Dark rituals of excess : the case of Swedish “draining”

This chapter explores the dark side of rituals by examining the Swedish phenomenon of “draining,” which involves purchasing expensive beverages in a bar or nightclub solely to have the staff pour them down the drain. This practice emerged after the Swedish state banned the previously popular practice of Champagne spraying, a similar activity with public potlatch elements and consequent status gains. By engaging in the draining practice, consumers participate in what we call a dark ritual of excess. This practice inverts the notion of a brandfest as a ludic spectacle where consumers and producers co-create value in a hedonic and carnivalistic setting. Instead, draining forces service personnel to co-destroy value without elements of playfulness, serving as a manifestation of symbolic violence that establishes hierarchies of precarity—differing levels of insecurity, instability, and vulnerability. Through their unrestrained wastefulness, dark rituals of excess reveal the underbelly of consumer rituals, where excess and waste, rather than utility, become the organizing principles. Drawing on the work of Georges Bataille and the ritual of draining, it is theorized that the transgressive nature of these rituals in a consumer culture centered on progress and growth. These rituals therefore challenge ideological notions of consumption by offering neither clear use-value nor easily discernible sign-value.