BM45734_The-first-theme-camp

AUG 30 1993 · 14:00

"A fellow from the Cacophony Society, Peter Doty, created this interactive scenario... He called it Christmas Camp. The man dressed up in a Santa Claus outfit for about five days in hundred degree temperatures. They hung colored lights and played Christmas carols 24 hours a day, and everybody moved away from them. It was the most irritating thing you could imagine. But it was meant to be cathartic, of course, because Christmas is the most irritating holiday you can imagine. And so, he turned the great consumer holiday on end. If you walked past, they would practically drag you over and offer you eggnog, which had alcohol in it. But to get to the eggnog, you had to eat the fruitcake. They had created this whole interactive scenario that was very socially coercive, and it was the greatest, most cathartic, Christmas I've ever experienced."