Mailbag: Is It Still Okay To Ice Your Friends?

Dillon Cheverere13 years ago

The Mailbag has really been picking up some steam lately, like a young, budding C-list starlet that signs on for some full frontal to blast her career past the prude B-listers and onto the marquee. Just tits all over the movie screen. With all this momentum, I felt it’d be a great time to go back a bit to revisit an old classic of fraternity culture: icing.

Icing seemed to come and go so quickly that it was a victim of its own popularity. It became too big, too cool, too prevalent — way too fast. Then poof, it was gone before we could take the necessary time to admire how insanely vast its appeal reached. Because of this, it still carries a negative connotation, and that bothers me.

“Bro, you’re still icing people? The fuck is wrong with you? You some kind of try-hard?” -Johnny Fraternity circa fall 2011. Fuck off, you uncultured dolt. You wouldn’t know a good time if it was elephant walking your blindfolded ass across a chapter house basement.

Look at the above photo. It was posted over 600 days ago, and with this caption: People are still icing each other…somewhere. It was already worn out and the butt of jokes so soon after it got hot. It couldn’t get out of its own way, and we’re all to blame.

Like many things or trends that become too popular, too quickly, icing became the opposite of everything that “cool” stood for on every college campus in the country. It began to carry a douchey stigma so powerful that it couldn’t shake it. I remember back in like 1st grade when I showed up to school one day with this badass He-Man lunchbox. That thing was so tight, man. All the 1st grade slams wanted to sit with me at the lunch table, and all the little hairless 1st grade d-bags were chirping shit like, “Fuck Rodge and his He-Man lunchbox.” Then, like four weeks later, I spotted about 10 He-Mans in the cafeteria. I was all, “The fuck did all these He-Mans come from? Man, fuck my He-Man lunchbox!” I was so over that thing. It was so cool that it was uncool. Looking back on it, that lunchbox was so awesome. I should have hung on to it. It was way under-appreciated. So is icing.

Check out what BrosIcingBros.com has turned into: “We had a good run Bros…” You sure as shit did! And it ended way too abruptly. There’s all that, plus I received the following email just over one week ago:

Dorn,

Several of the brothers and I are living the life working easy jobs while kicking it in OBX.

Our past time favorite has always been Icing each other or visitors to further help accelerate our nights and days of debauchery. However we recently have come into an argument and possible new way of life into the game of Icing. As always we have followed the mainstream of the one knee down, bottles up chug until the sugary icy concoction is down our throats. However this past weekend we came witness to into a new form of Smirnoff Ice which is served whole heartedly in a can (see attached image).

So I ask you when in a town where these are offered. Would it be a worse and demoralizing experience to have one chug out of a bottle, or shotgun one out of a can.

Regards,
****** ******

The attached image:

Quick side note: This was yet another email I received that was just one long, jumbled paragraph. Mix in some peculiar capitalization and missing/misused punctuation, and it was a strain on these eyes of mine. I added in some line breaks for you, because I care. Bunch of animals, you guys are.

How many of you knew what “OBX” meant? I sure as shit didn’t. Veronica here at the headquarters did, though, and she filled me in. It stands for Outer Banks, which is a long stretch of barrier islands in North Carolina. Knowledge, guys. Read a goddamn book already. Late addition side note: I just asked my followers on Twitter if they knew what it meant. I got quite a few of the predictable “Dude, you’re a fucking idiot” responses, but it also turns out there are a bunch of people out there that didn’t know. So, suck it.

It became too big, too cool, too prevalent — way too fast. Then poof, it was gone…

Now, to this guy’s question, which leads me to believe he may have just walked out of a time capsule that was buried under his fraternity house in 2010. Here I am thinking that the art of icing was a completely extinct pastime of university culture, then not only do I find out there are still some people icing each other on the east coast, but they are still so immersed in the prank that they are actively trying to refine their crafts. Unbefuckinglievable! I’m beyond excited about this. Why? Because icing is fantastic. And it’s not quite dead yet. Now sure, it’s in the ICU with a faint pulse, but there’s still some blood pumping through those veins. This is like discovering an unhatched pterodactyl egg that was miraculously and cryogenically frozen, and now he’s ready to see the light of day and peep some 21st century tail. Same exact shit.

Here’s the answer to your question, OBX bro: you ice any way you feel like icing. Out of a can, out of a bottle, out of a goddamn sippy cup — it doesn’t matter. Just keep icing, man. Don’t ever stop icing. Ice until you can’t ice anymore, then pull all your strength together for one more ice. And make them count. Fuck your friends’ worlds with icings. Ice them in the shower. Ice them in class. Ice them in the library and while they’re already being iced. Make them have nightmares about Smirnoff Ice, and when they wake up from those nightmares in sweaty heaps of terror, ice their asses.

Now, for the full disclaimer: Icing became a trend back when TFM was just getting hair on its peaches, back in simpler times before trolls were trolling, before the book banner was causing unrest, before Rush Boobs captured our hearts, and back when users could fill in any username they wanted when submitting a post or commenting. It’s only natural that I have a special place in my heart for icing.

Check the above time stamp and compare it to TFM’s June 2010 launch. Icing became a thing when we did. Kid iced his fucking mom. Ha, classic! How can you not get behind something like that? How could you let it die? You shouldn’t have.