Katie Van Syckle reports from the ground during SantaCon for NY Mag “so you don’t have to.” SantaCon is an annual, holiday-themed pub crawl whereby one and all get drunk en masse, in costume. Her report takes us from the Time’s Square starting point through a series of bars in midtown, meeting fellow Santas and addressing the stereotypes associated with the event. A SantaCon rep (Syckle refers to him as “Santa One”) insists that the event is “about culture-jamming the Christmas season,” though he concedes that the event has unfortunately attracted “that Santa,” in reference to the drunken frat boy who inevitably ends up shirtless and vomiting in the East Village.
SantaCon attendees ranged from older couples who called it quits at 8 p.m. to hedge fund managers who pre-gamed twice. Despite the morning’s first-ever SantaCon press conference, the lack of arrests and the SantaCon website manager’s satisfied assessment of the day’s events (“… thankfully at this event we have not seen anything that would be considered untoward or having a negative impact on the community”) we’re yet to be convinced that the crawl is any form of successful cultural satire. It remains little more than a yearly collection of drunk people in costumes. [NY Mag] [Image: Flickr/Anthony Quintano]