BORG Drinking is going viral on TikTok. What is it on Earth?

Before you ask, BORG — which is pronounced like the aliens in “Star Trek” — is an acronym for “blackout rage gallon.” The drink that goes by this name is a mixture of water, alcohol, sweet flavorings and a hangover remedy, such as Liquid IV or Pedialyte.

The concoction has become increasingly popular on college campuses across the country, thanks at least in part to TikTok, where videos of students holding up their jugs at parties and demonstrating how to make the drink have been widely shared.

The BORGs made headlines this month, when the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the City of Amherst released a joint statement regarding a “significant number of alcohol poisoning cases” that occurred during the Blarney Blowout, an annual off-campus event.

The statement noted that “many college students have been observed carrying plastic gallon containers, believed to be ‘BORGs’” and that “this trend of binge drinking has been increasingly depicted on TikTok and seen on college campuses across the country.

Bella Alonzo, a recent graduate from the University of Texas at Austin, posted a BORG video in January. Wearing a cowboy hat adorned with stars and Busch beer logos, Ms. Alonzo, 21, begins by pouring about half the contents of a gallon pitcher of water. Then she adds lots of vodka, a can of fizzy wild berry energy drink, and electrolyte powder. “That way we don’t have midnight hangovers,” Ms. Alonzo said, before shaking the jug and taking a sip.

In an interview with The New York Times, Alonzo said she was surprised at the BORGs’ sudden popularity on social media, having known them for years. The main appeal is that they’re easy to drink, she said, for something with such a high alcohol content. “All you really taste is the water and the food coloring,” Ms Alonzo said. “You don’t taste any liquor, which is the great part.”

“I see people, you know, decades older than me commenting on TikTok like, ‘Oh yeah, we used to do that to call it something else,’” she added. The drink is especially popular at “darties,” slang for one-day parties, she noted.

In December, Cate Keane, a senior at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY, posted a video of her classmates showing off their BORGs at a party. The clip has since been viewed more than 500,000 times. Each pitcher is labeled with a pun, such as “Justin BieBORG”, “BORGttega Veneta” or “BORGan Donor”.

For some students, a humorous name is as important to a BORG as electrolytes. A TikTok prompt for name suggestions posted last month by San Diego State University sophomore Benjamin Giller has been viewed nearly a million times on the platform and received hundreds of likes. comments.

Some students have said they were drawn to BORGs because of their supposed safety benefits.

“It’s nice that you can put a cap on it instead of, for example, if you’re at the bar and you have an open drink, someone can easily, for example, ‘roof’ you,” said Ms. Keane, 21 years old. , referring to the so-called date rape drug Rohypnol.

Ms. Alonzo echoed that sentiment, noting that she loved how the BORGs allowed her to control and know exactly how much alcohol was in her jug. On TikTok, a video highlighting how BORGs could be considered a damage prevention tactic has been viewed over three million times.

But not everyone agrees with the BORG.

The Amherst Fire Department reported 28 requests for ambulance transport during the March 4 Blarney eruption. Ed Blaguszewski, spokesman for the University of Massachusetts Amherst, declined to comment on the number of ambulance calls requested in previous years, but said this year’s figure was higher than in the past. (In 2014, CBS News reported that police in riot gear were called in to deal with what the school described as “unruly behavior” at the same event. More than 70 arrests were made.)

“I think it can really hurt a lot,” Dr. Sarah Andrews, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said of the trend. “It promotes misconceptions about alcohol consumption.”

She acknowledged the importance of students being aware of what’s in their drinks, but said she doesn’t believe BORGs are the answer to the problem.

“Just because you know what’s in it doesn’t mean you really understand the negative effects it might have,” said Dr Andrews, whose areas of expertise include alcohol abuse. “Even though it’s mixed with electrolytes, it doesn’t compensate for the alcohol content. This does not compensate for the dangerousness of alcohol.

Yet some students, like Gracelyn Jones, a 21-year-old junior at the University of Louisville, have insisted otherwise. Or, at the very least, Ms. Jones thinks BORGs are better than some alternative drinking methods on college campuses.

“When I compare BORGs to sodomy,” she said, referring to alcohol enemas, “it doesn’t seem that bad.”