That is something that should have been taken into consideration WELL before the dealings with MTV began.

Zuma, I think we all expected that MTV wasn't going into this show planning to show happy sorority sisters doing positive things together. I know it's been my frustration in watching the show, seeing all the drama, and wondering how much has been completely manipulated. I think this thread is the result of many of our frustrations in not seeing that, either. The show makes this big deal about sisters discussing un-Sigma-like behavior, but we have nothing to compare it to other than more un-Sigma-like behavior. Am I making sense?

This may be hard for me to reply to and harder for you and any other Sigma lurking out here to read, especially if you went through the quarter of taping and general MTV upheaval with the show. Unfortunately, all we see is what gets aired on the show. Therefore, that's all we can comment about. If the show producers and editors and such decide to make it the Jordan and Candace show, or last week's Jessica and Sylvia show then that's our perceptions of Sigma and the New Member class. Remember, from the viewers end this week for example, most of us were completely clueless about who Sylvia was and why she'd be with Jessica anyhow until the full ep aired!

It's hard for me to watch the show without shaking my head in shock and/or disappointment. I'm from a different era and back in my collegiate days the campus and fraternity houses were the party social centers and there wasn't a lot of going out to bars to drink and dance. That's just me. The show just isn't showing a lot of sisterhood or honesty, not much Sigma-like behavior. How would we know what Sigma-like behavior is supposed to be if we don't see it? We're all sorority women and fraternity men, we KNOW how we each are expected to conduct ourselves and we expect that other organizations have the same expectations. MTV hasn't been kind enough to show us the real Sigma, so all we have to go on is what we see. It may not be true, for your sorority's sake I hope it isn't true.

Christin

Zuma, I'm sorry that you and your sisters are ridiculed and have become the punchline of many jokes, but you have put yourselves in that position by choosing to do the MTV show.

This thread was an attempt to take our frustrations about the show and laugh them off.

I'm sure everyone on this board realizes that, but the way MTV edits their shows makes the real people in it almost fictional. I know that when Someone is staring blankly at someone, and there is no one talking, that's just an MTV edit of someone listening to a conversation, not just staring blankly at them.

I'm sure MTV could make any sorority look bad... It's not that difficult to do with film editing!

Film editing is only one factor. The behavior of these pledges gives MTV the drama that they are looking for. Seriously, slapping a fellow pledge sister is so far out of line. That's not good for any sisterhood.

LOL@aephi alum & shadokat - great lists!

Oh boohoo, I don't think you'll find much sympathy here. Months ago when you got warnings from everyone on this board, all you could say was, how NOBLE you were being, how your org was going to singlehandedly CHANGE the perceptions of greeklife, and how thorough and WELL-INFORMED the decision was to invite MTV into your house as it lurked outside like the hovering vampire it is. And NOW, it's "oh no, what's happened,somehow MTV tricked us, how could this be, we never saw it coming." I and everyone else warned you gals, like it or not, you are now 2 dimensional character products of the media, congratulations, you went ahead and made your decision, you were just too smart to listen to warnings, so now you gotta live with it and it sucks, but that's the way it is. Look, you can't decide to step in sh** and then be surprised/angry/upset that it's dirty and it stinks! The only comfort I can give you is that your fame...well, actually more like mild infamy, will inevitaby fizzle out after a few years, so make the most out of it and learn from it----and use your experience to educate others.

Hmm, i don't know about "un-sigma-like behavior", but if i hear their pledge trainer give them the 'concerns' talk again-

"Uh...we have some girls that have expressed 'concerns' ....."

-i think i'm gonna retch. I mean, for the love of all that's holy, bring em up on honor court or something already.


Kitso

Zuma, my post wasn't intended to make light of Sigma AEPi as it is, but rather, as it is portrayed by MTV. What I know of your sorority is limited to your website and what I've seen on MTV. That is true of most of the people out there - including, I'm sure, many incoming Davis freshmen.

Did you honestly believe that MTV would show a "happy fun bunch" of women doing community service, studying together, and just hanging out, when they could show drinking, provocative dancing, pledges hooking up, etc.?

The few examples of sisterly behavior that I've seen on the show have been coupled with drama - e.g. Jessica's cockblock, intended to keep Sylvia safe, resulted in Sylvia's slapping her, and Candace signed up to be sober sister, but later decided to shirk her duties and get drunk. I'm sure you could show us many other examples of sisterly behavior among the sisters and pledges, that don't have associated drama, but they're probably on the cutting room floor.

And admit it... y'all did wear a LOT of Greek101 merchandise... :)

And editing only goes so far, the stuff that happens.....happened.

oh Zuma....what can i say? We all said that this was a bad idea from the start. Yet, ya'll didn't listen.

However, don't condemn us for your sister;s behavior; we are only commenting on what we see...and what we see is what your organization allowed to happen on national tv.

and just think, greek chat is only a miniscule part of the national/international greek population. Can you imagine what those people would say too???

like i have said before: don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

and here's a little funny tid bit of info: i was talking to a woman yesterday in the chemistry department from davis who was placing an ad with our company. i asked her about the show. she said that the entire administration is up in arms about this show. According to Sigma, they had the blessing of the school. According to this woman in the chem dept. the admin is all pissed off about it. so whatever.

Here's my beef:
It is one thing to criticize. Those I can take seeing. Its another thing to ridicule. And thats what the intention of this thread was.

I understand that people dont respect the decision made by sigma. And the warnings only came after the show was in the can since we didnt even know about this site. We've talked in circles about this.

I found this thread to be mean-spirited, and I dont believe that I have to sit silently through this crap. I did avoid it for awhile, but how would you all feel if I singled out a sorority -lets say AGD since someone did mention the Cosmo article- and made up a list of reasons why you couldnt get in? It would be poor greek relations.

Like I said, I find it sad that the people that were so worried about what stereotypes we were going to put out there are the ones that are actually acting that way.

This thread is un-sigmalike behavior, ok?

I agree with you Christin! I was excited when I heard about Sorority Life, because I expected to see women who were having a great experience like me!

Call me naive, but I thought there would be more emphasis on the sorority. What we are really seeing on the show though is just a bunch of girls that just so happen to be in a sorority together. It is rare on the show that we actually SEE anything that separates this group from anything other than a bunch of college girls picked out of a crowd with the exception of the weekly blurb from the pledge meeting and perhaps a bonding experience (of course MTV chooses to show when Jessica's trust fall goes arwy or the pledges ranting about moving rocks). Nothing that I feel is important about a sorority is even mentioned half the time and the women (with the exception of the president Leah - I think she's lovely ) seem like they're not even having a good time.

I think that is what worries me the most about Sorority Life. Not that it shows drinking, or bumping-and-grinding, or backstabing - because if you want to admit it or not, every sorority, fraternity or group has people that do those things. It's college, for goodness sake! What worries me more is that none of the girls seem happy with the experience. Why would a PNM want to join a sorority if she thought it would just be a big, disappointing hassle? I certainly wouldn't. But that's just my opinion.

As for Zuma and the other members (or "insiders") of Sigma, I think they have had more than their share of bashing from people at GreekChat already. Nobody's asking them to post here, and personally, I like their "insider" point of view. Let's play nice so they'll stick around.

Jennifer

delta gamma
"I didn't come to college to find a husband, I came to college to find bridesmaids."

Oh man I can not believe we actually have someone here who is from that sorority. I have been dying for one of them to get on GC. Anyway, I am totally for the other greeks! We all did warn them that they should not do this. I am sure most of them saw Real World and Road Rules before. They have to have known that MTV was only going to show drama. Talk to any of the real worlders and they will tell you MTV edits like crazy and that sometimes they are totally misrepresented. Its not even MTV's fault. They are a tv network. They don't know anything about sisterhood, they are producing what sells so you can't blame them. I do partly blame the girls because knowing that your being filmed you shouldn't have been breaking rules, getting drunk and grinding at some bar or slapping a fellow new member ( I simply refuse to haze like these girls did and call them pledges or "pledge master"). Come on you guys knew what you were getting into. MTV I doubt tricked you in anyway. And now you realize that the beautiful pledge house with the new ikea furniture and retarted yahoo as well as all the rhineston greek101 gear (can u please tell that girl with the red and grey one to buy another one because damn she wears that same one all the time!) really were not free. It all comes with a price and your price was a heavy one. As for the rest of UC Davis, I am not at all surprised that the administration is upset. Their college was totally misrepresented! As for UC students and other Greeks on campus, I heard most of them are not allowed to be anywhere near where MTV shot and most of them out of choice do not even associate witht the girls becuase of the bad representation they have given greeks everywhere. Seriously, almost every greek I know hates this show or at least what it has done to the Greek community. I do feel sorry for the sisters who were already active at the time of the taping because I guess none of them knew how bad the the house new members were going to be. Hopefully some of them didn't make it into the sisterhood!

Hey-and this is my crabby/PMS side coming out-but so what if you think this thread is mean-spirited. You guys made the choice to put yourselves on NATIONAL TV-you opened yourself up to any and all kinds of feedback-whether it's positive or negative-and now you have to deal with it. If you didn't want to possibly hear unkind things said about you-you should have turned MTV down the second they came a knockin. As far as I'm concerned, you don't get to whine-you gave that right up when the cameras walked in the door.

I totally agree with you chiojenn78---(but i am pms'ing too!).

this thread maybe somewhat mean spirited...but you've allowed your sisters to act like this on national tv. you've chosen THESE girls as your sisters and as a representation of you, and the sorority as a whole. So deal with their actions. Don't blame us bc they look like fools, we are just pointing out the obvious.

and Zuma, please define "un-sigma-like" behavior! And please explain to us the whole slapping incident....i think we are all just a little angry that either you all did not/ or it was not shown in dealing with sylvia's abuse of jessica.