The Frat Phenomenon

My feet were sticking to the floor. They came away from the cheap linoleum unwillingly, the beer-slick which had formed in the last three hours taking on the consistency of adhesive glue. As I peeled myself towards one of the main rooms a boy twice my size tipped half a red plastic cup of warm beer over my head. The thumping base drowned out my expletive, and I stumbled, coming to rest against a pool table, where four more boys armed with ping-pong balls looked at me in surprise. It was exactly like the films. Only so much grimier. 

A week in to my first term at Berkeley, and directly in the middle of the Fall ‘Rush’, the roomie and I had decided we should attend at least one of the famous frat parties. There are over a hundred fraternities and sororities on the UCB campus, operating from impressive-looking houses with large Greek letters superimposed over the thresholds. The ‘Rush’ is the intense initiation period, where new students slug it out for a place in one of the many institutions. Once into the sorority, you become a ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ for life. It’s a hard thing to back out of: one girl, who voluntarily quit her sorority after deciding she wasn’t getting much from the experience, found herself completely ostracized by the rest of her sisterhood. 

Somehow, chess club down the community hall doesn’t seem to cut it. 

My first Frat party was an interesting experience. I spent most of it cowering by one of the pool tables, staring at freshmen girls teetering in shoes that defied all physical rationality. For most of the new students access to alcohol had been scarce, and many of the girls were being physically held up by the Frat boys. Those guarding the door are ruthless about the gender-balance: once the pickings for girls grow too slim the bouncers begin to refuse boys entry. The sexual politics are not known for their subtlety. At one point I found myself pursued across three floors of the house by a towering boy with the shoulders of an American-football player, who only abandoned his quest when a screaming girl fell- literally- into his arms and incoherently accused him of trying to steal her phone. Having escaped him I returned to the pool table, joining the team of two boys, one of whom smilingly introduced himself as a ‘Blaxican’. Apparently that was all fine and dandy. Shortly afterwards I discovered that I am, in fact, a Beer Pong Wizard.  

American Beer Pong: 

The most popular American drinking game, Beer Pong is very simple in concept. Six cups are arranged at opposite ends of a table and half-filled with cheap beer (the most popular frat brand appears to be Bud Lite) and two teams take it in turns to throw ping-pong balls into the cups. If you successfully ‘sink’ a cup, then a person on the opposing team must drink. The first team to finish all the cups of beer loses.

[Fig 1. Beer Pong Diagram]

After sinking my first three cups in a row, I was asked if I was a professional basketball player. The remainder of the game was so intense I’m still recovering five days later, but it’s good to know that in some small capacity I have a definite talent out here. 

All in all, I’m uncertain about what I think of the frat and sorority (broadly termed as the ‘Greek’) system. While it seems like an excellent way to socialise and meet people, the initiation processes seem very intense, particularly among the frats. One fraternity boy explained how he and the other ‘pledges’ (those freshmen competing for a place in the organisation) were walked into a dining hall, ordered to strip, and then pelted with food. “It’s a tough initiation,” he said, a slightly shell-shocked look in one eye, “I mean, you have to really want to get in.” Which apparently, a lot of USA freshmen do. 

Some frats have been struck off the university system completely. These ‘unrecognised’ institutions have been struck off the UC Berkeley register for bad behaviour- normally involving the illegal consumption of alcohol or dope. Walking up the road in the late afternoon, I was sidetracked by a chorus of howls emanating from the balcony of one of these unrecognised frats, where five or six boys hung over the railings hooting at the girls below them on the pavement. Once they realised they’d caught my attention, I was ‘invited’ up to join them, and climbed through a window a few minutes later to find them building a brick barbeque, drinking a bottle of industrial sized vodka and smoking the largest joint I’ve ever seen.

“We just party all the time,” one of the boys said, dilated pupils struggling to focus on my face. “We go on and on and on. Hey, are you related to Kate Winslet?” 

As the first weeks of term really begin, the fraternity and sorority atmosphere will begin to lessen, at least for those who opted out of the Rush process. Chosen pledges will spend the first term working their way towards becoming fully acknowledged members of their new brotherhoods or sisterhoods. The graveyard of crushed red plastic cups will dwindle away, and the sun will dawn once more over Berkeley. I’m not sure the ‘Greek’ system is something I want to commit myself to, but I look forward to observing its place on the campus with great interest.