This week, Facebook newsfeeds, Instagram posts and Twitter feeds were filled with Greek letters, revealing dresses and "sisterz for lyfeee" captions. If there were a way to block all of this from my social networking sites, I would, but, alas, there is not. Though this explosion is similar to the influx of pictures from summer music festivals like Country Thunder or Lollapalooza (though I too am guilty of "muploading" from these events and others), these Greek rushing pictures are even worse.
One Instagram picture or a few Facebook posts is understandable. Take a picture of your acceptance letter to the sorority, or of all of your beloved sisters standing together behind three oversized Greek letters. But the internet does not need to see a picture of each piece of paper that shows your first, second, third, fourth and 17th callback, or one picture per girl in your "new family."
Further, the names of sororities and fraternities mean absolutely nothing to me. This is most likely because we don't have them at ND, so there's no point in my knowing their stereotypes or anything else about them. But sure, I'd be fine with seeing which sorority accepted you. So go ahead and make a status or profile picture of that and lo and behold, you have shared your amazing achievement of getting into a sorority. Don't make me decipher Greek letter puzzles, though. That looks more confusing to me than a chemical equation. Well, not quite that bad, but almost. For example, besides those taking Greek, does anyone have any idea what Greek letters mean? No. Unless you look it up. But what is the purpose of sharing something with the Facebook or Twitter world if the majority of people can't even understand it? Do you really think everyone can recognize Greek letters well enough to know their meaning? Or maybe you just think it looks cool. And I'll give you that, it does. But then, just make it look cool on your dorm wall or something.
As with most things social networking-related, girls commit more of these crimes than guys. We like to show off our cute outfits. And when is there a time that girls look cuter than while rushing, while trying desperately to impress other girls by their superficial looks and personalities? Yeah, never. And since sororities are symbols of social status and seem to be inherently cool, a girl can become more popular by flaunting her affiliation. So this explains the bombarding of pictures. Girls are showing off for their "sisters," family, friends and guys.
One of my friends once said something that I think about often: "we all have that one person that we are smiling for in our Facebook pictures." It resonated because it's so true, at least for me. We all have that one person that we secretly hope stalks our pictures and sees how happy, pretty and awesome we are.
Consequently, since the girls in their sorority pictures are glowing like pregnant women, of course every single picture must be shared on every single social networking site, in the hope that the people for whom the girls are smiling will see those photos.
I'm glad that I did not have to worry about rush week. Nor did I have to fake my way into friendships that I will later pay for, a common ridicule of Greek Life.
Here at ND, my friends come for free. Well, maybe their cost is included somewhere in the $50,000, but at least I'm not outright paying for them. And I don't have to sport five different types of eveningwear in order to be accepted by them. In fact, if I did, I'd have no friends because I don't even have five outfits that would be acceptable attire.
For all of the houses' talk about being a family, they resemble much less of a family than our dorms do here. Sororities and fraternities judge each other harshly before being accepted, and once someone is in, he or she must maintain a certain image. Whereas with our dorms, we're placed in them and that's it. "You can't choose your family, but you can choose your friends." By selectively choosing members, houses aren't putting together families, but we are here at ND, for better or for worse, which is what family is. Domers for lyfeee.
Bridget Galassini is a freshman. She can be reached at bgalassi@nd.edu
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
