World got ya seething? Enter the rage room
Patrons unleash fury in sanctuaries of smash
Have you ever wanted to smash something after a long day at work?
There’s a more grown-up way to throw a tantrum.
Rage rooms, also known as smash rooms or anger rooms, have opened in cities around the world, offering a safe place for people to shatter away their anger – literally. You can hurl a plate across a room, take a sledgehammer to an old computer or kiss a framed photo of your ex goodbye with a golf club.
The first rage room opened in Japan in 2008, according to Vice. Since then, rage rooms have spread to countries from Serbia to the United Kingdom to Argentina. There are hundreds of rage rooms in the USA, and new ones have popped up in cities such as Charlotte, North Carolina, and Tuscon, Arizona, in the past year. In October, rage rooms opened in Milwaukee; Rochester, New York; Hampton, Virginia; and American Fork, Utah.
Rage rooms are generally affordable, but like anything else, prices vary. In Glen Burnie, Maryland, you can pay as little as $15 for a BYOB package – that’s bring your own breakable. In New York City, the $95 “Couples Therapy” package comes with two electronic items, such as a printer or laptop, and two buckets of ceramic plates, mugs and bowls. In Los Angeles, you can pay up to $300 for the “Overkill” package, which includes 100 items such as televisions, wine bottles and printers.
Maxwell Luthy, director of trends and insights at TrendWatching, said rage rooms allow consumers to make a memory instead of buying a product. The U.S. consumer base is increasingly stressed, according to Luthy, from the headaches of daily life, as well as issues such as climate change and politics.
“So you have an anxious consumer who needs to let off some steam, and this provides an experience for them,” Luthy said. “This is more substantial than a Unicorn Frappuccino.”
Rage rooms are not just for when you’re seeing red, according to Mary Babic, a co-owner of the Smash Room in Daytona Beach, Florida. She said customers flock to the smash room as a form of stress relief, not anger management. “When we talk about, it, we literally just talk about relieving that pressure you didn’t even know was there,” Babic said. “We actually talk about the fun of it.”
Vantroy Greene, who opened the House of Purge in Charlotte, North Carolina, in May, said the need to relax unifies his clients.
“I feel like there’s a lot of people who need an outlet from family stress or just the stress of life,” Greene said. “There’s a lot of people who work out every day or pray or meditate, but you might like to break stuff. That first time you smash a bottle, you’ll just get it.”
Kaki King, a guitarist from New York City, visited Rage Industries in Seattle in October, while she was on tour. She said she was surprised that she enjoyed the experience, even though she does not think of herself as violent. “I was the most surprised by the fact that someone like me – I consider myself calm, peaceful, measured, not quick to anger at all – (would) actually be expressing anger physically, even against these inanimate objects,” she said.
King called her 20-minute session “cathartic” and even cried in the middle of it.
Greene has had more than 1,100 visitors since the House of Purge’s opening in May, from bachelorette parties to company team-building events to families with children as young as 8 years old. His most surprising clients? A 73year-old couple who wanted to spend date night smashing a car.
“They were out there breaking stuff to opera music,” Greene said. “He was wearing a tux.”
Babic said the majority of her customers are women, and Greene said women are up to “95 percent” of his.
Some mental health professionals doubt that rage rooms are an effective way of expressing anger. Scott Bea, a clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic, said rage rooms can be fun, but they should not substitute communication or seeking help.
“It’s not particularly therapeutic for people who have anger problems,” Scott said. “Just because they throw something doesn’t mean they aren’t going to throw something again in the future.”
“You have an anxious consumer who needs to let off some steam, and this provides an experience for them. This is more substantial than a Unicorn Frappuccino.”
Maxwell Luthy Trend Watching