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Santa Monica parents will get a dose of hard, cold truth this weekend with a "reality party" depicting the horrors of underage drinking and drug use.On Saturday, the "#ItsTooEasy Reality Party" will be thrown throughout the afternoon and into the early evening as some kind of paranoid parents haunted- or hell-house to make them think that each and every one of their kids are chugging a six pack and popping a bottle of Xanax every Saturday night.
"The goal of the #ItsTooEasy Reality Party is to create an opportunity for parents, administrators and community leaders to come together to discuss how we can better protect our youth from the misuse and abuse of drugs and alcohol," Brenda Simmons, Director of the Westside Impact Project, told the Santa Monica Mirror. Her organization is co-hosting the reality parties along with the CLARE Foundation and Straight Up Reality Improv, and will be sponsored in part with your hard-earned taxpayer dollars from the City of Santa Monica and its police department.
Each reality party will be a 30-minute tour through a simulated party where parents will be confronted with the stark truth about drinking games, drug use at parties, and peer pressure. Each walkthrough will be followed by a "debriefing session" where the adults discuss with parents what they learned. Turn down for... debriefing session.
Straight Up Reality Improv is a nonprofit from Ventura County that hosts reality parties and plays that are reenactments of the horrors of binge drinking and drug use among teens. As you can expect, it comes with a heavy, heavy dose Christian youth group-brand earnestness and the lack of self-awareness that makes their noble efforts all the more hilarious. (As far as we can tell, they are secular.)
Behold, the amazing anti-Xanax video, which almost plays off as parody:
"Hey gurl, want some Xanax?"
Here's a preview of what their Reality Parties seem like. Lots of chugging of phantom beer from beer bongs, it seems:
Santa Monica parents! Don't miss your chance to watch some bad acting scare you into thinking a joint will ruin your kid's chances of getting into UCLA and have to settle for Cal Poly. Or, you know, you could always just talk to your kids.
