10. Frat-Mart:

Your wardrobe makes the transition from Hollister and American Eagle, to food-stained, ripped, wrinkled, khaki pants, along with dollar-store polo’s and worn-out boat shoes. Doing laundry? Fuck no— there’s no time. Your outfit is thrown on and off countless times no matter how wet or rank. For the time being, the Salvation Army and cheapest Wal-Mart clearance items serve as your newest mall hangout.  It takes a solid 12 weeks of hell to transition into the beloved Sperry’s, Polos, Guy Harvey, Costas, Chino’s and a visor. Even then, a few years is needed to truly develop a wardrobe of frat perfection.

9. Anti-Bromance:

If you’ve ever spent a lengthy vacation with a buddy or two, you know how it goes. The guys you’ve loved for years can become major jackasses, and it doesn’t take long for you to want to rip their heads off. Here comes pledging, the age-old vacation of first-year college boys. Whether stuck with 30 post-pubescent, horny, testosterone junkies in the fall, or a smaller 15 cocky, egotistical alcoholics in the spring, there comes a point when you hit the wall. After 12 weeks with the same group of guys, you fucking hate them. Unity is stressed all throughout pledgeship; you want take unity and shove it up your pledge brother’s ass.

8. Cock-Blocked:

Your ideal slampiece walks across the room. You grab two drinks, and work your way through the crowd to make a move. The good old days— hitting on the sorostitutes with a drink in-hand. Problem? Pledgeship: cock-block central. Where should I start? How about your sexy outfit. Nothing screams PLEDGE more than stained khaki pants with a tucked in polo. Don’t forget about the ultimate accessory: a symbolic pin on your heart symbolizes your status as a bitch. Next problem: You can’t drink, you’re driving tonight. Pledge rides: the greatest invention known to frats. Last (and largest) problem: No matter how close you are to closing that ideal, drunk blonde– a brother won’t hesitate to jump on in. It doesn’t take much: a mere look of hatred, or a text that reads “fuck off she’s mine”. A brother has first rights on all women, and a pledge would get his shit rocked for even attempting the sloppy-seconds. As a pledge, cock-blocking is just another form of hazing. But hey, it’s not hazing—it’s brotherhood.

7. Frat-Style ROTC:

If there’s one slight upside to the hazing lifestyle, it’s the fact that your body just might look slightly better when all is said and done. Just like any workout session, pain is involved. Push-ups, sit-ups, sprints, squats, pull-ups, wall-sits: the list goes on and on. Each hazing exercise is made unique to each fraternity. Recite the alphabet while you sit against the wall, do pushups in the shape of an A (Alpha), or form your body in the shape of a Z (Zeta) when you do pull-ups. They’re gay as shit, but they make brothers feel oh so special. They pat themselves on the back for creating a new hazing technique. It’s an art of frat-passion. Hazing in the form of calisthenics might be the most common form of hazing. It’s not the roughest thing, but it’s an everyday occurrence. You’re a little army bitch, except unlike ROTC, your drill sergeants are beer-bellied assholes who have nothing better to do in their life except fuck with pledges.

6. Not-So-Golden Corral:

You’re always fucking hungry. If you’ve developed a classy beer belly in high school, you can kiss it goodbye. Pledges are thrown the scraps of dinner, almost no time to eat on their own, and literally starved during hell week. Yes— pledges are always fucking hungry. The meal of choice is fast-food, ideally Taco Bell and McDonalds. Now this isn’t a bad thing, but if you’ve ever seen the documentary SuperSize Me, you know how fucking disgusting McDonalds is after eating it the fifth time in one week. Either way, the development of a solid beer belly must come afterpledgeship, unfortunately. Most pledges drop a few pounds– very un-frat-tastic.

5. Blue-Balled:

Alright, this gets a little personal. We’ve mentioned this before in the #5 “You Know You’re A Pledge When…” post, but this must be brought to the forefront of all the bullshit. I fuck you not when I tell you that pledges have no spare time. You get up, go to school, serve lunch, study (sort-of), serve dinner, get hazed, pledge drive, and pass out. Do it all over again tomorrow. There just isn’t enough time in the day to reward your eyes with YouJizz, or MILF Hunter. Your manly jewels are left lonely, day after day after day. You find yourself getting hard at the most awkward moments. It’s almost as bad as that chick from last year not finishing you off like a broad is supposed to. It’s a man’s issue, and it sucks. Thank you pledgeship, my dick still hurts.

4. Designated (insert item here) Driver:

Dip, cigarettes, toilet paper, beer, Checkers, liquor, girlfriend… They want it, you gotta get it. Now if there’s one thing (and one thing only) that any traditional parent would approve of—it’s the fact that frats encompass built-in anti-drunk-driving protection. Pledges make the world just so much better. But you better believe pledge-driving blows. Usually a couple hours long, driving can last from 7pm to 5am. You run shifts, write a schedule, blow hundreds of bucks in gas money and get your car fucked with. Life’s a joy. You’ve worked your ass off all day, are about to pass out, have an exam the next morning and you haven’t studied. Tough shit. The role as the designated driver is seriously important. The Brotherhood would die a quick death if no sober drivers were around to fuel their drunken munchies. That would be devastating.

3. Mind-Fucked:

The entire essence of pledgeship revolves around the concept in which pledges are fucking clueless. From day one, (and hopefully continuing up until the final hours), pledges have no idea what is happening, who is responsible, and what the fuck comes next. It’s all mind-games. As a pledge, you may have a small understanding of how mind-fucked you are, but you continue to walk blindly into the darkness and jump off the bridge when told to. If chicks were as easy as pledges to get mind-fucked, then we’d all be paying child support. Secrecy is key, and as long as a brother doesn’t open his drunken mouth, pledges will never know who exactly is fucking them over most. Pledging sucks because it fucks with your mind, you just don’t know how much. Here’s a piece of advice: more than likely, the nicest brother is running the show. But hey, you didn’t here that from me. You’re mind-fucked, remember?

2. Memorization:

If you’re a pledge, then most likely school doesn’t mean shit to you. I mean, you might be smart and all, but you’re pledging a fucking frat for a reason: to get shit faced and laid on a daily basis. That’s just the reason why pledging sucks so much— it’s almost like you’re in a mini-private school. You have to memorize so much goddamn shit it’s not even funny. First off, you better know the Greek alphabet better than your own birthday. Learn it, recite it, and never forget it. Let’s say there are 150 brothers in the frat— start learning pledge. Names, birthdates, hometowns, facts… it just doesn’t end. You thought fraternities didn’t give a fuck about school. Well doesn’t that suck; you’ve inherited a 10-credit course called PLEDGESHIP. Failing out is dropping, getting a C is quality, and getting straight A’s is just plain dick-sucking of the brotherhood. So get your pen and pencil, and prepare for countless nights of pointless memorization. It might actually teach you a thing or two about studying. Studying… ever heard of it? You will now.

1. Hell Week:

Well, you know a week of your life is going to be pretty shitty when it’s titled “Hell Week”. And no, this isn’t one of those play-on-words where the actual event is completely opposite of what was first described. Hell week might be the most painful, challenging and fucked-up weeks of your life. This is not an exaggeration. The worst of the worst involves a weeklong sleepover at the frat house: starvation, pain, misery and humiliation. If you’re lucky, they’ll let you go to class. As soon as that bell rings, you better get your ass back to the house for continued beat-downs. Hazing ranges through all sorts of levels; after 5 days of living in the same room (or cage, square, tent…) even the smallest activities can be gruesome to those enduring the pain. Of course, these situations are relating to the most hard-core, passionate frats. Yes, there are pussy frats that merely makes their pledges wake up at 3AM and go find a stick that’s 24.3 inches long exactly. And maybe give them a call to do it again at 5AM. Big whoop. How about not eating for 7 days? How about sitting outside in 30-degree weather while being pelted with water balloons? 7 days of “fun” as some describe; 7 days of ego-altering. It’s the fitting finale to a semester of hell, and the only true reason 9 out of 10 pledges survive hell week remains to be the fact that the light at the end of the tunnel merely gets brighter as the days ensue. Hell week is the cherry on top— oh, what a painful fucking cherry to swallow.

It’s not hazing. It’s brotherhood.

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