From Here To Fraternity

‘Youth gone wild’ has been prime commentary fodder of late, particularly in the lead up to Harmony Korine’s hyped new flick, Spring Breakers, which portrays the reckless impulsiveness of a bunch of college co-eds in all its topless, gun-wavin’, crotch-heavin’, beer-bongin’ glory. But do young people really do this shit? A young Aussie writer living in the US college system gave us an inside look into the weird world of fraternities.
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I spent last semester studying journalism and politics at a large college in southern California. Throwing myself headlong into the American college cliché, I lived in the dorms, joined intramural sports, cheered at the basketball games, and narrowly – narrowly – avoided joining a fraternity.

What’s A Fraternity?

Fraternities are as much a part of American college-life as football games, pep rallies and student government. The novelty of my Australian accent scored me invites to a few frat parties in the early weeks. I had fun, drank more than my fair share of free booze, and met some decent guys that had me reconsidering my notions of frat bros. Some are the jock under-achiever meatheads that movies like Animal House or Old School depict, but most are intelligent, cool guys with their heads screwed on properly. So by the time “Rush Week” rolled around, I’d decided that I wanted to join one.

Between seven and nine million Americans identify as members of fraternities or sororities, and it’s easy to see the appeal for freshmen. A frat offers an easy way to make a lot of friends quickly, and have guaranteed alcohol and social plans for most nights of the week. The older guys look after the younger dudes, and they genuinely take the “brotherhood” thing seriously; it’s not just a word to them. They go on camping trips, weekends away; they help each other with homework and study, provide guidance to one another. Organisational, community and leadership skills are fostered through charity events, events-planning and social work. Fraternity alumni hook up younger guys with jobs and internships. If you apply for a job and the boss was a member of your fraternity, you’re a dead certainty for the gig. One of them summed it up best for me when he said, “If you’re hitting on a girl, one of the brothers will come up and thank you for helping him out with ‘that thing’, or say something to make you look good in front of her.” A house full of wingmen and parties? Freshman heaven.

And oh, the parties. My school was small on fraternities, compared to a USC or UCLA, or older East Coast colleges. Yet the few frat parties I went to were the wildest of my whole time in the USA. Literally thousands of dollars of booze is laid out (that’s the membership dues at work). The brothers have been working hard all day at school, handing out fliers for the party to every pretty girl walking past (and deftly avoiding the less-than-pretty girls – I’ve seen it, and they’re not subtle about it). They always sort out a decent DJ and killer sound-system, and a  few of the houses I went to had designated “hook-up rooms”. It’s wall-to-wall booze, girls, beer pong, beer bongs, body shots, flip cup. Frat parties are exactly how they’re depicted in the movies: it’s Mecca for most young guys, especially ones that are under the legal drinking age of 21 – which is most of the American college population.

What’s A Rush Week?

At my college in the States, the O-Week equivalent went for three weeks. First week, the college teaches bewildered kids from small high schools how to function in a university of 30,000 students; next, clubs and societies get the same bewildered kids to join lacrosse, sailing or orienteering; then it’s Rush Week. Rush Week is where fraternities scout potential new recruits. Fraternities (for boys) and sororities (for girls) put up stalls and tents on the main lawn, flanked by giant wooden insignia, and begin choosing recruits. You meet the guys in the frat, and they decide if you can join the club.  An invitation to join is known as a “bid”. If you accept, you become a “pledge”. The pledging process usually lasts for most of a semester, although some frats require a year of pledging. Over that time you’re expected to get to know your frat, and go to all the parties and events; and it’s in the pledging period that all the hazing happens. While fraternities push rhetoric of “brotherhood” and “family”, joining one feels more like an imposing multi-step interview process for a job you’re not really sure you want.

The more charismatic and suave brothers man the frat stalls, picking newbies from the crowd for a chat. They ask a few questions about your study or your hobbies, before asking the only question they really care about: “So, what are you looking to get out of joining our fraternity?” If your answer isn’t liberally sprinkled with the magic words – “brotherhood”, “leadership”, “community” – you’ll likely be sent on your way (kudos to the one fraternity who openly told me, “Most other frats talk about community service and stuff. But we just want to party, dude.”). But if they like the cut of your jib, you’re given your Golden Ticket: a glossy pamphlet outlining that frat’s Rush Week events. I did a bit of shopping around the fraternity parade and left with invites to “come and hang out” at six different fraternities’ Rush Weeks, including Delta Chi, Zeta Beta Tau and an Asian-only fraternity whose name I don’t remember. That’s how much these guys want an Australian in their ranks – I got a bid from a fraternity who only included Asian guys.

What Happens Next?

Next are the Rush events: BBQs, pizza nights, Capture The Flag, laser tag, wings nights, ice cream nights and more. I didn’t pay for dinner for two whole weeks. While they try to make each event feel like a party – a “boys’ night” – it actually felt like being scrutinised by a date or, more accurately, like a group job interview. It becomes a game of strategy. Potential pledges pinpoint the important guys in the frat, and try to make themselves known and memorable to them. Ultimately, the fraternity senior members give the final Joaquin Phoenix-as-the-emperor-in-Gladiator thumbs up or thumbs down on you joining, so getting on their good side is the name of the game. Every conversation with every random guy is added to their summation of you, so it’s about proving that you’re one of the boys. You laugh at their shitty jokes, and pretend to understand what they’re saying about baseball; you play endless games of pool and eat yet another hamburger, because Rush Week rules include no alcohol and no girls and all events over by 10pm and there’s not a lot else that fifty college-aged dudes can do in the basement of a frat house on a Tuesday night.

Fraternities have the reputation of being populated by meathead jock and standard frat-boy types, but in the interests of open-mindedness, I’d decided to give the experience a chance. Of the six different fraternities I got invited to “Rush”, I went along to see four of them, and came incredibly close to pledging to one. They seemed like decent guys, but the night before a friend of mine went to one of their parties and had her drink spiked. I spoke to a few friends afterwards, who told me that drink spiking was not common at frat parties, but by no means was it rare. It happened every few weeks.

The hypocrisy of guys spending most of their time bragging and back-slapping about how many over-imbibed freshman they bagged at the last party, while simultaneously advising potential pledges to join the fraternity for the leadership and community opportunities, was just too much for me. The drink spiking was the final straw. (This was also right around the time of the infamous butt-chugging incident at the University of Tennessee, which didn’t really help.)

I dropped out, and stopped going to their events. Then the calls, texts, voicemails and Facebook messages started. From six different fraternities at once. Apparently the novelty of having an Australian guy in their brotherhood was too good to pass up, because they were more persistent in getting me to “come chill with us tonight” than any guy has been with any crush of his in history. What started as daily texts of “Hey bro, coming tonight?” soon escalated to “We’ll pick you up in my car on the way,” and “The guys have been asking about you, man,” phone calls. One memorable day, the president of one fraternity, the recruitment chair and some random guy who I don’t remember meeting (let alone giving my phone number to) called within 25 minutes of each other to ask if I was coming to play beach volleyball that evening.

Sorry guys, but given the opportunity to hang out with drink-spikers or to not hang out with drink-spikers, I’ll take the second one.

Fraternity culture isn’t for everyone. I only got to the second stage of the process before becoming disillusioned, but it was a fascinating look into the social dynamics of an organisation which simply doesn’t exist back home. Plus, I got a few weeks of free dinners.

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Josh Butler is 22, broke and currently living in California. He will be staying there until US immigration force him to go back to Sydney. He has written for Groupie Magazine, Pages Digital, Oyster Magazine and BLUNT.