Today’s moment of thanking God you aren’t a teenager in the year 2012 arrives courtesy of Facebook and the modern parental horror, “Robo-tripping,” the pairing of which can and will inspire socially suicidal consequences when working in concert.

“Robo-tripping,” or the sipping of DXM cough syrup until you start seeing things that are not actually present is a very real problem, the condemning of which may unfortunately inspire even more kids to seek it out. Rather than simply warn them away through schoolmarm-ish scolding, however, agencies BKWLD and TribalDDB have created an experience that vividly demonstrates the reputational and psychic fallout that chugging cough syrup can bring about.

Directed by Moxie Pictures’ Henry & Rel, Sip It Up asks users to connect through Facebook and then uses information from their accounts to terrifying effect.





The first-person POV video begins when “you” wake up, an unexplained gash on one hand and puke stains on the other, making your way to check the messages on your phone. What you find there is the worst nightmare of anyone who has ever woken up not fully remembering the previous night: a text message urging you to check Facebook immediately. From then on, it’s back and forth between vomit-soaked images from the night before, augmented by dismissive comments from your actual friends, and jogged memory fragments of the night’s shenanigans. Also, you’ve been turned into a meme (“That awkward moment when you give a F’d up [you] a ride home.”)

Giving the app further realism, BKWLD and TribalDDB rigged it to pull up iTunes API and Google Street View API info so that flashback scenes from the previous night’s car-ride include areas that users will be familiar with and music they are listening to now. If makeshift drugs have gotten stronger, and the ways teenagers can embarrass themselves have become more efficient, at least it’s nice to know PSAs have also advanced radically.