Imagine a holiday tradition that started as a rebellious cultural prank and morphed into a vomit-soaked pub crawl that makes your local dive bar look like a kindergarten dance recital.

The new Santacon documentary is here to spill the tea on how a San Francisco counterculture movement became the notorious holiday nightmare we know today. Directed by Seth Porges, the film traces the event’s origins back to 1994, when the Cacophony Society - a group of mischievous pranksters - first unleashed “Santarchy” onto unsuspecting city streets.

The Birth of a Chaotic Tradition

Believe it or not, Santacon wasn’t always about getting blackout drunk and terrorizing local businesses. Its founders, including Burning Man co-founder John Law and Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk, originally conceived it as a wild, culture-jamming performance art piece. The documentary captures iconic moments like Law hanging himself in a modified Santa costume on Market Street - peak San Francisco weirdness.

From Underground Prank to Nationwide Nuisance

As the event spread to cities like Portland, LA, and New York, it transformed from a subversive art happening into what John Oliver famously dubbed “America’s Most Hated Christmas Party”. The film explores how a once-clever social experiment devolved into a citywide nightmare of drunk Santas stumbling between bars.

The Redemption Arc

Interestingly, San Francisco’s recent Santacon iterations have attempted a redemption arc. New organizers have shifted focus to toy drives and dance parties, slowly rebuilding the event’s reputation from pure chaos to something almost… respectable?

The documentary streams this weekend for $15 through DOC NYC - a small price to pay for a front-row ticket to one of the most bizarre cultural transformations in modern urban history.