Non-Greek Redditer Claims that He Doesn't Need to Pay for Friends... Gets Linked to by R/Frat. Drama Ensues (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
89 ups - 32 downs = 57 votes
125 comments submitted at 18:21:39 on Oct 22, 2013 by Burn-Account
Non-Greek Redditer Claims that He Doesn't Need to Pay for Friends... Gets Linked to by R/Frat. Drama Ensues (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
89 ups - 32 downs = 57 votes
125 comments submitted at 18:21:39 on Oct 22, 2013 by Burn-Account
Oh man this is great:
>So I've no knowledge or experience of American college life or fraternities, but all the 'geed' stuff in this thread makes you guys look fucking pathetic, honestly.
>>Commenting on three of my posts makes you look pathetic.
>>>I scrolled down the page like how this entire website works and replied to all the dumbest comments I saw. Not my fault they were all yours.
What is the "geed" thing about?
Urban Dictionary informs me:
>a term used to describe the non-Greek affiliated members on a college campus. Originally derived from "GDI" or "God-damn independents". These people are can be characterized by social awkwardness, non-fratty apparel, and unquestioned love of the pseudo-sport ultimate frisbee.
Fuck, that was totally me... my non-fratty apparel and social awkwardness. Frisbee sucks, though.
TY
See and I thought the frat people were also the frisbee people....
I don't even know what fratty apparel is....
This
Frisbee people usually have decent herbs and spices.
Frat people are the frisbee people.
Not 'round here...
I think it's the shit you see sorority members wearing, clothing that makes you look like a walking billboard for that sorority.
I'm guessing sweaters, tee shirts, and sweat pants with the Greek logos on them. All sold with an extreme markup.
That's sororities.
Southern frats wear salmon shorts and I believe west coast frats wear bro tanks.
Bro tanks, bright colored non.-cargo shorts, buttoned up patterned long sleeve shirts with the sleeves rolled up and brown sperry boat shoes.
If you wanna go full blown douche you can get some raybans with the thing that lets them hang on your neck and a hat with a pink whale on it. I forget what brand that is.
Seriously all the "top tier" houses on my campus dress that way its hilarious.
Croakies are the things that let sunglasses hang. I've seen them on regular prescription glasses here in NC.
They're worn by people who wear reading glasses and have a job that keeps them on their feet (Librarians, teachers) and old people.
No I mean I've seen guys at my college wearing Croakies in class.
> a hat with a pink whale on it. I forget what brand that is.
Vinyard Vines. Why do I even know this.
Don't forget messenger bags and rain jackets, too.
Man, I'm not even up on what the kids are wearing these days. Rain jackets? Regular old rain coats?
No, he means a sorority anorak. Like this.
Thanks, TIL what the kids were up to nowadays. Now if only all those fuckers would get off my lawn...
It's like a lightweight jacket made out of some material that lets water roll off of it. Like a thin hoodie but made out of the material a poncho would be.
I dunno really how to explain it.
> GDI
As opposed to the Frathood of Nod.
The best insult they can come up with is to call us "independent"?
Hah.
GDI was used by GDIs first. "Geed" seems to be the pejorative
It isn't referring to any quality about you other than the fact you are "independent" of the Greek system.
Ah, frats. My university didn't have any since they aren't really a thing in Canada. A couple of my buddies went to the states for school and our friends were actually pretty merciless in making fun of them joining frats.
So... anyone who's not in a frat?
Man, I'm Greek and I play ultimate. What does that make me?
You're totally getting kicked out of the Greek System unless you keep it quiet.
You have to be a secret ultimate frisbee-er for now on.
So much great shit there
I hate to see people like this that give all Greeks a bad name. Unfortunately, a lot of non-Greeks don't understand that being in a fraternity is not always an indication of a wealthy, entitled douche.
Edit: Wrong person, my bad. This shit is getting annoying. Sorry.
Now I desperately want to know what you said.
I thought you were him and basically said stop posting all this shit and let it go.
Ah. I mean, /r/frat did invade AskReddit, and by the looks of it, there's another link to this SRD thread. Who's not letting this shit go now?
Edit: for the curious -- http://np.reddit.com/r/Frat/comments/1p0c7j/letsbringthisfullcirclesrdfrathateover/
Seriously, though, I was hoping they'd invade here. This shit is hilarious.
I love this, as a member of a Fraternity and the starter of this thread.
That said, I will admit I am not the stereotypical "Frat boy."
-_- It's like total meta shit right now
Yeah -- as soon as I saw the title of the post about /r/frat invading a thread in AskReddit, I could barely contain my excitement of another possible invasion into SRD.
Thank you for making this happen.
We need something to put in /r/SubredditDramaDrama, don't we?
Nah... Didn't mean to get SRD invaded.
Well, it stands to reason if a subreddit invades once, they'll invade again... and again.... and again....
Plus this is different than the gender war drama or sad abortion drama.
Coming from a subreddit that jerks off at internet conflicts I figured you'd have cum in your pants by now. You're welcome bud.
Hey, I don't invade, I just watch the drama. SRD has some pretty clear rules about commenting/voting in linked threads.
Yeaaahhhhhhh
>Until recently, all I knew about sororities and fraternities was stuff that I had seen in movies
That applies to a lot of topics on reddit.
Also everyone in there seems horrible, people.
> Also everyone in there seems horrible, people.
That's an interesting comma. Was it intentional? Because it could have been intentional, but also not.
Intentional, although not sure that makes more sense.
Ellipsis might have been better... but I over use them....
Sometimes -- it happens a lot -- I overuse dashes.
I like how all they are calling people geeds. Way to reinforce looking like total douches.
> a term used to describe the non-Greek affiliated members on a college campus. Originally derived from "GDI" or "God-damn independents". These people are can be characterized by social awkwardness, non-fratty apparel, and unquestioned love of the pseudo-sport ultimate frisbee. [1]
Oh dear.
> I'm so sorry I wasn't born into poverty or the middle class. Let me apologize that my parents made better choices in their lives than yours. Fuck off kid. Be lucky you can attend college unlike 50% of Americans. Jesus you're ungrateful.
Christ, what an asshole.
It's gross to see rich brats justifying their luxury out loud. Enlightening though. The little parasite found a way to feel superior about something they have no control over. Like a white supremacist.
If I ever found out my kid said something like that I would cut them off financially immediately.
I also want to make sure that it is known that not everyone in a fraternity is a rich, spoiled brat. I am far from that, and I'm a brother at a fraternity. I also know quite a few of my brothers who are not elitist fucks
To add to that, I was in a small, independent, co-ed fraternity. We spent most of our time playing computer games/magic and drinking. Same brother/sisterhood, less elitist fuckery.
Thanks babe.
>It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't gone through it and it does kind of suck doing it, but once the illusion of pledging is over and you've done it and created that bond with your pledge bros, you'll be glad you did it. It's often said that it's the most fun you'll never want to have again" and this would make sense as soon as you become a bro. Most people who have gone through pledging do not regret doing it at all.
What's the phenomena called where when you're put in duress you rationalize why enduring it is a good thing?
Good lord, behold the king of the tryhards.
Probably some form of choice-supportive bias.
I think it has to do with the fact that people who end up in frats end up being tied down to them, in a way. They end up with that being their core social group - so they'd assume that without it, they'd have very few friends and have had very few experiences, when really they'd more likely just have had different friends and different experiences.
I imagine the same goes for any sort of activity that takes up the majority of the person's time - it will contribute a lot to their personal experiences and people they meet through it will constitute most of their friends, so they end up believing that the activity/organization is responsible for their happiness when really other life choices could've gotten them to a similar place in the end.
It happens with everything. I mean you get in-group/out-group elitism in what collectible card games people play FFS. Playing Magical Unicorn Ninjas doesn't make you any more awesome than someone playing Wakeboarding Wizards, and yet people get real worked up about that shit.
SRD4LYFE
Exactly. My friend is in a frat and I go to a school without a Greek system. He assumes that my school sucks because of how great his is, which is solely based off of his frat.
Holy hell that comment you linked, I've never seen insecurity on that level. Definitely turning that into copypasta to troll in random ask reddit threads.
I looked at that guy's comment history afterward. Most are in gaming subreddits, /r/trees, and the blue/red/purple pill subreddits.
I don't want to become a bro.
Similar to Stockholm Syndrome?
Jesus christ, he actually said this
I think you're talking about Stockholm syndrome.
I was never in Greek life, but I've been privy to two different sororities and their pledging processes.
First one: Screamed at pledges, made them sleep in the basement, pretty sure they beat them, dangerous levels of forced binge drinking, made them bring me drinks whenever I visited (friend was in said sorority). Had the cops called on them and were charged with hazing. Almost lost the school's recognition or whatever it's called. My friend hated everyone in her sorority by the time I met her senior year.
Second one: Your "big sis" (older member who mentors you) hides presents in the woods that you had to find in under a certain amount of time. And if you didn't, they hid more presents for you to find. Like, actual presents, not metaphorical presents like an ass beating or AIDS. Lots of scavenger hunts and the like.
So I think it depends on the organization. But yeah, I would never get my ass kicked and subject myself to that shit for "friendship lolz".
Yeah, I never got that when I was a younger pappy.
"I should let myself be treat like shit and forced to 'respect' these people and give them money ...so they'll be my friends?"
Pass.
"Greek" life only constituting 8% of the student body made the choice exceedingly simple.
Yeah, neither of these sororities were at my school. I think mine was close to 4% Greek. Made it easy on this end as well.
I feel like someone could just post the "shit was so cash" copypasta and fit right in. This really is something.
Wow, the term geed legitimately rustles my jimmies. Do they honestly believe that it's impossible to be social without being in a frat?
I never understood how calling someone "independent" could be an insult but hey what do I know?
Us us us us us
And them....
Sad really, I guess it's a just another artificial group to join so you can feel superior to all those other artificial groups and most of all superior to people not in an artificial group.
And after all we're only ordinary men
Frat boys don't really seem the type to value individuality.
It's in-group, out-group language. Former LXA, we didn't hate independents, it's just a way to distinguish people
"God damn independent" is the way you distinguish people?
I'm just gonna start calling everyone who isn't in my racial group "God damn non-whites". It's not that I hate them, it's just how I distinguish them.
Did the mildly offensive swear word rustle your jimmies? Because there's a whole library of offensive jargon that comes with the territory and that's about the least offensive one.
Hell the nickname for my frat was Ram-the-guy (compared to Lambda Chi)
I don't think it's the swear word, but the way it sounds -- like those goddamn independents are always in the fucking way.
You might as well call everyone else peasants.
I believe they GDI's coined the term as a way to establish themselves as different or better, going as far as to wear letters of "Gamma Delta Iota"
If that is true, those people need a fucking life. I mean, the one of the great things of not being in the Greek system is that you don't have to wear Greek letters on you stuff. Or conform to a group.
>If that is true, those people need a fucking life
Are you a fraternity member? Why does it matter what they do? It's a sub-culture with a rich history.
The person I replied to said:
>I believe they GDI's coined the term as a way to establish themselves as different or better, going as far as to wear letters of "Gamma Delta Iota"
I mean the people who are parodying the greek system -- they need a fucking life. If someone wants to be in a Frat/Sorority, fine -- I don't have to come up with a name (like GDI) or wear some fake letters to show I'm independent.
Did you even read the comment above mine?
https://twitter.com/USCGDI
There isn't any "about this person" but that honestly looks like what a Fraternity/Sorority member thinks us Goddamn Independent people would sit around talking about. Especially this:
>Whatever I didn't want a bid anyways. #gdi
Makes me think that it's not a non-Greek person.
No one has to to wear letters, even when you are Greek...
It makes sense though that they would have a term for all the "others" on campus. After all, all us "others" occasionally made fun of the fratty people for all looking alike.
So, this is just as bad as the GDI mindset. In fact, it's really cyclical. A non-affiliated person thinks that a fraternity guy is a douche bag clone and says so. The fraternity guy thinks that the non-affiliated person is an ass because (s)he doesn't know what they are talking about and round and round it goes.
I joined a fraternity when I was an undergrad (many, many moons ago) and each fraternity is different. Hell, even the fraternities themselves are different from chapter to chapter. There were chapters that were nothing like my school and we didn't particularly like them and I'm sure they didn't like us.
Obviously, it varies from school to school and fraternity to fraternity, but I would be really surprised that if at most of the larger schools you couldn't find a fraternity that had some great diversity. Anecdotally, my chapter had a membership base of about 60 guys and we had guys who were poor, middle-class, wealthy, Jewish, Catholic, Jain, atheist, Buddhist, Muslim, liberal, right-wing, socialist, African-American, Egyptian, Pakistani, Indian, Chinese, eastern and western European heritage, and from three different countries (China, Estonia, and the US).
Are there douche bag fraternities? Hell, yes, and we hated them, but stereotyping fraternities as douchey clones is wrong in the same way non-affiliated people are lumped together is wrong.
To be honest, even when I was at college, I hardly thought of you guys at all. Not enough to have a "mindset"
Well, it seemed you had enough of one that
>all us "others" occasionally made fun of the fratty people for all looking alike
That was my only point. Maybe they did, I don't know, but I doubt that it was the case for all the fraternities at your school (unless you went to a small school, which is why I had the qualifier about large schools and diversity). That quoted statement - to me - reinforces a general stereotype about people involved in Greek life that the reddit circlejerk loves to jump on.
When I say "looked alike" I just mean dressed the same, styled their hair the same, etc. I also used to make fun of one of the boy's dorms because they all dressed the same: cargo shorts, flip flops (possibly with socks), and a university tee shirt. Stereotyping, yeah -- I'm aware that not everyone from that dorm dressed the same, but get people into a group and (perhaps unconsciously) they form a norm.
You know the PC vs consoles "argument?" It's like that. Some people connect exterior things with their identity, and when they do they need that choice to be "the best." So they find fault with all the other choices, real or not, to reassure themselves they made the right choice and are winning over other people.
No I'm pretty sure anyone who isn't in a frat realises that frats are pretty dumb. I work weekends in a bar and I love saying "aw cute you're wearing matching hoodies, are you guys on a team?" When ever they come in wearing their dumb shirts. It's the little things in life that make me smile.
> No I'm pretty sure anyone who isn't in a frat realises that frats are pretty dumb.
No dumber than the 9 million other subgroups people segregated themselves into back when I was in college.
No, tbh 'geed' is just a fun word to throw around. It isn't some label to alienate someone from the greek community, and it certainly isn't actively used by most greeks (on my campus).
In fact, expect for online and by that one goober making jokes about hippies at chapter meetings, I rarely ever hear it.
With that said, I think going greek (depending on where you go to school), is incredibly valuable. It's helped me build leadership and social skills and has honestly really boosted my self image and confidence (I was a touch awkward in high school).
I originally misread Greek as Geek and Frat as Fat, surprisingly it still kind of made sense.
Being European, I thought the drama was going to be about the financial crisis in Greece.
Redditors arguing about something that matters? Please.
(I mean, I don't claim to be any better, considering I'm on a Reddit drama forum right at this very moment)
I misread both as well, in the same way.
I'm Canadian, and we don't have much of a Greek culture here. I think my uni had a frat and a sorority, but I'm not sure we had more than one each.
The term geed is new to me, and I love it. It's the ultimate insular insult that isn't really an insult. These people seem like relics; I didn't know they still exist. It's fascinating.
Oh there's a bunch. You must just not have been around them.
Ahhhhh yiss. I love the drama where both sides look like jackasses. Pure entertainment.
Can someone please explain the whole fraternity/Greek thing? From what I've read about it, it seems kind of like the societies that we have in UK universities, but with less specific interests, while on the other hand being a very big deal. It all seems very alien to me.
The [male] rugby club at my uni reminds me of the fraternity thing in American. They didn't share a house but they did have weird initiations (according to rumours) and acted like the way you saw frat parties act in the movies. Probably not an accurate depiction, I dunno.
Yeah, for weird initiations, the Rugby society near my home town had an thing where new recruits would be dropped off at the sign signifying the start of the town and had to walk back naked. You got to choose shoes or pants, with the route back to the campus involving gravel paths. It just seemed weird as from what I've read, including that wikipedia page, I still don't get the difference between the frats.
Frats are non-topical. Also, they usually own or rent a house on or near campus where members can live.
Instead of societies, American universities have clubs. Which are also somewhat social organizations, but can encompass competitive sports (I was in the fencing club at Michigan State, which routinely places well in the Fencing Club National Championships).
It is very hard to give a non-biased opinion, since greeks (frats/sororities) are obviously going to make it seem like the greatest thing ever, while others are going to downplay it and make them seem like they aren't worth it. I suggest something wikipedia.
Have even the slightest negative thing to say about any frat? Let me tell you why you must have absolutely zero experiences with frats.
>Academic fraternities are not real fraternities. They're just geeds with letters.
I thought all fraternities and sororities were equal?
Academic fraternities, at least at my school, are totally different from regular fraternities and sororities. Here are a few differences (also, I'm not in a regular fraternity):
Academic fraternities do not have houses. Thus, no parties.
Academic fraternities take new members who are juniors or seniors, not freshman.
Academic fraternities are not divided by gender.
You can be a member of more than one academic fraternity, and people in regular fraternities and sororities can and do join academic fraternities.
The cost to join an academic fraternity is general around $50, give or take $25. This is a one-time payment, instead of semester dues like regular fraternities and sororities have. Those semester dues are around $1000. I believe that at schools where all members live in the fraternity or sorority house (at my school, only the officers live in the house), semester dues are much higher, since you are also paying for housing.
That's about it. Academic fraternities are not fraternities in the traditional sense, they're just honor societies with Greek letters. It may be different at other schools though.
>2. Academic fraternities take new members who are juniors or seniors, not freshman.
Most fraternities (at least on my campus) do this as well. Otherwise, pretty solid assesment.
As an Australian, from what I see on the outside, are frats just groups of rich white boys in college?
No. The ideal answer is some are, some aren't. There are dues that can be around, or even upwards, of $1000. At my school, none were over $500. Many people can and do afford it with a part time job.
As for trying to be fair, there are people who are like the stereotype. You hear a lot about these people. You never hear about the 40 other brothers who are otherwise well behaved. You never really hear about any philanthropic efforts they have, but every Greek organization has a charity they fund raise for and hold events for. Many chapters donate thousands of dollars every semester.
You do hear about parties. There is lots of alcohol. I wouldn't say they are as outrageous as on TV, but everyone is pretty damn drunk.
Some fraternities haze, some don't. I always said, if everyone just dropped the ones that do during their pledge period, problem solves itself and they go away for lack of members. Unfortunately, some people think it's awesome tradition even though it drags the entire community's reputation through the mud.
Also, regarding the white part, there are many fraternities and sororities that are ethnically based, or traditionally African-American, Latino etc. So not always that either.
Frats (or Fraternities) are social clubs that exist on many campuses. Each 'chapter' is independent from one another, but answer to the national organization (So each Kappa Sigma chapter has some autonomy, but are all supposed to follow the same rules as all other Kappa Sigma chapters as outlined by the greater organization).
There is a stereotype that Fraternities are simply places for the wealthy to drink ridicules amounts of alcohol and fuck around with their new initiates (otherwise known as 'pledges'), but in reality there is a lot of variation between chapters and different fraternities.
For instance, one chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) might be completely different then another in how much they 'haze' (or push their pledges around) their pledges. Hazing is a big deal, as historically many Fraternities would force their pledges to porform crazy stunts (such as drinking a massive amount of alcohol in a short time period), and they got a lot of backlash about it. That is partly what the linked thread is about.
Another thing is that Fraternities generally charge their members a monthly or semesterly fee (called dues) that goes towards the house (MOST fraternities have houses close/ on campus where they hold parties, social, live, etc), different activities, some merchandise (Greek people love to wear their Letters), etc. This has gotten them a lot of slack as, according to outsiders, these people are 'paying for their friends.' Now, its not true, dues go to keep the chapter running and functional, but to outsiders that is not quite so obvious, and people now often think of Fraternities being outdated and (to some) even barbaric due to their stereotypes.
Replace "Fraternity" with "sorority" and you get what Sororities are, though its not so simple, its a good way for someone who has no clue as to the Greek culture to understand them without an equally long essay on Sororities.
Damn, why is there so much hate for fraternities on reddit? I mean, I get that people might say "hey it's not my thing" but these people are all like "It's not MY thing and it should be NOBODY'S thing!"
I mean, if you aren't in a fraternity or sorority, you have more opportunities to see the conformity and shitty behavior and fewer chances to the fun-having, I guess. Plus stuff like The Machine and municipal vote-tampering and hazing scandals and binge drinking hospitalizations don't help. I mean, the university I went to still has (unofficially) segregated fraternities and sororities.
That is true. I just feel like people try to make non issues a big deal.
Look at dues for example. At my fraternity, dues are at $50 a month, and less if you can not afford that. Sure some fraternities are a couple grand a term. If that's an issue, don't join those fraternities.
The drinking and hazing is exaggerated in my experience. Plenty of other student organizations have reputations for heavy drinking at my campus, I'm sure that's true for others.
If by The Machine, you mean specifically Alabama, then I can't really speak to that, but if you mean, in general, that Greeks have a large say in the next SGA president at most schools, the reason is usually just that Greeks are involved enough and invested enough in the university to vote, whereas many other clubs or commuter students may not see it as important or affecting them. That was the case at my school.
Everyone's vote counts the same, Greek or not. If non-Greeks voted in the numbers that Greek do, the outcome would be probably different at most schools.
I also think it's really strange for arguments to based off of Alabama or other large SEC schools. They are huge, no doubt, but all in all a minority in experience. A case study on one of them is not representative of an entire population of Greek life, or even just one fraternity, everywhere.
>stuff like The Machine and municipal vote-tampering and hazing scandals and binge drinking hospitalizations don't help.
Don't forget a generous helping of date rape.
And violence. One of the frats at my school just got shut down because one of their members brought a gun to a party and opened fire at people.
>hazing scandals and binge drinking hospitalizations don't help.
Yeah, my university didn't handle any of that well. Lots of racism issues, condemnations of houses, and an entire chapter being closed for having one of their pledges die of alcohol overconsumption.
Instead me and my buddies created our own fraternity. We started Tau Nu Tau a couple years ago and we have a longstanding pride of martinis and jackassery. If anyone asked, we were just a social hunting club. Our motto? "Worst in grades, first in pranks!" (totally a homage to the Simpsons).
If you couldn't tell we were a satiric fraternity. We weren't liked by the greek system.
SnapShot
(Mirror | open source | create your own snapshots)
I wanted to be in a sorority really baddly at my school. I rushed twice but nobody wanted me. I was absolutely crushed. I worked in the school archives and all the time I would go through the old yearbooks and files we had on each of the sororities and their beginnings and all and I just felt like I missed out on something great. I'm still really sad about it to this day. I'm not afraid to admit that I'm sort of bitter about it. It sucks when you try so hard and go to functions and no one even remembers your name, or excludes you on purpose. I'm not even "unpopular". Oh well. There was a lot of hazing going on that I found out about afterwards so I guess I avoided all of that. But I also never had the comraderie that the Greek sisters had.