T-Shirt Slogan Question
 

A sorority "XYZ"at my school (intentionally not mentioning its name in Panhel spirit :)) had bid night t-shirts which read "Jealousy is a sickness...Get Better Soon! Love, XYZ"

Some people (in various sororities and otherwise) thought this slogan was rather inappropriate, if not hurtful to the girls who had preffed XYZ but had gotten cut, for example.

What do you think?

I wanted to add XYZ also had cool new member t-shirts which I liked. They were baby tees and on the front had a giant color replica of their sorority's crest and on the back it said "XYZ Couture."

The group was just trying to show of their pride, but I can definitely see how it would come off as being hurtful especially to girls that wanted XYZ but got cut. I'm a little bit confused though. You said that their new member shirts had the crest on them. I thought that for NPC's, new members weren't allowed to wear the crest until after initiation?

I think it depends on the sorority or at least I am assuming it does. Greek life, while large & viable at my school, doesn't always comply with the national rules (at least the other orgs don't; my sorority always does :)) because we don't have houses and we are fairly autonomous.

Ditto that. Personally it doesn't bother me, but if I were a PNM that had her heart set out on XYZ, I'd take it pretty hard.

Regarding the crest, each NPC organization has her own policy regarding whether or not the new member can wear the crest/insignia. For Alpha Gamma Delta, only initiated members may wear our Armorial Bearings and our Badge, but NMs are allowed to wear our letters.

I don't get it...

How can a chapter of a national organization be "autonomous" and not comply with national rules?

It's another way of saying "Nobody has corrected them yet"...

Dee

I don't know if it still goes on, but Elon always had really obnoxious qoutes on the back of both bid day and greek week t-shirts. it was a campus culture thing.

yep......I remember tow particularly obnoxious bid day t-shirt as UMD-

1) On the front w/ a cute pic of a little girl "I'm and ABC"
On the back: "And you're not!" ABC Bid Day

2) DE Bid Day "If you weren't there, you weren't invited"

That was the slogan 2 years ago for one of our sororities for Greek Week. Greek Week shirts tend to be competitive at Elon, and that was one that everyone else on campus was upset they hadn't thought of first. We all definitely have Panhellenic Pride, but things are still competitive for Greek Week, Derby Days, etc.

Here's a slogan froma bid day shirt a sorority on my campus had a year or so ago:

"It's okay to have high standards. We like the view!"

:rolleyes:

So that means they look down on everyone else I guess?

I hate hate HATE rude bid day shirts. There's no need for them.

I have never seen any "offensive" Bid Day shirts at Auburn- they all tend to be quite cute!

One I remember that I liked was ZTA's from 2001. It has a large crown on it and it said "Queen For a Day, Crowned for Life". I always liked that one!

I honestly don't see anything wrong with any of the slogans that have been mentioned. I think as long as the Bid Day shirts don't DIRECTLY insult another GLO there should be no problem with it. What might be insulting to me, might be cute to you. There is no way to regulate, and there is also no need to.

I don't think it's insulting to other GLOs either...and I'm sure those shirts are aimed toward the other sororities.

But what about the girls who get cut from rush altogether or the girls who wanted to get into XYZ but didn't and ended up somewhere else? If I were in their position I'd think that slogan's pretty insensitive.

My sentiments exactly :)

This is beginning to be a problem on my campus of initiation...one of my locals had shirts made that said "Do you ever wonder if you joined the right sorority? We don't!" and independents and Greeks alike thought they were nasty. My chapter thought about fighting back with a shirt that said something like "Get hazed? We didn't" or "It's okay, we used to wish we'd been Gamma Phis too" but ultimately decided against it because we wanted to be "above" that.

One of our fraternities last year, their bid day shirt was something like "Not everyone can be an ABC's, someone has to sit on the curb and clap as we walk by", that fits the chapters personality to a T though.

One year our Turtle Buddy shirts said the whole "Wonder if you joined the right sorority, WE don't!", and then the next year we had "Some women join a sororities to find their husbands, We joined to find out bridesmaids"

I like the "controversial" shirts, as long as they aren't "nasty" and call out any chapters, i think they are great. That just my $.02.

Bid day shirts are about showing pride for the sorority & the women they picked as well as for the pledges & the sorority they picked! The year I pledged our shirts said "I'm a Sigma Kappa" on the front & "And you're not!" on the back. And I don't see anything wrong with that.

I actually think its more fun to see all the new t-shirts, even if they are a little obnoxious. T-shirts are to show pride and how much fun you have, there more for you than anyone else.

My personal favorite is "Conceited Slogans mean nothing unless you have the women to back them up!"

"If you didn't get drafted, you got shafted!" (on a camoflage-print Tee, with X*Y*Z like M*A*S*H)

Sometimes a T-shirt is just a T-shirt.

:)

I'm not a huge fan of the snarky t-shirts, but I did like the one that said "If we were you, we'd hate us too."

Yes, these slogans are snarky (LOVE that word!), in your face, insensitive, and borderline rude :p but we REMEMBER them and that's a lot of the point, isn't it?

Yeah, we're still talking about a homecoming shirt that had the following:
"[Sorority Letters]: The Sorority That Reads", in reference to their high GPA.

We were not impressed.

My sorority doesn't do bid day shirts, we do a rush shirt that the actives wear, but the PNMs don't get. This year our shirt said this :

TO JOIN IS TO BE CHALLENGED
TO BE CHALLENGED IS TO BE DRIVEN
TO BE DRIVEN IS TO BELONG.

On the top of the saying is tiger eyes staring at you and on the front is our letters GAO and our name spelled out with our founding year 1993.

Some sororities on campus didn't like, but hey we sure did. :D ;)

slogans
 

Some slogans are a bit rude, one group on our campus had "rate us, hate us, fact is, you ain't us" which I personally didn't like. My sorority generally stays away from slogans like this because we don't think that it makes us look good to PNMs and, frankly, we wouldn't be too interested in the girls attrated by a slogan like that.

I don't see anything wrong with putting sorority achievements on rush shirts. My sorority, and other sororities on my campus, have always put something on their shirts the following semester if they won sorority of the year.

While I do think that every group has the right to put whatever they want on their shirts, we do have to watch out. We don't want to promote greek stereotypes by having shirts that are snotty or with too many references to sex or alcohol, because a lot of people tend to think that most greeks are like that and ignore the scholarship, community service, etc. You never know what people are going to take offense to, I heard there was a fraternity being sued for having a rush shirt slogan that some people found to be homophobic.

I'm not offended by these shirts. I think they are really cute. They are all in the spirit of pride. Not many sororities on our campus have them. I think ours are screened by Panhell for "snarkiness" :rolleyes: I do recall DZ's bid day shirt from this past fall rush: "Who says you can't always get what you want.?" I liked it. I think we shoud be allowed to have what we want on our shirts. I'm sorry girls get cut, but really, they're JUST shirts :)

My favorite..from my bid day said "To be or Not to be.. it was never a question" going around a turtle.. this spring, a close 2nd favorite.. we did a Tiffany theme.. the front said "Please Return to Delta Zeta &Co. Plymouth State University, est. 1902" on the back it said "Come See Our New Spring Collection! Spring 2004 Bids Day" :)

I do agree that there is a fine line between pride and being rude. Even though I do enjoy seeing the new shirts that girls have every bid day.. :)

Last year, for Spring Rush, one of the sororities made shirts for their NM's that said "It's not for everyone but that's the beauty of it." I know it's not as bad as some of the other things that people have posted on here, but this sorority has a reputation for being snobby and when we all saw the shirts, we were trying hard not to laugh.

It never bothers me. With our school we always kind of had like slogan battles. It was a big thing on bid day to all wear your new shirts and all sororities had to show theirs off. None were ever too bad, but if you read one and werent in that sorority you could be like oh my or something. I always liked how cute everyones shirts were. Ill have to try to think of the ones we've had while I was there.

Also the thing about Panhell or Greek Life, they cant MAKE you have any shirt. Its totally up to your chapter. You dont even have to have them. They are no approved by Greek Life, I dont think, but if they are, all have passed. Im sure noone would approve rude rude things but most things are ok and no offensive things. Though some people can be touchy and say it is offensive.

On our campus, you do HAVE to purchase a Panhel shirt with all the sororities names on it or letters that you wear for the unity party. Then the rest of recruitment you wear letters.

I guess some chapters can go too far, but its all in fun. I dont think anyone here takes it too seriously. A lot are like man I wish we had got that saying or something....

Ok I dont have a clue where all my shirts are so I cant tell you all the ones we had. I have shirts from 96-02. (I was a member 99-03)

Looks like 96 and 97 were just ADPi shirts, no sayings on them.

98 is just a cute one with a flower saying.

99 says Everyboday has their day in the sun, some just last longer than others.

I cant find 00

01 says what else could you possibly wish for?

02 says every girl dreams it, so few live it.
(that one is of a princess and her palace)

So I guess we could have a few people might not like, but they arent too bad Id say,

sometimes those slogans
 

can come back to bite ya. i was in a store here and saw a sorority girl wearing a bid day shirt. it was the one the says,"i'm a xyz" on the front with"and your not", on the back. frankly, after looking at her i was more grateful than ever that i "was not." a sorority should be able to back up their slogan, especially if it is a snippy one.

Re: sometimes those slogans
 

Did it really say your not? If so, I'm guessing that group wasn't the sorority holding the campus scholarship trophy! :rolleyes:

it actually did!! they definately were not
 

the campus spelling bee champs!!

I digress...
 

Reminds me of one of my favorite bumper stickers:

My child is a honor student at XYZ School

We had cute ones I think!
One was: The tradtition starts here

The next was: We pave our own way

Our installation shirt was " in the book of greek life, we wrote our own chapter

and this years bid day ones were, The best just got better, and Why follow trends when you can start them.

We tried to use that one but our advisors said NO! We did, however, use it for a formal....very cute but we spared the potential hurt feelings it would have caused!

Sometimes I wonder about T-shirt slogans. Just like many other things, if some of these slogans were written on a tshirt for an intramural/varsity sports team, people propbably wouldn't give a second glance, but because they are on GLO t-shirts everyone has to be in an uproar.

I remember a while back there was a t-shirt at my university that was pretty nasty about our rival school (Univeristy of Western Ontario. I went to the University of Guelph) and it said,

"I'd rather step in s*** at Guelph than sleep with it at Western"

(Western has the repuation of having one of the wildest res. halls in Canada, if not North America, and Guelph is know for being the agricultural school here).

But no one cared. It was joke. Same with the other t-shirt that said "friends don't let friends go to Western".

While it's in poor tastes, if someone had a t-shirt that said "friends don't let friend go XYZ" then all hell would break loose. I guess I'm just pointing out another double standard.

Sorry for the rant.