The most wonderful time of the year is finally here! For some of us, anyway. While many of us count down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until Christmas, there are other - rather peculiar - folk out there who see the holiday season as something resembling hell on earth.
Typically these specimens - who deserve to be put into a lab and tested, because turkey, presents and alcohol, all put together, is all that is right and I won't let anyone convince me otherwise - can be identified by their general gloomy air towards the latter end of the year, powerful dislike for
Mariah Carey and repulsive tremble whenever they see a Christmas jumper. Oh, and their penchant for butchering Christmas-lover's hopes and dreams, of course.
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But, praise the Christmas Gods, because finally those Ebenezer Scrooges were given an outlet for all of their pent-up exasperation, resentment and firey rage. This December, sceptics had the chance to head down to Rudolph's Rage Room in London, where they could turn their hatred into something good by smashing up Christmas-themed paraphernalia. Earlier in the month, people paid the equivalent of $24 (£15) in order to put on a red jumpsuit and a hard hat, and be handed a baseball bat to savagely attack Christmas trees, baubles and dancing Santas, among other things, for precisely three minutes.
If you're not a violent person, but you still have a heavy aversion to the holidays, you could always pay $3 (about £2.50) to go along, watch and be fully satisfied as you witnessed all that pent-up frustration come out. Or, if that didn't help, you could just head straight to the bar. Christmas-haters probably never believed the idea that dreams came true at Christmas until now.
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So, how exactly did Rudolph's Rage Room go down with the Grinches of London town? It's fair to say, they were pretty thrilled with the new development.
"By this date, I think people are pretty sick of the Christmas music -- all the decorations -- I think people are done with it and wanna get out some of that stress, I feel very [de-stressed] and de-raged now," a woman called Clare told CBS. In addition, Pearse Egan, who hates Christmas, told the news outlet his method to making the most of the experience, saying: “I just imagined everyone from last Christmas who didn’t get me anything and then showed them how it was.”
The room was created by pop-up expert Meredith O’Shaughnessy, who called it the “ultimate cathartic Christmas stress management experience”. Speaking about her glorious idea, she said: “We all know Christmas can be a stressful time for many so we wanted to give people an imaginative way to embrace their festive feelings. We want lovers and haters of Christmas to join us to release tension ahead of the Christmas holidays. Everybody has loved it universally - whether they hate Christmas or they love Christmas.”
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The definitive anti-Christmas experience, which was thought up by a creative events team in order to help people relax, only ran for one day in December. However, if you're that pent up about the holiday cheer surrounding you, there is always a chance to attend other rage rooms all across America, the UK or wherever else any Scrooges are currently hiding out. Admittedly, these ones are not Christmas themed, but I've heard they sure do get out all of that bitter wrath you have about the holiday cheer and general good feeling in the air. Or even just the everyday rage you have in you, whenever your boss asks you to stay late or when your boyfriend leaves his socks on the floor yet again.
In spite of rage rooms becoming, well, all the rage, some experts have expressed concern that the venues normalise violence and aggressive behaviour. For example, Isabel Clarke, a clinical psychologist and author of How To Deal With Anger, thinks that rage rooms are likely to encourage angry people to focus on their anger and keep repeating the cycle, rather than allowing them to soothe their anger by expressing it once.
"Rage rooms are likely to encourage focus on anger and not anger flowing through," she said. "There is research showing that things like punch bags make anger worse not better for that reason (Bushman 2002). Because such means of dealing with anger encourage people to keep ruminating on their anger they are likely to set up such a pattern, though they will provide an initial release."
I
guess we can kind of see her point. Throwing an axe at a picture of someone's face is hardly destined to make you feel all warm and fuzzy towards them. But does this theory work with a Christian festival too? Are the people who attend Rudolph's Rage Room suddenly going to become tyrants in society, their inherent seasonable rage all of a sudden triggered whenever Fairytale of New York is played? Hey, whatever gets them through the holiday season.
