If you didn't catch the last episode, go listen and start the story from
the beginning. To recap, I'm currently a college freshman who just rushed different
sororities. I saw some shit along the way, but I'm not thinking about
that because i just got into a top tier sorority and I'm loving the validation
snapped. The next morning, I wake up in sorority world. I check
my phone and I see a text from my pledge mom Weird. It says,
Hi, Babe, I hope you woke up so happy today and excited
for these amazing years ahead of you. I don't want you to get upset
or think this is just you, but there's a few pictures on your Instagram
that are inappropriate. Joining a sorority means that you are no longer representing just
yourself anymore, and for the sake of our image, especially with our nationals,
I need you to erase a few pictures. What what do you mean?
Is my first thought. My heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach.
How was I already getting in trouble and why did they want me to
take pictures down from my Instagram? And so I'm pretty fucking annoyed and taken
back by this. But I literally just got a bid yesterday, Like,
I don't want to ruin anything. I still want to be in this sorority.
You know, Since this is an older girl telling me to take the
picture down, and it's my pledge mom, who is the person who teaches
you the norms and rules of sorority world, I have to take these pictures
down, and I have to be polite about it. There is power distance
between us, and so I say, oh, okay, which I understand
that like a bikini picture, and she sends me the four pictures. One
of them was me in a body suit posing. Another one was me in
my Victoria's Secret Halloween costume pretending I'm walking down the runway. I was wearing
a robe and I had a brawl underneath and you could see some cleavage.
Another one was me and my friend in the same body suit, and the
last one was me with two of my other friends in a bathtub. You
couldn't see anything, but it was clear that we were all in a bathtub.
She says, thank you for understanding. It's just for the sake of
the chapter and the image we have pulled on campus. These picks are a
little too much to be posting on a public social media account when you're representing
us. El Oh, I know there's slut shaming me by doing this.
If you've never heard the term slut shaming before, I'll fill you in on
what it means. This won't be the last time I'll be using it in
the podcast. So one definition of slut shaming is exerting power or control on
a woman's sexuality, and that's what they were doing. But fuck, I
see my bid Day's shirt on my chair next to me, and you know,
like, I want to put on my buddy. I want to show
everyone that I'm in the sorority. I want to be in the sorority.
So fuck it, I'm just gonna take the picture down. Like, even
if this goes against what I believe in right now, I don't care.
I can't care right now. So I put my shirt on, put my
makeup on. You know, I gotta I gotta represent the chapter well.
And I head to class wearing my bid Day shirt. And as I walk
in to that big classic lecture hall, I'm marching loud and proud representing my
chapter. I normally sit with these two girls who are my friends from the
dorm. But now I had sisters in that class, you know, and
so out of obligation, now I have to sit with my sisters. Sorry.
This is when I first really realized that I have these new allies,
you know, Like just because we're wearing the same shirt with the same letters
on it, just because we're in the same sorority, we now sit next
to each other and share notes, and we're already making plans to study together
and send each other like study guides. Before this, I would have never
talked to them. I felt like if anything happened, one of their parents
would be a lawyer and it would be fine. Like I felt like I
had they're back, and I felt like they had in my back. The
whole day was pretty hectic. I'm being added to numerous group chats with different
frats. The fledge class group me that I'm in is popping off. Before
in the dining hall, I had like three or four people to sit with.
Maybe I had people from my dorm who I could sit with, and
I had my roommate and my other friend. But now I had about twenty
more girls who I could sit with in the dining hall and who would encourage
me to sit with them, and not only girls, but guys too.
All the guys suddenly put me on this pedestal because I was in a top
sorority and I was somehow better now. They would be like, oh,
Lucy, Lucy, sit with us, sit here, like, oh,
we heard you're in blah blah blah the name of the sorority. This ship
was getting to me, like I told my mom, like mom, igat
into the prettiest sorority, you know. It was getting to my head.
In efforts to try and get to know each other, my pledge class decided
that we should all get ready together for the first social. This was the
first time that I showed up to the sorority house as being part of the
sorority, or I guess not part of the sorority, but I was a
baby. They called us the babies because they weren't allowed to call us pledges,
but we were still pledges. And this house they called it the Pink
Palace. Everything was pink. It was a sorority girl's dream. It was
out of a movie. It's what you would imagine. Pink floors, pink
chairs, pink walls, pink pink, pink walking into the house was really
really intimidating because I didn't know anyone and I wanted to make a good impression.
And I felt like the girls in my pledge class were my equals,
but the older girls, I felt like I couldn't approach them. I felt
like they had to approach me or we're getting ready for the social eighties themed
scrunches were brought out of the clause. This was our first night in the
town as hot, top tier sorority girls, and he had to and represent
show the older girls that they picked the right ones, and show the guys
how hot the new pledge classes. One of the older girls already told me,
the guys are so excited to meet you guys. I was fucking hype.
I was ready to meet them too, And we're all getting freddy straightening
each other's hair. And then comes the first of photo shoots, and I'm
a fucking sucker for photo shoots, if you know me, I love a
good photo shoot. At this point that I really realize that I can now
take a picture and post it without being weird with any of these girls,
Like it doesn't matter if I don't even know her name. Literally, I
think I posted a picture with a girl. I didn't know her name,
but it was fine. No one questioned it because we were in the same
sorority and we were sisters. That didn't matter. I was posting pictures with
these girls like they were my cousin. Probably had like an hour long photo
shoot, and that's time for the social, the first social, to big
deal, the top frat. Of course, you know, top sororities party
with top frats. Du rat basements. The ceilings are low, it's dark,
it's sweaty, it's humid, it's loud, it's overstimulating, but I
didn't care. They were giving me free champagne that each got a bottle for
being the new babies, and I don't know, so they can make a
good impression on us. And before this, we actually got lectured by our
pledge moms saying, like, you know, it's your first social, but
you guys can't drink that much. You can't get too drunk. What do
we do? Of course, we got too drunk. Classic, But other
than that, I was meeting girls that I really liked. I met the
girls that smoked weed. I found out that there was a smoking weed group
chat. I was hype I gained many friend crushes that night, and going
back to my dorm, I raved about how much I love my pledge class
and how much I love my sorority and lau lah. The next day,
of course, we got lectured for being too drunk, and turns out a
lot of the sororities did this whenever we would go to our new member meetings,
which are the meetings that teach you the norms and rules of sorority world.
This is also where we handed in all our forms, all our contract,
housing contracts, social media contract the bye laws, the blood National sam
I don't fuck no, just all those contracts then I probably just skimmed if
I even read them. Anyway, all the other sorority girls at different chapters
will be going to their new member meetings as well, and on the bus,
a bunch of girls were telling us how in their sorority, their pledge
moms called them horrors and sluts because they drank too much at their first social.
For us, it wasn't this intense. They just sort of lectured us
about how it's unacceptable and disrespectful. But la la la lah. So the
next time we had another social, my pledge class decided that we wanted to
have a pregame for it get to know each other more, some sisterhood bonding.
And before this little pregame, we see a Facebook notification that one of
our Pledge moms wrote on our Pledge class group page literally like a page to
hold space for the Pledge moms to tell us what to do. And we
saw a post saying having multiple older girls text me saying they overheard that you
guys are having a pre pregame is honestly so upsetting, disheartening, and disrespectful,
not to mention embarrassing for us. We just finished talking to you guys,
not even twenty four hours ago, how a lot of you guys couldn't
handle yourselves on Tuesday, but since it was your first night, that was
your one warning. To hear you guys turn around and plan this anyway is
a slap in the face and tells us you don't give a shit about what
we'd spend hours talking about. I'm shutting down any idea of this pregame and
if I hear it happens, you will start to lose social privileges. I'm
really upset by this, guys. I just don't understand, I kid you
not. These are the type of messages that my pledge class would start to
receive on a daily basis on the Facebook page. At the new member meetings,
there was constantly drama about anything. A huge source of drama when we
wouldn't know older girls names, when we wouldn't wave to them on campus,
if we went to a bar instead of going to the social, if we
didn't go to the socials because it was a lower to your frat, if
the younger girls had some of the drinks from the older girl bar tab at
formal, if someone wore a bikini top to the beach theme social because of
this, we got a message that's said, hi, ladies, I just
wanted to quickly touch upon outfits for socials. I know themes are super fun
and everyone loves dressing up for them. However, we need to be a
little more conscious of what we are wearing when we go out. It's very
important though what we wear to socials is appropriate. Other chapters SLASH potential new
members often know what our themes are for the night, so when they see
you out at postgames, your outfit is a direct representation of our chapter and
its image. So please just keep this in mind when you're picking your outfits
from here on out. No matter what we did, there was some type
of issue, and naturally this led to girls being singled out. And what
was drilled into our heads over and over again was you're not just representing yourself,
You're representing the entire chapter. And the main thing that they would do
to ensure this was through snapping us. What is this you're asking. Well,
in a lot of sororities, all the ones that I've heard of,
at least, they have a special code word that they can comment on any
picture that you post on social media if it goes against what they stand for.
This was mainly posting a picture with alcohol, posting a picture with alcohol,
wearing your letters, posting a picture in a frat basement with their letters
in the background, and from the beginning of this episode you can conclude that
it's also pictures where your body is showing. Another example that one of our
pledge moms gave was she once got snapped for posting a picture kissing another girl.
So basically, they could just snap you for whatever the fuck they wanted,
as long as they didn't approve it. They said to us, if
any of the older girls snaps you, you don't question it. You take
it down immediately. I get them not wanting us to post pictures with alcohol
with our letters. You know. I see how it's still an organization,
But I didn't like the idea that they could just basically snap us for whatever
they wanted. And in my head, I'm thinking, Okay, this is
fucking weird and keep down, Like I feel like this is going to happen
to me because I just I hate rules that don't make sense. But I'm
just like, okay, because my social life is thriving and I'm sitting on
the top of roof Stay drinking with hot frat guys that all know my name.
Like literally, when we would go into the frat parties, they would
be like, hey, Lucy, I've never talked to them before in my
life. Like I think that they were actually trained by their frat to learn
my name. This focus on reputation led to a lot of pressure to be
the perfect sorority girl. A perfect sorority girl goes to all the parties,
charity events, she already has a date for dated and away weekend. She
looks hot but not slutty. She has good grades. She wakes up in
the morning, makes her bed, and goes to the gym. I've never
been the type of person who called myself fat, but all the girls around
me literally models so thin. No one in the sorority was overweight in the
slightest, but everyone was now asking themselves do I look fat? And then
I started to do it as well. Now and we would go to socials,
there would be some there'd be kind of like competition of who is going
to hook up with who, and if an older girl has hooked up with
a guy, then we definitely can't. And as you can imagine, this
led to a lot of drama and a lot of pressure on yourself to be
hooking up and to be hooking up with top frat guys so that when dated
or formal would come around, we would have a guy that we could bring
like our first dated. I got set up, and I was embarrassed because
all my friends had dates, but I just wasn't hooking up with anyone at
the time. At sisterhood pregames where will chapter would get together and pregame before
the social and play fun little games like which is your favorite frat? And
we would sing chance before going out, and the chance would be about how
hot we are and how we suck cock. That was one of the lines.
We would chance that we suck cock. And at the time I loved
it. I was the loudest one in the room singing these chants. I
thought it was totally liberating, and I didn't think for a second that it's
heteronormative. And if someone wasn't attracted to sucking dick or men in general,
I could imagine that that wouldn't feel like an inclusive space. Brack guys,
I had a reputation to maintain as well. It had so much pressure to
throw a good party and make sure that we had fun and had sex with
them so that we could then tell our friends about how cool of a frat
they are. Sororities are prohibited from serving alcohol at Rush events and parties,
but frats are allowed, so this gave us. Fraternity is full rain over
the alcohol distribution throughout Greek life. You can't drink on campus due to strict
rules, and you can't go to a bar unless you have a fake ID.
So as a woman in college who wants to party, it's inevitable that
at some point you'll end up at a frat party. And to make sure
that we have fun at these frat parties and hook up with them, they're
pushing alcohol down our throats. There were so many times that I was at
a frat and they were pushing a wind bag down my throat, and if
I would say no, they'd be like why, Like don't you want to
have a good time. This, of course also led to mono that year,
because I was drinking from so many bottles and wine bags. And in
the same way that they were under so much pressure for us to have a
good time, we were under so much pressure to please them and show them
we were having a good time. I just remember walking into the frat parties
and I would hear people say things like, let's show them how hot and
fun we are. We have to really social with them. You can't talk
to each other like we were there for them. And there'd be announcement on
the chapter's Facebook page seeing like don't leave the frat party at before twelve.
It's so rude to these guys who put so much effort into this party,
like it was basically a rule that we had to be there till twelve because
that's when the post games would start and the frats would open up to other
people, like not just people in that sorority. So you were kind of
forced a party with guys even if you didn't like them till twelve. They
gave us alcohol and provided us a space to party in, and as a
good guest, we couldn't let them down and not sleep with them. I
wouldn't always have sex after socials, but if I went home with a guy,
it would be an expectation that we would have sex. Like if I
didn't want to have sex with him, I would one hundred percent warn him
before going home, being like I don't want to have sex, and then
most of the time he would still try. There was this one frat guy
in specific that I loved. I love stumbling home after the social in my
costume whatever it was that night, and having sex with him. He was
an older frat guy, so there was definitely a power dynamic, and during
these hookups in general, I wasn't only representing myself now, I was representing
the sorority. One night, while we were having sex, the guy pulled
out his phone and started taking pictures of us having sex, and I realized
like I turned around and I was like delete that. What I was in
shock. I kind of froze up, and he was like, stopped being
so immature, like relax, and as a wide eyed, panicked freshman,
I just kind of shut down. It was like, I'm not being immature,
but okay. I wish I would have said who the fuck do you
think you are and grabbed his phone and deleted it. But in the bubble
that I was currently living in, that was normal. After that, I
was so so paranoid, actually, because at one of our new member meetings,
they told us don't send nudes to a frat guy. Don't let a
frat guy take nudes of you, because it will be sent in a frat
group chat. And I was just so worried that somehow I was those nudes
were going to end up in a frat group chat and it was going to
get back to me and I was going to get in trouble with the sorority
for making this sorority look slutty or something. Hate that word, but you
know what I mean. I could sit here and tell you, guys,
so many other incidents where I was disrespected as a woman in freshman year of
college, but that would that's a whole other podcast. But what you have
to know for this series is that it was common for me and for a
women around me to feel unsure if what just happened was okay or not after
a hookup. But I didn't yet make the connection that I was surrounded by
rape culture. I mean, I was in a drunk binge drinking bubble and
no one else was questioning it, so why should I? And while they're
a lot of negative experiences, there were also positive experiences. Now I am
still making these friends that I genuinely love, girls that I admire. There
were numerous sisterhood events that I really enjoyed, one specifically with my clutch class,
where we talked about trauma that we've gone through in the past, and
I felt like that really united us. At this time, I was getting
that sisterhood feeling that I initially had signed up for, and that part feels
really good through this. Also, though I was no longer really hanging out
with my other friends, my friends that weren't in the same sorority as me,
I think that this had the most effect on my relationship with my roommate.
But I didn't even realize that till the last few weeks of school,
this is when away weekend was where frat gye asks you to go to his
away weekend with him as his date and rat runts the house and as a
date, you bring the alcohol and arguably you bring the pussy that was oftentimes
expected to bring the vigene along. For a while, I was dressed because
I wasn't invited to in a Way weekend yet, and two of my best
friends in the sorority were invited to the same top tier frats away weekend.
Also, not to mention, the frat that my sorority always hangs out with,
and that's of course also the way weekend that I want to go to
because I don't want to be left out. But I wasn't hooking up with
a guy in that frat at the time, so I wasn't invited yet.
My roommate wanted me to go with her or two in a Way weekend to
this middle tier frat, and since I don't have a date to the top
frat one, I gave her like a wishy washy maybe answer, and then
boom, I get invited to the top friends date event and I get set
up with a guy and we hook up and he asks me to be his
date for a way weekend. Perfect. Hell yeah, it's all good now,
except it isn't. I'm in the library with my sorority sisters and my
roommate and I are having passive aggressive text convo I don't remember exactly what we
were saying, but but it was about away weekend and it wasn't a thing
for us to get into passive aggressive text convos like we got along well.
My sorority friend insists it's because she's jealous, and I don't know is she
like? Why is she so upset that I'm going to this away weekend and
not the one with her? I go back to my dorm and I walk
into my dorm room and my roommate is on the bed crying, and she
hands me a letter. The letter talks about how she feels that we've grown
apart, we don't really hang out anymore, and she feels excluded and lame
when my sorority friends come around. We were going to different post games,
different away weekends, and it was because we were in different tiers and I
wasn't really making an effort to go to the same post games or away weekends
in fear of missing out and then being excluded myself. And I reassure her
about how much I love her and how I genuinely didn't know that she felt
that way, and how I'm going to do everything to make sure she feels
differently from now on. And I feel like, in a way, I
chose to be oblivious to it, because what was I going to do?
Stop going to top to your post games and away weekends. No, my
whole sorority is there. So reassure her and hug and help her cry it
out is all I do. In terms of my social life and my mindset,
I'm off to you away weekend, and in terms of next semester,
I'm about to go live in the sorority house. Like if I've refused to
live in the house, I would have had to pay a thousand, five
hundred dollars of a fine, and all the older girls make it seem like
living in the subrity house, you get so close to your sisters, and
that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to get so close to my
sisters at away weekend and at the sorority house next semester. But I didn't
know was that in just a few months that sorority bubble I was living in
would be popped by my sisters themselves. Snapped. Thank you so much for
listening to this episode. For all the updates, and to be part of
the conversation. You can follow Snapped on Instagram and TikTok at Snapped. The
podcast Snapped as an independent podcast with no network support, so in order to
get the word out, I need you and your sisters to spread this ship.
Please please please share Snapped with your friends and family. Take someone's phone
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of all, and rate and review because it helps Snapped in the podcast directories
and we got to make those charts, honey, top tier. Am I
right? I'll see you next episode.