A Ball Pit for Adults Has Just Opened in London

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

A pop-up ball pit filled with 81,000 white plastic balls has opened today in Hammersmith, West London. And it is for adults.

Before you get too "Oh, actually a ball pit for adults sounds like a good idea," bear in mind it is the brainchild of a creative agency, and creative agencies are fundamentally a force for evil in this world, collectives of 20-somethings in horn-rimmed glasses who, as children, were cursed by a wizard to have only bad ideas. A company called Pearlfisher is responsible for this particular scheme, and are promising to donate £1 to children's charity Right to Play for every grown-ass adult who takes time out of their working day to go and wallow in their pit of desperate nostalgia and craven, perverted infantilism.

The art installation is called Jump In! and runs until February 13. Here's a video of some actual adults playing in a ball pit.

Yes, it is easy to be cynical about this, but then it's even easier to draw a constellation-like connection between the Cereal Killer Café, the cutester movement, and grown adults dicking around in a ball pit to the Frozen soundtrack. Join enough dots and you can easily cite the infantilization of British culture: that we are so doomed as a generation, spiraling through a purgatory of high rent and low wages, that we are trying to retreat back into our youths by whatever means possible.

That may be more thought that has ever been put into the concept of a ball pit, but still: pretending to be a child and annoying people is a growing trend in London.

If you want to go and see this ball pit, be my guest—just be aware that ball pits were always shit and you are misremembering how much fun being a child was. If you want to reserve your place despite all that, email jumpin@pearlfisher.com and get yourself down to 50 Brook Green, W6 7BJ sometime between 10AM and 5PM, Monday to Friday.

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