The video in question is in Alabama. It's hot here too, but the weather kind of hot is not the kind of hot depicted. And I wouldn't say that the scenes in Bryant Denny were really intended to represent physical fitness.

I don't think the video itself is very Panhellenic.

Greek women everywhere should discourage stereotypes and speak up about issues that affect the Greek community. Chapters (specifically and in general) on the University of Alabama campus have been heavily criticized for lack of diversity and discrimination, for instance.

And this video certainly doesn't depict anything positive in the area of diversity. If anything, the depiction moves both the chapter and the University further away.

Thoughtful points, and well stated. However, the time and place for these criticisms might be after recruitment, not while PNMs and their friends and family could easily be reading these boards.

Also, the reality is that it is now a social norm for young women to post pictures of themselves in their bikinis, at the beach, etc on instagram and tumblr... whether they are in a sorority or not. We may disagree with this trend, but singling a few specific sororities for simply being a reflection of our culture at large, is neither productive nor gets the point across -- rather it can come across as critical of all young women of this age.

To change their current "brand."
And it's working.

The bottom line is that this is Tent Talk, plain and simple. If you were standing out on sorority row voicing your opinions to other PNMs, I hope that a Rho Chi would pull you aside and tell you that it was inappropriate chatter. I'm not sure why we can't hold ourselves to the same standards.

This is hilarious.

Yeah, I'm glad social media wasn't around when I was in school either!

Very true - AOII has many chapters with instagram and tumblrs that feature bikini pics and glamour shots, and like it or not, tiers are real and that is the way chapters try to raise their perceived status - by putting the "face girls" out there. It's actually pretty good marketing on this Alpha Phi chapter's part, because I think they are fairly new at Alabama, aren't they? I actually don't mind the video, and if I were an Alpha Phi, I would be pretty happy that everyone was talking about the chapter at Alabama. Hell, I wish it was AOII that everyone was talking about! :)

I think that 99.9% of girls in sororities are just in it for the college partying, fun, and friends, and don't view it as a lifetime commitment and something to be taken super seriously like most of us on the board here. They won't be the ones to be the national officers, advisers, or involved alumnae, so of course they have a different point of view about sorority experience - and a video like this wouldn't rattle any of their cages.

Just my .02.

YUP.

By that same token though....

buy the ticket, take the ride.

I disagree -- this is a recruitment video the chapter intentionally uploaded at the beginning of recruitment, for the purpose of being talked about during recruitment, not a rumor or reputation whispered 'round the corner by PNMs.

Really?

This will be Alpha Phi's 8th year on campus I think.

I agree that it may be effective marketing -- this kind of marketing is used to sell just about everything -- I guess "effectiveness" depends on what one is selling and what customers one wants to attract.

Quite possibly, and for that reason I don't think anything said on this board will affect their recruitment whatsoever.

Fair enough. You pulled my quotes about the mistreatment of PNMs. I feel that when chapters' behavior intentionally violate rules and go out of their way to make PNMs feel excluded, it should be discussed.

But talking about the appearance of young women in a recruitment video, isn't the same.

Well, I would say they got the attention they wanted. More power to them. Everybody knows their name in that giant field of play known as Alabama Recruitment.

As someone about to go through recruitment herself and checking out videos, I've also seen a lot of people mention the Alpha Phi video, but I have to say, I don't see anything particularly wrong with it. Maybe because I'm younger and more social media connected, what you see in the Alpha Phi video is nothing new at all - in fact, a lot of what was shown in that video was "done" by other Alabama sororities.

1. Practically every sorority recruitment video uses "brain-shaking" club music in the background, so that's not something that can be put on APhi's head.
2. The jumping up and down aimlessly in the air, imaginary laughing at God knows what, and blowing glitter into the camera is something already done by Alabama Phi Mu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS_sa6CCoYQ. As a matter of fact, Phi Mu does a lot more of the jumping up and down aimlessly than Alpha Phi did in their video.
3. If you want to talk bikini shots, Alabama Zeta had a video this year which has just as many, if not more shots spent on partying in bikinis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NEmsoCKkRc. Also, Alabama Pi Phi https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=tQ41sevtlD4. Additionally, I'm following a lot of sororities on tumblr and instagram and even the "classy" and "conservative" sororities at my campus have pictures of girls in bikinis and short shorts. It's not like the girls in any of these recruitment videos are grinding on a stripper pole or walking down the street in their lingerie, they're at the pool or at the lake.
4. Honestly, can any of us say with a straight face that any of these videos shows true "sisterhood?" Showing sisterhood should be during the skit and preference rounds of recruitment, not 3-4 minutes of a highly edited, scripted video.
5. I thought actually going inside the football stadium and having the mascot and football player were really great touches and it's really different from other videos that I watched! I'm really disgusted by what some people are implying about how they got the football player to participate in the video though (on other social media platforms, not necessarily GC). No one deserves to have comments like that made about them, and no, saying "they're asking for it" is not right either.
6. What's wrong with Alpha Phi trying to portray themselves as more "West Coast?" If they're fairly new, then it's probably a smart idea for them to find a niche and be really strong in whatever they choose. Besides, isn't Alabama recruiting more people from OOS anyways? Who is to say that they wouldn't choose the more "West Coast" sorority over the pearls and Bible sorority? Who are we as outsiders to judge what PNMs should value and like in a sorority?

I actually have a few high school friends going through recruitment at Alabama right now, and even though they're really busy, they told us (the girls in our GroupMe) that Alpha Phi has been nothing but lovely towards them, and a lot of the current PNMs actually view the video quite positively.

Maybe it's a misunderstanding because of the generational gap in the use of social media, but I think it's petty to be criticizing the girls who made this video when there are so many others who did very similar things, but they somehow flew under the radar. Hopefully it's just a result of Groupthink that some of the more petty comments are flying around, not because the commenters themselves are petty people.

Wow. I did not expect my comment to gain so much traction or to be created into a new thread entirely, which I am not thrilled about as it now looks like I posted it separately to start a discussion about this specific subject. That was never my intention, and while I did not mean to take conversation so far off-track as to necessitate its own new thread, I also didn't want to put this much attention on a throwaway observation.

There are different kinds of videos for different chapters in different recruitments, and while I may not personally love how a chapter chooses to market itself that's their and their advisors' decision. I also never said that there was any inherent value to being in an "East Coast" or "West Coast" sorority, and I don't love how the conversation has taken that turn.

On one hand, there really isn't a purpose to this video other than showing how attractive and fun the girls in this chapter are, but on the other that's what basically every recruitment video is about anyways. It is impossible to compact a concept such as sisterhood into three minutes. I think the conversation should be about the larger topic of why sororities feel the need to market themselves in this way and fraternities do not, rather than pointing at this chapter and casting judgment.

I thought having the football player in the video was a little weird. UA as a whole has a tendency to throw in football whenever they can as a way to say "look at us we have a great football team" particularly when recruiting new student but having a football player in a video aimed at students already at the university is odd to me. it's almost like they are enticing the girls by showing them they hang out with someone on the football team.

also, as a PNM, I dont really see the relevance of any recruitment video but maybe that's just me. I would rather talk with a girl about what the chapter means to her and what their sisterhood is like rather than see a video of the members dancing around.