Random Things You've Learned from GC
 

I was thinking about this lately since GC is about to be 25. I've certainly learned a ton about the Greek system, but what about random things?

Today, a student actually walked into my classroom wearing a shirt that read, "I LOVE MILFS!" I yelled at him and sent him to the office and he kept muttering that his other teachers had said nothing. He was mad because as the resident ancient teacher, I knew what it meant.

:rolleyes: I should have told him that I learned it on this site years ago.

Lmao! I hollered!

When I first joined this site, I had no idea some folks on here know each other IRL. I learned that, if anything.

So the school I went through pre transfer was a local system. I had no idea about any typical NPC procedures (quota, RFM, etc.) and I barely knew the NPC itself existed. I also took the lessons from past recruitment stories here to heart and was able to join the chapter I'd be initiated in.

It's also was extremely interesting to learn about how huge sorority life is in the south. Up north it's much more chill for recruitment and the overall greek community, but the stories from down south and schools like Indiana really blew me away.

Just abbreviations like tldr, etc. I really enjoyed learning about what GCers do for a living. And then, I learned a lot from John about how the forum works. That was really interesting.

I learned that NPC recruitment is waaaay more complex than I ever knew. lol

That the brothel law thing is a myth. I still hear it ALL the time and even heard it when I served on my chapter's house association board and as an advisor. Everybody thought it was real.

Everything I know about NPHCs, I learned here, and I'm really glad I did.

A lot of that is because about 20 years ago, we used to have GC meetups. Sometimes we still get together--I spent a mountain weekend with FSUZeta, Titchou, and greekdee 2 years ago.

If town governments only knew how many trains were pulled in fraternity houses back in the day...

I've learned that sorority recruitment is super intense in the South. I went to school in the Northeast, where recruitment wasn't nearly as stressful.

I've also learned a lot about GLOs that are not NPC sororities. NIC, NPHC, etc.

I learned that I had connections (6 degrees of separation) to some people here. I learned that GCers will reach out to others for various ways of assistance (like how to find a dress maker in my home town to get her wedding dress remade for her daughter - it turned out great!). I learned that some of us have side groups going as friends and support and that we can be there for each other in sooooo many ways). In other words, I've learned what sisterhood really means in NPC and NPHC.

Without GC, I'd never know about The Cookie Table.

I also made some good friends and met some really interesting people.

Yes, the dress refresh was gorgeous, daughter looked beautiful, and it wouldn’t have happened without your recommendation or GC . Thank you! One thing I learned is that our reputation for factual information is public knowledge. When there is a “technical” question, most often rush related, posted on the site that shall not be named, more often than not the OP is referred to GC because “those old ladies know their stuff.” In addition I learned we are very panhellenically/fraternally minded and support one another and our orgs.

And you're now the better person for it! Have you experienced it in person yet?

I've learned that some of my favorite sorority sisters don't have the same letters as I.

That I can depend on GC people to write recs for my friends' daughters.

That being greek isn't always about the organization, it's about the experience

And sadly, I will always win the "what went wrong at your wedding?" contest - or at least, be a major contender!

All sorts of things! I like learning about how other people do things in other places, so hearing about the college experience from all over the country has been fascinating.

The most random but interesting fact I can think of is that people in the south dress up to go to football games. Football= fall here, so it’s all about comfort and warmth!

Cookie tables are the best. I’m glad that new people are continually discovering them.

I don't remember who, but someone had a link to "Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack" and it was my first exposure to the concept of white privilege (I grew up in a very insulated town and family), and it started my learning journey there.

Probably some zumbedo who has no idea how many white people--like about half of my white students--come from desperately poor families, in which their parents don't give a crap about them or whether they succeed in school or even stay in. They are outperformed by most of our black and Hispanic students. These kids, no matter what we do to help, have no privilege because they are white. NONE.

One of ours was killed last night by his sorry and careless dad--one of my sons coached this student--and I am VERY salty about this.

I am sorry for the loss of your student, especially at the hands of their father. I’ve lost students in the past because of family violence, and ones that I’ve made abuse hotline calls for, and it is heart wrenching.

America has a major class divide problem too, that impacts all in or near poverty, like 85% of my students, and I assume many of your students as well. Many of my students or their families have also experienced prejudice and acts of violence due to being Black, Hispanic, or immigrants.

I do want to note that if any other poster used “zumbedo”/“zumbado” in reference to another poster in the thread or on Greek chat, you would likely chastise them, then lock the thread.

Call me dumb, but what’s a “zumbedo”/“zumbado”?

I would not, seeing that "zumbedo" is a word that my brothers totally made up.

Well they “totally made up” a term one letter off from calling someone out of their mind, zumbado.

Since they were 6 or 7, I doubt that they knew that.

GC was where I first learned of the Invisible Knapsack as well. chaosDST (who did not post that, but frequently posted other resources) and posters like her were essential in deepening the conversations around race here.

But you know what white privilege means, and what you are describing doesn't negate white privilege.

For those who are observing this exchange, white privilege does not mean that a white person automatically has a better life in every community all the time. It means, in part, that white people are members of a legacy club (that they did not choose to be part of) that grants them better opportunities because of biases that are common in this society.

Examples:

A white child can pick up a science fiction or fantasy novel and see themselves represented most of the time. The existence of Black sci-fi fantasy does not negate whiteness being accepted as the default face for humanity.

Predominately white fraternity/sorority life is seen as the default kind of fraternity life, despite Black fraternal life having more life-long activity and a much larger community service imprint. Additionally, a white person can be guaranteed to not be excluded from the default Greek life on the basis of their race -- and would still be considered (if not fetishized!) if they were interested in Black Greek life.

I'm not even going to get into examples from policing or science/medicine.

In short, nobody ever said that "white privilege" is the same as living a "privileged" life. There are surely poor white people.

Partly true, but you know what? Even when I was a child, and most of you know how long ago that was, kids of all races were represented in my books and in cartoons and on TV. And some people are saying there is now both white privilege and yellow privilege because Asians have done so well here. I can guarantee you that having a white or yellow skin (especially since I have 4 Asian daughters) doesn't automatically push open doors. We all have to prove ourselves individually.

We could debate this forever. It deserves its own thread, though.

This made me chuckle! I like your sense of humor! :D:D:D

It's true, although there are a couple of men 2 years behind me. Actually, we have a lot of teachers over 50--I think it makes the school calmer.

And some kid just brought a possum in here.

I’ll add the meaning of this word to the other things I’ve learned on GC. :)

I never put what the word meant!

Correct. You didn’t, but bevinpiphi did — the reason I quoted her post with the correct spelling in it, and not yours. :)

I am a Spanish professor and teacher, and I know what zumbado means--it's the past participle of zumbar and you would used it like this: "la abeja ha zumbado", the bee has buzzed.

Zumbedo, one of my brothers' made up words. is pronunced "ZOOMbeedoe" and since we weren't allowed to insult people, they used it as one of their insults and my mother wouldn't understand. That one was used to describe people they didn't even have words for because they were so disgusted or mad.

lol
I see now. I had two years Spanish in high school and two years in undergrad. But, I don’t remember any of it — maybe like a few words that stood out to me back then. Some of my customers are Spanish speaking customers and speak very little English. Thank God we have phone translator apps now. Because of that, being able to speak it as a second language would be very helpful in my profession.

Kind of a different topic, but your post here is also why I enjoyed learning what GCers did/do for a living. I knew you were a professor but I didn’t know you teach Spanish.

Facts and well said.

Can’t say I’ve learned anything. Not a lot going on since I’ve been posting on here, which hasn’t been long.

As an educated guess, I've noticed the highly popular "What do you feel like saying, right now?" GC thread may tally ten million views and 70,000 responses by the end of 2024.

(Not that it's anything I've learned, pretty much just a random observation.)

What I observed about this site compared to Black Greek Forums, where I was a regular, I didn’t see the moderators over there chatting with the regular members like they do here. If they did, it wasn’t much. Over here, the moderators are in conversation with most everybody. But then again, over here, it’s about five regulars posting, more than half of those are moderators. There’s three popular threads here, two of them are “you say this, I say that” threads. Just an observation.

Part of that might be because GC has been around so long that a lot of us are longtime friends on social media.

But we love to come here too!

I can say I enjoyed reading CG’s and aggieAXO’s posts to each other about life as a veterinarian. Learned some things there, although most of what they were talking about to each other was foreign, to me. But I got a lot of free advice about my dog from them. I found a good vet because of them, too.

Ohhhh no, that wasn’t free! You owe us, Mister! You can pay on the “Buy a Coffee” thread. :p

I think we all had fraternities & sororities that we enjoyed working with, or our GLO had a lot of friends with another GLO. I learned on GreekChat that not every member of ABC or XYZ was a back stabbing slut and not every DEF or PQR was a drug dealing alcoholic.

I also learned that the Greek Experience can vary greatly from campus to campus. For example, sororities with houses are different from those whose campus insists that sororities must be in on-campus suites, or only have meeting rooms.

How ruthless NPC inter/nationals are about closing chapters (outside of hazing/risk management issues)