Pledges Worry They Aren’t Getting As Much Out Of Zoom Hazing As they Would In Person

Dartmouth student Jack Rowley ’23 says he is worried that he isn’t benefiting as much from being hazed over Zoom as he would have with more conventional hazing. A recent pledge at a Dartmouth fraternity, Rowley says that while the core elements of humiliating himself to win social acceptance and be allowed into a group are still there, the virtual nature of the brutal hazing makes it “hard to really get anything out of it, you know?” Rowley reports that he spent much of the hazing surreptitiously looking at his phone, browsing Twitter on his computer, and chatting with other distracted pledges through Zoom’s direct messaging feature.

“I’ve been hazed before,” said Rowley, “and I remember each degrading act and risk to my health clearly to this day. But now I could hardly tell you what I had to do last night. And not because I blacked out or anything, but because it was just so damn boring.”

Other students have echoed Rowley’s concerns, with many students reporting that they aren’t even building the type of in-group identity that will make them want to haze future new members. “It’s just not the same,” said Ashley Spencer ‘23, who recently pledged at a Dartmouth Sorority. “The older girls keep telling us about how much time they had to take away from their studies and social life to do arbitrary tasks that were at best boring and at worst heinous, but here I am doing all my homework and texting my unaffiliated friends while half-listening to some senior drone on about embarrassing emails we need to send or something. I often find myself wondering why I joined if the process isn’t even going to be grueling.”

At press time, co-ed Greek organizations announced that their new-member programs were just as demanding this year as they always were.

-IR ’21