From December 1 to Christmas Eve, the song Last Christmas by Wham! dodge. Lex Brouwers (29) from Tilburg succeeded. He forged a sophisticated technique for the ‘Whamageddon’. A grueling elimination race in which participants must avoid George Michael’s hit for 24 days. And really, in December that is very difficult.
Whamageddon is a kind of game, a challenge that originated on the internet. You are the referee and the rules are simple. You are not allowed to hear Last Christmas. Not at all. Remixes are still allowed, but as soon as you hear the drums and bells of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley’s original Christmas banger, you’re done. Then you go to the Whamhalla. And you can try again next year.
“I like a fun challenge and games,” says Lex. He came across the challenge on Facebook about five years ago and wanted to give it a try. “At the time I went into it quite open-minded. But I didn’t succeed then. Actually, not once, until now.”
Every year it was blind panic. “The second year I thought: come on, I understand the game now. But the song suddenly came along somewhere during the night. And last year I suddenly heard the dull drums coming from a classroom. While I was still teaching it to my fellow students had told.”
This year, Lex basically didn’t have to go anywhere. “Except for shopping,” he says. But he had prepared well. As soon as he crossed the threshold of the white and blue supermarket giant, he put on his headphones, with his music at full volume. On top of that, he turned on his noise canceling sound. All to keep out Last Christmas. “I was called once in the Appie, then I panicked for a moment because the music stopped. I suddenly heard Bløf through my self-built sound barrier.”
“My tactic was: professional avoidance.”
But fortunately: he stayed in the race. “Professional avoidance,” he calls his tactic. When he unlocked his phone, he immediately turned the volume down to the lowest setting. He was not on TikTok and became nervous when he saw something blue passing by, for fear of Albert Heijn’s Christmas commercial. Wham! this year the leading role.
Lex canceled Wham! on his mother’s Spotify account, so that he would not be unexpectedly surprised by the singing duo at her home. He warned his friends in advance if he was riding in the car, so that they would absolutely not turn on SkyRadio. He did his work in silence, without radio. And he himself looked for Wham!-free playlists when he got tired of that quiet.
“Even my mother is proud of me.”
Then realization set in last Tuesday. He was really going to make it this time. “It couldn’t have gone more wrong. Everyone in my group was finished, except me. I am unique. Even my mother is proud of me,” laughs Lex.
To crown his struggle, he played the Christmas song for the very first time this month at the stroke of midnight. “I was really looking forward to hearing him again.”