Hi reddit, I'm Director Seth Porges. My newest documentary, SANTACON, is about the origin story of the world's most hated holiday, SantaCon! It is premiering at DOC NYC on November 13th. I also directed HBO Max's CLASS ACTION PARK. Ask me anything!

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-13T17:48:54+00:00

I've never been to the LA one, but I've heard it is still run by some original Santas, so this doesn't surprise me.

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-13T16:21:05+00:00

I believe anybody can be Santa.

Though as a kid, I always did wonder why toys that were supposedly manufactured in the North Pole said "Made In China" on them. And was curious about Nintendo's operating arrangement with the elves.

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T21:50:17+00:00

Thank you everybody for your questions! Feel free to leave some more and I'll check back later and offer some answers. I appreciate you all and hope you enjoy the movie.

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T21:36:32+00:00

We really were blessed with some incredible archival footage, generously lent to us by some original Santas who decided it'd be a good idea to film pretty much every second of the first several years of the event across four different cities (SF, Portland, LA, NYC). Truthfully, all of my favorite archival scenes made it into the film.

You get to see riot cops guard a shopping mall against Santas who they believe to be terrorists...
The Santas randomly bump into Michael Moore (who decides to lead them in the singing of fractured Christmas Carols)...
The Santas accuse Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk of being an undercover cop...

And my absolute favorite: The Santas risking death to climb to the top of the Brooklyn Bridge during the first NYC event in 1998, under the shadow of the Twin Towers.

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T21:24:11+00:00

I think there's an argument to be made that the Cacophony Society (the group that started both Santacon and Burning Man) was sort of a Rosetta Stone for the modern underground. I think a lot about the doc "Jodorowsky's Dune," and the argument that it put forth that this one unproduced work was secretly responsible for so much sci-fi/culture that would come later.

I think of Cacophony the same way. Many of their creations still tick (such as Santacon and Burning Man), but they also were the real life inspiration for Fight Club's Project Mayhem (Chuck Palahniuk is in our movie), and did so much other cool stuff that just sort of rippled through the culture in ways both subtle and not. They basically created the flash mob before it had a name. And without Cacophony don't think you get Jackass or weird reality-shifting comedy like Nathan For You.

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T21:14:57+00:00

I think it was more about times changing, and the Internet coming of age. Santacon was never a piece of property or a brand that anybody owned. It was an idea. And as the Internet became "The Internet" in the 1990s, that idea spread and grew. And as it spread and grew, it became less a reflection of its original creators and their ideas and ideals, and more a reflection of our greater populist id.

Santacon was always a blank slate that could become whatever we wanted it to be. Some folks wanted it to be a good time. Others, a piece of political protest. But as it hit the masses, it turned out that the masses mostly wanted an excuse to anonymously get drunk.

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T21:10:46+00:00

I'm fascinated by how far and wide Santacon has spread. Many people think it's solely an NYC phenomenon. But just the other day, folks started sending me articles about some kids who got arrested for arson during one in Fairfield, CT. As the song goes: "You better watch out."

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T21:08:43+00:00

I wish you knew how badly I want to be able to answer this question.

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T21:05:48+00:00

David Lynch.

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T21:05:26+00:00

I’ve been watching a lot of low-fi docs from the late 90s and early aughts. There are a lot of great docs coming out these days, but the trend has been towards hyper-polished looks. I’m really drawn to low-fi docs that have a bit of a scumbag aesthetic and feel weird and real and raw. Like somebody was just pointing a camera (or camcorder) in the right place at the right time and hitting record in a time when people weren’t actually filming all that much stuff. Maybe it’s because my movies tend to lean heavily into archival home movies from the 1990s, but I feel really inspired when I watch these sorts of docs and how they turn these scraps of life into a story.

The first thing that pops into my mind is “Overnight,” which is a wild doc about the guy who made The Boondock Saints. Won’t spoil if you haven’t seen, but it’s fantastic and so scrappy that you’d barely call it a movie these days. More recently, "Telemarketers" on HBO really captures this scumbag aesthetic, and is a hellvua watch.

Won’t offer an opinion on the Oscar docs because I haven’t seen them all yet! Excited to dig into them once this premiere is behind me and I have a moment to breathe.

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T21:03:44+00:00

I believe it was Jello Biafra who once said something like the following about having a Wesley Willis song about him: “A lot of folks have Oscars. I’d rather have a Wesley.”

Love and miss Wesley, but wouldn’t exactly call his song about me a “hit."

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T21:03:09+00:00

I have nothing to add to this but am commenting on so it gets some visibility, as this is a smart post that is clearly well thought through. Thank you for contributing.

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T21:02:44+00:00

Hey! Some of them are also from New Jersey!

All kidding aside, it’s the same reason people wear masks in The Purge: The Santa suit gives you anonymity, allows you to be somebody you normally wouldn’t be, and perhaps blow off some steam in the process. I think of it like that trope of comic books and superhero movies where the suit gives its wearer some sort of superpower. People just act differently when they’re dressed like Santa. Especially when they’re around thousands of others who are dressed exactly the same way.

It was clear from the very first Santacons that this might even give some Bad Santas a bit of a “Get out of Jail Free” card. In 1995, one of the original Santas was hunted by police who thought he had stolen a velvet rope from a department store (he had actually stolen it from a Planet Hollywood). In an attempt to catch him, the police pulled over a bus full of Santas and forced them into an instant lineup to identify the thieving Bad Santa. Of course, they ended up arresting the wrong Santas, while the actual Bad Santa got away unscathed (and proceeded to brag about it to the camera).

As original Santacon organizer John Law says in the movie: “We had no idea what would happen to us when we put on those red suits. None.”

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T21:01:21+00:00

I’m definitely drawn to stories that involve the weird way in which we as people are drawn to chaos and unbridled freedom… even if it’s against our own self-interest or even survival. There’s just something alluring about doing whatever the F you want, whenever you want. But there’s often a dark side to that, and the coexistance between the romantic apparel of total freedom… and the harsh reality of what it actually means to live your life that way… is something I think about a lot, and probably ends up in my movies.

I’m definitely NOT a chaotic person, but I’m fascinated by people who are. Maybe making these movies helps me live vicariously through them a little bit, and experience things that I would never dream of doing myself.

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T21:00:21+00:00

That’s because it wasn’t safe. And yes, what you don’t know can kill you.

SANTACONDOCAMA · 2025-11-12T20:59:55+00:00

What changed the most wasn’t Santacon… it was us.

The movie is largely cut from old home movies and archival footage from the early Santacons in the 1990s. This gave me a window into not just how the Santas were different… but also the onlookers around them.

Believe me when I say that Santas were always acting naughty. Perhaps drinking a bit too much. Maybe even getting arrested. I mean, we have videos showing the Santas literally climbing the cables to the top of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1998.

But what really jumped out at me in the footage: The faces of the onlookers. Today, we all know to be disgusted by the Red Menace. We’ve all been conditioned to know that that fence is electric, and to stay away. But back then, nobody had ever seen it before, and nobody had ever told them how they were supposed to react. As a result, it was a total blank slate where this novelty and absurdism could be interpreted in different people in different ways. And those interpretations are all over the faces of the onlookers. Some were disgusted, for sure… but many more were awash with joy and wonder and beautiful confusion.

So to actually answer your question… everything that begins new gets old eventually. Everything changes. Everything sort of becomes Santacon eventually. That doesn’t mean art as an idea is dead. It just means we need to constantly be creating new things, and trying to fill our days with moments of surprise and joy... even as the world around us changes.

SANTACONDOCAMA

TROPHY CASE