Bama APhi video
 

This looks more or less like Arizona Alpha Phi's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syH29uAcnnY

I think this illustrates a big difference between sororities in the South and sororities out west-in the South, sororities want to highlight being beautiful, but in the West, sorority women highlight being hot. There's a big difference between the two, and I think the Alabama Alpha Phi video is a lot more towards the West Coast vibe than the other Alabama sorority videos I've seen.

EDIT: for whatever it's worth, this thread was created by a mod after moving it from a different forum where it was creating too much side chatter. I didn't start it on my own.

Those are modest compared to the attire late in the video!

Doncha know all those views are from PNMs interested in sisterhood. :rolleyes:

Dang it does! Except Bama upped the ante with lingerie and bikinis!

I just watched the Alabama Phi Mu one from last year and I see what you mean. They look like normal, pretty young girls enjoying each others company, not the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

Great observation. You are right - there is a BIG difference.

You've hit the nail on the head. I wonder if this is one of the chapters that skews to a higher percentage of out of state students.

Amusingly, there's a comment on Greekrank calling us "biddies" for comparing the two videos and saying we're jealous (of what? who knows!). For all those reading out there, I'm an active member in my sorority and I'm definitely not jealous:)

I think it is one of the more OOS chapters, especially considering that they're fairly new and those chapters usually take more OOS girls and that Alpha Phi is especially strong on the West Coast, so girls from there might be more inclined to join than a group they don't already know. Or I could be completely wrong! If anyone knows better I'd love to hear it.

That's a lot of Revlon #4 blonde hair dye. If this video had been presented to me in 1978, I would have dropped this sorority in a heartbeat.

Video
 

That video is featured on the SEC southern football site. The headline implies the Bama player is the "star" of the video.

It is on www.saturdaydownsouth.com .

lol, I don't think jealousy was what the ticked off mom biddy who passed this along was feeling. Among other things, she said at least the music kept viewers from hearing their brains rattle.

Gotta wonder what are they thinking. Why would any chapter (or any group of women) want to be "brand" themselves in such a stereotypical manner?

There is nothing in that long vid that is actually relevant to sorority membership. It is focused on recruiting dudes. Where is the oversight from their org? Wonder who approves the content and cost -- certainly a professional production of this scale was very expensive.


Surely Malibu Barbie goes Daisy Duke is not what it takes to recruit PNMs on the West Coast and elsewhere. They should be offended. (Just venting -- not disagreeing with your comment)

Every sorority woman should be cringing IMO. Fox Sports:

Hot Alabama Sorority Enlists Kenyan Drake to Star In Recruitment Video

Sending best wishes to the AU PNMs! They get invitations in about an hour, I believe.

If the goal was to get lots of press they achieved it. My daughter, who is a high school senior, and oldest son, first year in college, were NOT impressed. I showed it to them to see the reaction of their generation and they both rolled their eyes and said no thanks.;)

It reminds me of some Pepperdine videos (oh, just search) that the UCLA women were ROFLTAO a few years ago. If a group did this at UCLA, the PNM would think one thing: Fourth and forty (hope you know what that means)

The video may not have a point, other than featuring their enthusiasm for their school and one another. Lets just remember that these young women are still our Panhellenic sisters, and while their video may not be something we would want for our chapters (as alumnae or actives), being critical of them and their national organization in such a public forum is neither kind nor Panhellenic. These women are adults, and free to make their own choices, even if some consider them mistakes or cringeworthy -- I'm sure we were all saints in college :)

THANK YOU.

Grateful there was no Internet/social media/digital cameras when I was in school.

Pretty tired of all the judging. Arizona is full of gorgeous women and men. Our climate is such that you can wear shorts and flip-flops year-around. There is a focus on being healthy and physically fit throughout the lifespan. So what? Put in the context of 18-19 year olds, those videos are fine and reflect what's happening in their world.

Get off Alpha Phi's back. It could just as easily be YOUR chapter that is being talked about here. Seriously. Not kind, not Panhellenic at all. You have your opinion(s) which may or may not be based in fact. Again, so what? I suspect Alpha Phi will have NO TROUBLE attracting new members despite the sniping that is going on here. Go pick up your pearls and restring them.

#morethanalittleannoyed

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.

Clemsongirl, I never interpreted your comment as anything more than pointing out regional differences. Not better not worse, just different. I also don't see the Alpha Phi video as a big deal....and I'm old.

As someone who just got home from spending the day with impressionable teenage girls, I tell them every day what you put out on the internet is there for everyone to see. Once it's out there you can no longer control the message. So by putting the video out there, the proverbial cat is out of the bag. If the criticism is unfair, so be it. If there is praise out there, so be it. THEY, themselves, opened the can of worms by putting the video on YouTube. By doing so it's obvious they want major attention. And they got it. As, we say in PR, whether it be bad or good...at least people are talking about it!

I can also tell anyone who is reading this and then reporting back to Greekrank, I have seen nothing on here anywhere near the level of hate that I saw on Yik Yak about the subject. It's young people on Yik Yak, not the old "biddies". If you want to take aim at people who criticized the video, then head to the Yak.

I am not criticizing the video, nor am I criticizing those who are doing the criticizing."I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." - Voltaire

Agreed. I think videos and skits are dumb.

Not necessarily in response to your comment alone, but also to a comment earlier in the thread about "judging" -- this seems a little disingenuous since recruitment is all about judging.

PNMs are "judging" chapters, and chapters are "judging" PNMS. Every single day of recruitment. This is why PNMs are advised to clean up their social media, arrive with appropriate attire, and remember that they are trying to impress other women, not frat boys.

And this is why we can spend 2 forum pages discussing whether to wear a necklace and/or what kind of necklace to wear with a recruitment t-shirt. I do agree that these are first-world problems in the big scheme of things.

But we behave as if image and stereotypes do matter -- if these don't, then certainly we are taking our Greek selves waaaay too seriously.

This.

It was cute, fun, and likely drew their target audience. From the comments before I saw it, I was expecting a soft-core porno.

Calm down y'all.

This is along my lines of thinking as well. Sure, they're fun, but if the point is to show sisterhood, is that what they're really doing?


I'm wondering if the recruitment video will eventually go the way of the skit. As others have stated, it doesn't really show sisterhood as that is a hard concept to display in 3 to 5 minutes. Similar to a skit.


I will add I have seen some videos present the concept of sisterhood well (at least IMO), but it's a rarity.

That's a great point -- I think some sororities may value themselves as they are valued by fraternities -- how many swaps, mixers, etc they have and with whom.

Perhaps this video strikes a nerve with me since it is a chapter on my campus, especially considering the negative press we have received regarding historically white stereotypes and lack of diversity. This video does a lot more to confirm those perceptions (and other sorority stereotypes) than to dispel them.

I don't know how we can tell the PNMs up and down "don't talk about boys @ rush" and then have a video with a boy pretty prominently featured in it (to the point that some media outlets are calling him the star of it). If they would have used stock footage of the team with them cheering or making signs, that would be a little different. Or if he had an actual connection to them, like chapter sweetheart.

I thought it was a cute video; the girls are certainly pretty and the house makes me wish I'd gone to a school with real sorority houses.

I wonder how they decided whose butt was going to be filmed while ascending the stairs?

That said, I think they got their idea from Elle Woods' Harvard Law School admissions video.

The Alpha Phi video is almost exactly the same as the ZTA video, except for the football guy. It is so similar that it must have been shot by the same crew.
Girls lined up inside front door
Girls eating Popsicles
Girls doing gymnastics
Girls hanging on front porch
Girls at the stadium
Girls in bikinis most of the video

As a PNM, I would think if I didn't have a bikini ready bod, I shouldn't join a sorority.