“Be your own person and not be somebody else’s fool,” is the message Labour’s Galway senator Lorraine Higgins is sending to those tempted to take part in ‘Neknominations’.
Neknominations is a new craze where people nominate others to down copious amounts of alcohol within a 24 hour period and post a video on social media. Once this is done, the nominees than nominate others to do the same to keep the chain going.
Sen Higgins has called this a “dangerous craze” which is “promoting a dangerous drinking culture” as participants try to find “new ways to outperform” others “with bizarre behaviour for social media popularity”.
Given the social and health risks of drunkenness and consuming large amounts of alcohol in a short space of time, Sen Higgins is calling on young people to resist getting “caught up in fads like this”.
“If you are tempted to take part,” she said, “I would urge you to consider that in life you must be your own person and not be somebody else’s fool.”
