‘I’d rather act upon it than talk about it.’ Bobby Crivokapich, rage-room visitor
Computer-monitor relics, a drip coffee maker, somebody’s grandma’s china — they don’t stand a chance against this baseball bat or sledghammer or crowbar. Watch as a Chicago couple works out their work anxieties by smashing noisy breakables in a Chicago Tribune feature on a cultural rage that just won’t simmer down — the rage room.
Rage rooms, where people pay to pound out their frustrations and fears, have popped up in Atlanta, New York, Seoul, Moscow and elsewhere in recent years, including one in Duluth, where apparently Minnesota nice isn’t a 365-day certainty.
The Chicago facility featured in the Tribune piece requires a $15 get-in price and then charges customers per smashed item. Like at the Escapades Chicago Escape and Rage Room, providers of this alternative therapy form are sometimes grouping their offering with that other trending adult retreat — escape rooms. Presumably flustered customers who can’t solve the complex lock puzzles can hit the rage room next.
Mental-health professionals have stressed that a few minutes of physical violence that may feel like relief is no panacea for deeper underlying anger or anxiety.
But tell that to return customers, whose comment cards are left in wall graffiti: 2 years and I still haven’t killed him … thanks 2 this place!
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