.” In fact, he’s right. Beirut is about enhancing the social lubrication that alcohol already provides by adding a dash of competition.

Beirut’s popularity has proven to be an irresistible draw for Big Beer. Budweiser and Miller Brewing Co. are beginning to sponsor tournaments for what used to be a dorm-room game. “Bud Pong,” as the maker of the world’s second worst beer (after “Natty Ice”) calls it, is actually—get this—designed to be played with water. Players are encouraged to drink a Budweiser on the side. That way, Bud can have its beer and drink it too. Water in the cups means binge drinking isn’t a liability, and Bud on the side means the company can hide the soul of the game with its giant static-decal logos.

Put simply, Bud and Miller will ruin the number one college-invented game. Take Beirut out of its natural habitat—dorm rooms and bars—and thrust it into the limelight and you’ve got a product about as interesting as professional pool. Beirut has always been about the atmosphere, the competition, and the thrill of daggering your opponents on the rebuttal. Bud and Miller can’t capture this, and they should stay off our turf.

Thankfully, Big Beer didn’t count on two things which will inevitably stymie their efforts. First, trying to take the drinking out of Beirut is like taking the “eer” out of “beer.” There’s nothing left to get excited about. If Bud’s sponsored tournaments do actually happen, the company will face liability issues about as big as a hangover after playing Beirut with Steel Reserve. And second, Big Beer doesn’t realize that a major point to bond on with your teammates during Beirut games is the poor quality of the beer (usually Bud, Miller, or a cheaper offshoot). As much as they are orgies of booze-fueled competition, Beirut games are also organized denouncements of the horrors of cheap American beer. With sponsored tournaments, Big Beer will only be paying to be the dunce in the room.

Beirut needs to return to its roots—to the garages, frat houses, dorm rooms, pubs, rooftops, and basements where it began. Some games aren’t cut out for fame. And some, like Beirut, would be much better off without it.

With that, we’re going to challenge the Undergraduate Council to another Beirut tournament.