Once upon a time, I was playing Beer pong in some fraternity basement when the opposing team tossed the ping pong ball over the cups and onto the floor. The ball bounced and rolled onto carpet that probably hadn’t been cleaned since 1999. I chased after it (in my peplum top and sock bun) and and grabbed the ball that was now covered in dirt and mysterious fuzz off the floor.

I gave it a little dust off and of course dunked it right into the wash cup. Good as new! Game on!

Looking back, I am lucky I did not catch the black plague.

One mom on TikTok pointed out that those days of washing the ball in water and reusing cups game after game after game are totally gone because, well, Gen Z realized that it’s actually totally unsanitary and disgusting to play that way. How are we all still alive?

TikTok user @tenschrein shared that she learned this Beer Pong innovation after a night with some twenty-somethings.

“If you are over the age of 30, do you know that beer pong isn't the same anymore?” she asked.

First off, when the millennials started to fill each of the cups with beer, the twenty-year-olds were confused.

Um, that’s why it’s called beer pong, right?

“We start filling up the cups, and they're like, ‘What are you doing?’ We're like, ‘We're getting ready for beer pong.’ They're like, ‘You don't fill the cups with beer, you fill them with water.’”

See, Gen Z figured out that having the same ping pong ball touch every single person’s hands and then drop into a cup of beer to be drank is actually quite unsanitary and disgusting.

And let’s be real, they are not wrong.

Instead, Gen Z fills the cups on the table with water and then each person has their own cup of beer to sip on accordingly. This eliminates the risk of transferring germs and drinking carpet fuzz beer (it also eliminates an aspect of fun, but we’ll let that slide).

Her video went viral, gaining over 2.5 million views, with several TikTokers commenting on the new drinking game trend.

“This is why I’m immune to EVERYTHING and my kids get motion sickness standing still,” one user joked.

“Oh no germ city 🤣🤣 heck we’d have grass and dirt in our beer 😘🤣,” another said.

The OP replied, “Yes! Where we grew up parties were in the woods it’s probably really good for our immune systems”

“Yup I learned this several years back. I was like hmm that’s actually smart. I played on a nasty sorority floor and fraternity floors. …” another said.

Another pointed out, “But it’s alcohol in the cups. Alcohol kills germs so I feel like technically we were more sanitary 🤷🏻‍♀️😂😂😂”

Now, this is the line of thinking we all need to make ourselves feel better!