AIM Messages
 

Have you ever had problems with sororities bad-mouthing one another on profiles or away messages? This has become a huge issue on my campus, and I personally think it's stupid. This is because I think that a profile is a form of speech, and I do believe that I have 1st Amendment rights. What'd ya think?

ETA: I am not one of the members who is posting these comments, but I am on the council to make a decision about what to do about them. I think there is a big difference between the following messages; (which are the basis of the issue)

"ABC- chapter of f*cking excellence- see ya XYZ(nickname of different sorority who has won chapter of excellence in prior years)"

AND

"My mascot can eat your mascot."

I don't see the difference between bad mouthing each other on an away message and bad mouthing each other publicly in the middle of the student union-- one is just as childish and purposeless as the other.

Re: AIM Messages
 

Well you have a right to say stupid stuff.

However, as a member of an organization, trashing another one reflects poorly upon your own group. Tasteless, immature acts will eventually have consequences. Ask the Pi Kappa Alphas or BSA members at Georgia State.

You want to see that they get "talked to"?

Try forwarding their screen name to their chapter advisor.

Do you mean people are putting in things like "I'm over at XYZ watching them all crying because they didn't get a bid to ABC"? If so, that's incredibly ignorant and grounds for a rush infraction or some other sort of Panhellenic reprimand.

Your right to "free speech" ends when you start saying things about others that are untrue. And....why would someone make the EFFORT to put an insult in their profile? That's horrible.

AIM/away messages can be great, or they can be horrible.

We had a girl who was unhappy over an event that happened when she was pledging that should have been kept within the chapter who put up an away message that said something like 'what did i sign up for?' and she was repremainded for that event.

But there was also a case during this Greek Week where alot of my girls had up messages thanking the Zetas for be so nice to us during one night. The next day they were so excited about us being nice to them that they invited us to party with them to celebrate their victory (they won greek week by 5 points...next year!)

Since AIM is a way of speech, if someone is caught red handed, they should be bought in front of panhellenic. Also, you could PRINT out the message for further proof incase the guilty party tries to deny it in front of panhel.

Re: AIM Messages
 

wow.. I thought we were in college !:eek:

seriously though, like dolphinchica mentioned, it's one thing to be nice in profiles, and it's really ridiculously childish to direct negative comments at GLOs.

I ALSO thought we were in college...
 

I have definitely seen where that has been the case...but you know...some people are totally, not really ASKING for it...but are so obnioxious and the ones that lets say don't get a bid to a sorority where they think they got into already and bragged to everyone that they would get in, suicided and didn't get a bid and then would in turn bad mouth the sorority afterwards, isn't really being a good person. But I agree to the point where its pointless and immature to mention something like that that would be hurtful on an instant message.

I really think this relates to the "snarky" t-shirts. Check out the ETA in my post to get more info.

"My mascot can eat your mascot" is funny. But the "see ya XYZ" comment is just trashy. Why would you want to portray your sorority as a group who would say that?

If you can't be proud of your achievements without putting down someone else, you have a problem.

I've never seen any of the sororities on my campus bad mouth each other on aim. Although my chapter had an inicident with a girl who at the was a sister left a not so nice away message on aim about our chapter. Week later she emailed us her letter of disaffliation and saw her no more. Sad to say this, but our chapter has done better since she left.

Yup!

I agree that bad mouthing other sororities or sorority members is completely childish and ridiculous. My roommate, who was in charge of the Rho Gammas during Recruitment last year, has dealt with this. She heard that XYZ chapter was throwing a party prior to recruitment where frat boys were picking girls up at the freshman dorm and taking them to the XYZ party where there were lots of kegs and other things. Since she had heard about it shewas obligated to go see what was going on and then report her findings to Panhel. XYZ chapter got in trouble so a lot of the girls in that chapter were mad at my roommate and some other Panhel Exec members. Some girls from XYZ had things on their profiles that said "If I was (my roommate) and (some other girls) I would kill myself." I can't remember what else they said, but it was bad. I'm 99% sure my roommate told the Panhel advisor about it, but as far as I know nothing was ever done to punish those girls. And (this is a little off topic, but I was shocked...) one of the girls who said those nasty things was actually chosen to be a Rho Gamma this year because "she was better than the other girls from XYZ who applied." My roommate had also been chosen to be a Rho Gamma but she decided to resign because she could not believe they would put someone like that in charge of a group of PNMs after everything she had said.