Sandbox

Rush can be a stressful time. No one wants to end up like that kid who didn’t get a bid to Slytherin and ended up going Ravenclaw, then couldn’t kick his nasty smokeless tobacco-and-black tar heroin habit.

Their fears, though, are unfounded. These days, freshmen call most of the shots. Frats think of rush like a chugging competition—the more gravy you can stomach, the better. But if humbling yourself to a group of impressionable freshmen isn’t your thing, money—in the form of beers, prostitutes or skydiving trips—works too. Who says you can’t buy friends?

Of course, there’s a certain irony to all these upperclassmen competing for the affection of freshmen, especially when they’ll turn around and start pledging as soon as it’s all over. Like Hillel House holding a shellfish-themed party, but not having anyone to buy the booze because it’s the Sabbath. Hopefully that last sentence doesn’t get me kicked off my birthright trip.

Plus, Duke’s got an especially fratty reputation to uphold. If we aren’t ranking our sexual conquests via slide show (bonus points for Aussie accents) or writing e-mails objectifying women (Helen Keller included), we’re probably returning videotapes. At least that’s what Caitlin Flanagan told me, though I wouldn’t trust her to drive the C1 either.

But let’s face it. Duke doesn’t have the frattiest student body in the world, and we’re forced to do a fair amount of posing to convince our potential brothers. Take the former chess prodigy fist pumping on top of the bar—quite the image. Or the bro with the pronounced lisp. Come on dude. We’re both rational people, and you know there’s no th in “frat star.”

Of course, if you aren’t persuasive in person, take to dem internetz. Says here on CollegeACB that Epsilon Chi Phi is trending way down, but the next post said that was cleeeearly Key Three pretending to be Larry Moneta pretending to be Kyrie Irving. Apparently he wanted to pledge too, but was worried all the candy would ruin his figure.