Cup Tower Armchair Sociology

Amidst the low key shitshow that is Beau’s Oktoberfest (not to preclude this also happening at other similar events worldwide), many have borne witness to an interesting social phenomenon. In the euphoria of the evening, and the cognitive lethargy of the hangover, i’ve reflected on this phenomenon, and done my best to apply some lighthearted structure to it below. I’m no sociologist nor psychologist by any stretch, have no credentials nor any particular proficiency for these types of studies, so let that be my disclaimer to you. If you heroically make it to the end of this piece, I’d be honored to hear your takeaways, armchair or otherwise.

Beau’s Oktoberfest is a mix of tented beer gardens, live music of widely varying genres, local food vendors, loosely competitive feats of strength, displays of personal style, and general good natured boozy camaraderie. Much of which is influenced by traditional German oktoberfest roots, however i can only assume (having never attended a traditional Oktoberfest event) this event diverges from the roots in a number of ways (no schnitzel this year??!!).

One tradition, is to wield your frothy beer in a large beer stein. Every year Beau’s does up a new stien design, and sells them for for $12 at the merch tent. I always buy one. I usually make it home with it (this year, yes, i did!!).

When you buy a beer at one of the numerous beer gardens, they serve it to you in a Beau’s branded plastic (but compostable!) cup. Even if you have a stein, for many reasons i’m sure, they serve your beer in a fresh plastic cup filled to the brim. All this to say, with the gazillions of beers served throughout the friday and saturday eves, a gargantuan amount of plastic cups are handed out.

The beer gardens are filled with rows and rows of wooden picnic tables. Depending on the weather and time of day, they’re often filled with rambunctious drinkers and eaters, prost’ing the day and night away. This leads to empty cups filling the tables. And without fail, people start stacking and positioning these cups together into structures — with the inevitable goal of building as high as possible.

One thing that must first be understood about the behaviour that follows, is that it is not “normal” perse. It is an alcohol fueled, inhibition shed environment, and i’ve embellished my words just like how everything can seem that much more epic under the influence. I akin this to peeling back a few layers of acceptable social norms. I know this is a grey area and alcohol can “turn you into” a different person as well… i believe both are true to some extent (no science here!), and I believe that peeling the layers through whatever mechanism, can give us a window into a more raw display of human nature. And I find the view through the window in this case, fascinating.

The towers start innocuously enough. Someone at a table, dubbed the creator, will start stacking the cups at their table while accompanying buddies ramble on. Usually ignored or potentially with one co-creator at the table, this will continue until there is a decent base and the promise of something great sparkles in the creators mind.

What usually happens next is other friends and nearby’s lean in and express a desire to build as well, noting something good is shaping up — we’ll call these the innocent joiners. They’ll start on the opposite side or end of the table and look to contribute, but also stand to gain in some of the initial notoriety that has been incubated by the creator.

Once the tower has grown beyond a certain point, a crowd of who we’ll call the watchers develop. They’ll take pictures from afar, loom nearby chatting with friends, and observe the tower’s progress — both because watching something be constructed before your eyes is great, but also to do some study of the builders themselves. Watchers often but not always, will engage in lighthearted commentary and critique of building progress amongst their friends, akin to how people judge and comment on how other people parallel park on a dense city street.

If it feels like there are too many cooks in the kitchen, or if one isn’t quite ready or into building, some watchers might turn into helpers. These folks are mostly benevolent — they’ll harvest cups from tables near and far, which is a great aid to the builders as they can focus on their craft.

The design of the initial tower, in combination with the geometry of the picnic tables, limits the towers depth. Once this limit is reached, a single walled tower usually develops. Its at this stage when one of the more interesting participants emerges — we’ll call him (i’m purposely using the ‘him’ pronoun, as in all my years i’ve never seen a woman act in this regard, and while this is a sexist generalization its one i’m happy to make to help relate to my real experiences, and these types of behaviors resonate easiest in most as typical male behavior) the success stealing, affirmation seeking, void of all humility, douche joiners.

The douche joiner will see the creator honing their craft carefully in a zen like manner, and do all they can to jump in late, steal their glory, and after placing only a handful of sloppy cups, usually in a design that contradicts the principles of the tower’s creator, will engage their friends for affirmation and IG and snapchat evidence.

By this point, usually a large number of innocent joiners, watchers, helpers, and at least one douche joiner will have come and gone. The creator will remain, so long as the douche joiner didn’t overcome their resolve. And via some combination of the participants, the tower will fall. Depending on how the creator or joiners feel, someone will jump in, and rebuild. The creator creates again, joiners, and sometimes helpers, will become creators.

This cycle will repeat numerous times — until the most honest and revolting participant of all emerges. I call these, the ruiners. Ruiners always begin as watchers, and it’s only a very rare breed that escalates past becoming a douche joiner. The most extreme of these participants urge to ruin your fun, ruin the spectacle, and draw attention and emotion from all participants, and ruin all that has been built in an explosive display of ego.

This year, i was seconds late to 2 distinct ruinings, and i heard of several others. Casual ruiners ruin with their arms, but more explosive ruiners look for an opening, and then dive right through the tower, head first. The creator and all joiners can do nothing but stare in shock and horror as what they had built crumbles to the ground, and the usually wet ruiner gets up and smirks with a vicious amount of visible satisfaction, aggression, defence, and egoism.

Ruining could spark fights, but the vibes are reasonably chill and builders are, well, builders by nature — so unless a ruiner happens upon their ruin while a douche joiner is still participating, a few snarls and words are exchanged but rarely does it escalate to fists… but as perhaps you can tell, this part is mostly hearsay! Clearly i’m light on data in this area, if have some, please share.

And the cycle continues. Creation. Build. Join. Help. Accomplish. Hubris. Ego. Ruin. Its fascinating!

Last year i had one of my towers ruined. I felt gutted, wrenched, disappointed. My emotions had shed their top layers (due to the alcohol), and i felt so strongly betrayed, and sad to be a member of the human race. This year, I played only the part of a watcher. I bided my time, and arguably would have stepped in after the ruin to perhaps become the next creator. But whilst watching from afar i became fascinated and overwhelmed with calmness, and acceptance of this cycle. I chose to first understand, as opposed to act. And now i feel, i do understand.

I should also add — last year i was both a creator, and a ruiner — self ruiner that is. I’m not proud of this, but i’m glad i have the experience from which to learn, and feel after this cheesy reflection i would not act in that way again.

The story would not be complete without noting that inaction can make one complicit in the action. The final role i’ll define, is the role of the activist. I’ve met no defiant activists at Oktoberfest, but i choose to assume they exist. This person will call out the ruiners, and in some cases the douche joiners. They will stand up for what they believe in, and work to combat net negative participation of the divisive, egocentric, and destructive participants.

Humans love accomplishing things. We love building things. We love creating something out of nothing and/or chaos. We also love feeling good. For some there is an absence of respect for the accomplishments others achieve, and they choose to skip the work and jump to the reward. Some also love ruining things, things created by others. Because some feel others’ success diminishes their own (that old, there is a finite amount of success in the world theory), and one way to stop that feeling of inadequacy is to crush others creations. And others still work to fight injustice, and cultivate environments where ruining is not tolerated.

My main takeaways? Most people are great, some people are jerks. Duh?! And it behooves me to be more of an activist. And something as innocuous as a cup tower is a neat place to observe a complete cycle of creation and destruction, a cycle that often can last longer than a generation.