Hell Night approached. We had been told by our pledge trainers to come prepared for the worst. They ordered us to bring certain items, including our pledge jerseys, KY jelly, emergency contact numbers, our pledge pins, a flashlight, a pencil, a notebook, and lots of beef jerky. All of us gathered at the house at 3:00 p.m. Over the next hour, waiting for hell to arrive, I barely spoke a word.
On the ultimate night of our period of initiation into adulthood, my fellow pledges and I spent hours running around campus, solving puzzles as part of what amounted to a glorified treasure hunt. We went to the basement of the library and had to take a shot of something. We went to a dorm across campus and had to take a shot of something. We went to a far hole of the golf course and had to take a shot of something. Riddles were also involved. For example, if a pledge can tolerate enormous amounts of booze, how many shots can you put into his empty stomach? Just one.
Around midnight, the pledge trainers ordered us to remove our clothes. They led us into the basement. To the chorus of “Whale shit” from the brothers, all of us, stripped down to our boxers, had to walk around the room as we were pummeled with mashed potatoes, the instant kind.
Afterward, we were ordered to take a seat on the floor so as to give us a better view when, ceremoniously, a 20-pound fish was brought into the room. Five brothers began screaming at us. They wanted somebody to volunteer to bite the head off the thing. Hands sprung high. Five minutes later, watching my friend Rick gnaw through the scaly flesh, I was overwhelmed not with astonishment or disgust but, the past months having been so desensitizing, only with the question, What kind of fish is that?
♦◊♦
At nearly four in the morning, we were given a written exam in the library. I returned it in 10 minutes—the reason it took so long was because I was hungover already. When I rejoined the group, they were panicking because the test was harder than they thought. One was about to cry. I wanted to smack him.
Around 5:30 in the morning, all of the pledges lined up in the library of the house. A representative from KOK’s national office, his voice somber, his eyes droopy, told us the unfortunate news. Only 10 percent of our class had passed the exam. The pledge trainers said we had to leave the house.
On our way to the front door, many of us on the verge of breakdowns, all the brothers fell into convulsions of laughter. It had been a ruse. The representative from national was an alum of the fraternity and the test was a fake and the last night of our pledge term was now at a deserved end. We had made it.
♦◊♦
Everything during that time was a matter of unnecessary escalation. My friends and I had survived fraternity boot camp and, consequentially, felt the need not only to meet but also to exceed the bar set by every one of the campus gross-out comedies we had seen as teenagers, all the rumors whispered by independents about our misconduct, and each of the stories told by older brothers at the house.
Our exploits—throwing furniture out of windows, breaking legs, streaking, pissing ourselves on a dare, even drinking our own puke—became our identities. Our activities weren’t all so decadent: we kicked out an alleged rapist I barely knew. We hosted academic lectures I did not attend. We discussed a new war I did not understand.
There were some things, however, I never did while a brother. Not once after I became a full member of the house did I attend an event associated with the hazing of pledges. Few of my close friends did either. At the end of pledge term, we had gotten rid of whatever made us want to join in the first place.
You spend time in a system to get something out of your system. Yet one question has remained till now. Why did we put ourselves through all that shit in the first place? Some claim the shared trauma creates a stronger bond among the pledges, but I was just as close to most of my fellow pledges before we vomited milk together. Others claim the months of torture endured by fraternity members build character, but I was a much more decent person before I was forced to swallow a goldfish.
I chose to go through pledge term because, despite its moments of agony, the experience overall was a grand old time. It was funny and it was foolish and it was stupid and it was silly. Youth and college and life are funny and foolish, and youth and college and life are stupid and silly. That is what makes it worthwhile to be young and alive in college, something I finally came to understand less than a year ago.
♦◊♦
Last summer, June 2009, I attended my five-year college reunion. It was the first time some of us had been back. Since our graduation, we had found jobs or earned masters, gotten married or gotten engaged, bought apartments or bought cars, gained weight or lost hair, some more than others.
We were rusty at pong and had shockingly low tolerances. The current brothers welcomed us despite our constant talk of how awesome things were back in the day.
The etymology of the word nostalgia seems particularly apt. “Nost” comes from the Greek word meaning “to return home,” and “algia” comes from the Greek word for pain and grief. It hurt to revisit our past, the people we had been, the world we had lived in, its milieu and its purlieu.
But the pain wouldn’t last. We had been different people back then. On our way home, I thought back on the person I was during those years, rude and crass and smug, without any sense of regret or shame. None. Call me an asshole, label me a misogynist, wish me an early death. Doesn’t matter. I will not apologize for having one hell of a good time. Because that’s the point of college: not only to figure out who you want to be as an adult, but also to spend four years being the person you don’t want to be.
—Photos opacity/Flickr
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I am a female student at Dartmouth College. I think this article was really illuminating of the perspective of a male student from my school. I don’t know a lot of details about what guys go through during hazing – mostly just grizzly rumors – but I know that a lot of people are strongly affected by it, and go through it for the sake of gaining brotherhood. Many guys I know describe pledge term as simultaneously the best and worst few months of their lives, something that was special, but never something they would like to go through again.… Read more »
Albert what is with you?? You have nothing of substance to contribute yet you troll this article for days? Very strange… very sociopath. Go ahead and reply with something witty and original like calling me a bitch. I’ll respect you more then.
The problem I have with this article is that its not all innocent, harmless fun. What about the whole thing with calling a woman a ‘horseface he wouldn’t push out of bed if she ate hay’ or the laughing at the thought of exploiting a homeless man? Fratboy culture is not benign. Recently there were cases where a dinner society fraternal organization at Yale marched pledges through women’s dorm areas chanting, “No means yes, yes means anal.” They might’ve had fun doing it…. but does it make it right? Hell no. ‘Because I had fun doing’ is not a moral… Read more »
Good grief. Would you rather they chanted ” Face down, ass up!”. There’s some diversity for you, biatch.
Racist AND sexist… going for broke, huh?
the guy’s name is snowden. how can anyone expect him NOT to be a d-bag.
Okay, Snowden admits what he did was completely stupid, but he’s looking at it from the perspective of how he felt about it in those days. Obviously, he had fun in those days, so why should he regret something he felt was fun? I doubt he’d do it all over again if given the choice, but he himself thought it was fun and I don’t condemn him for even thinking that today. Personally, what he did was extremely stupid and I’d probably never shake a stick in his direction had I known him in his college days, but that’s his… Read more »
Between the start of the fall term and October 7, fifteen students were hospitalized for drinking at Dartmouth: the chief of Hanover police has said that “It’s going to take someone dying,” he said yesterday. “I’m afraid that’s going to be the only thing that will wake some of them up.” In fact, such things have happened at many Greek-dominated schools: one of the more recent was the death of Carson Starkey, who was 18, and died of alcohol poisoning during rush at Cal Poly. His “brothers” are spending their young adulthoods in jail, where they belong. I hope you… Read more »
The only time I got myself in trouble drinking was with vodka at an off campus party at Dartmouth for a youth mentoring program. Lets get rid of youth mentoring programs while we’re at it. Hell, you could even make the argument that partying at fraternities is safer since they serve exclusively beer and its harder to do damage that way. I hope you enjoy scurrying around the internet taking cracks at ivy league schools, wall street, and anything with a pretentious label. Go write a poem about it, you hypocritically elitist tool. PA, Wright. It was the most fun… Read more »
Sid didn’t say anything against being Greek. He said that drinking yourself into a stupor and forcing other people to do so is completely unacceptable. As a Greek, I’m ashamed to see how proud Snowden is for this article. Seriously. Way to perpetuate the Animal House Delta House stereotype that all the rest of us are trying to rise above.
Trying to rise above? Those are my fondest memories.
greek, you are the dullest person i’ve run into in quite a while. who the hell in college was concerned about stereotypes? get a life, dipshit.
sid, go fetch a crying towel, you whiny bitch. it’s clear you were dumped on more than one occasion for a fraternity man.
Snowden, your coping mechanisms need work. Looking back on your previous indiscretions as if they have some sort of intrinsic learning value should not absolve you of a guilty feeling. The fact is that you were a terrible person for four years. That time could have easily been spent doing something worthwhile, while still having loads of fun. That is, unless your only sense of fun is found in baseless egotism and being a consummate degenerate. Actually, I’ll take that down a step. You didn’t participate in the hazing of others. Ostensibly, anyway. You ARE, however, seeming to be advocating… Read more »
You spent a lot of time in lockers as a kid, huh?
Nope. You spend much in a closet?
Nope. You wish you’d skipped the Sorority rush?
Ah, I didn’t think you had. You seemed more the “out and proud” type. I’m glad you were still accepted by your brothers, most of them prefer to keep such things behind closed doors so they can blame it on the alcohol.
Why do Homos always project their dreams that Heteros secretly want them?
Sorry. I didn’t join THAT type of Fraternity. No wonder you have issues.
I already did the gay joke, kid. That’s old hat. Nice try, though.
But you did it poorly. Much like most things in your life, evidently.
Cool story, bro.
Both of you fail. Misogyny and homophobia. Way to go for totally missing the point of this website.
Who’s afraid of homos? What’s the point of this website? The pussification of men?
As a gay guy, I can assure you that any comments on my part were purely in jest, and meant to continue this obviously riveting banter between Jon and I.
I suppose, though, I should learn not to feed the trolls.
As a straight man, I can assure you that I laugh at the attempts to pussify real men.
Bad troll. No. Don’t make me put you in your kennel.
You’re just justifying all the stereotypes here, aren’t you?
Great piece, Snowden. Those who didn’t join a fraternity just don’t understand. They like to think they do, though.
Actually, I was in a fraternity, so that makes me even more qualified to reply. Sorry, Jon. Was I an angel? Far from it. I did a lot of dumb things in my youth that I can acknowledge as immature, insensitive and unenlighted, rather than refusing to change/apologize for them and ruin the “fun.” And what exactly are non-Greeks unable to understand from this essay? Let’s stop the elitist rationalization for boorish, unacceptable behavior and be grown-up men.
Boorish, unacceptable behavior? Are you sure you weren’t in a Sorority?
Those who haven’t been in just don’t understand? Are you sure you weren’t in a prison?
Positive. You have me confused with your cellmate?
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Your xperience sounds like mine. The respected members didn’t harass the pledges – the weakest and least liked members were always the hazing leaders, the hardest drinkers, and the worst students.
Kappa Omega Kappa: Kok!
See, its witty, because it sounds like a word that means penis! Such sly humor!
Dee has KOK on her mind…..
I fail to find any smidgen of interest in tales of your salad days, but I have to thank you for reminding me why the whole fraternity thing never appealed to me. Some of us were able to enjoy our youth without institutionalized idiocy and vomit fetishism. I don’t consider you an asshole, just horribly foolish and weak.
Wow, such commentary on 18 year olds. And, you at age 18 must have had the time of your life, I imagine, splitting atoms, philosophizing, solving world hunger… I always love when somebody criticizes something they have never experienced. I am 46 and to this day, my best friends are those that I met in my fraternity enjoying the institutionalized idiocy. By the way, all of my friends who were “foolish and weak” are all very prominent, successful and strong adults.
joe was too busy dressing in black and listening to NIN to actually have fun. just another whiny bitch GDI full of hate.
Well, Snowden, I’m so glad that you had a good time. That is, after all, all that matters, isn’t it? You give fraternity men (and men in general) a bad name. I am at a loss to understand why your work is being published on the Good Man Project’s site and am disappointed that it was. I hope my brief reality check didn’t ruin your good time, you can go back to having fun now…
Ruin his good time? It already happened you fucking moron. The concept of past tense must be beyond your community college grasp.
“I will not apologize for having one hell of a good time. Because that’s the point of college: not only to figure out who you want to be as an adult, but also to spend four years being the person you don’t want to be.” That, my friend, is the truest part of your entire piece. I was the biggest asshole on Earth in college. I was constantly drunk or stoned. I always had a girlfriend, but I was constantly cheating on her with multiple people. Sometimes in the same night. I was a liar, a manipulator and was only… Read more »