Actives Need to Clean Up Facebook, Too

[SydneyK]

So, I was looking at facebook and came across an active (in a sorority I won't name) who made comments such as (names changed to protect the innocent):

• my sorority sisters don't care about my personal problems - they even make me cry more
• Thanks, Ginger, for being a REAL sister
• we only had (insert low # here) PNMs show up for pref - I wish I could've left town

So my question is this. Aren't actives told to make sure their myspace/facebook/blogs are cleaned up? These comments were made DURING recruitment. If I were one of the PNMs who attended this sorority's pref and saw that comment, I would think, "Well screw you, too."

It just strikes me as odd that women put such inappropriate details in a public place, especially at a time like recruitment. This is supposed to be the time to show PNMs how great your sisterhood is, not a time to complain about having only one REAL sister.

This sorority has been struggling with numbers for a while... I just can't believe they wouldn't tell their members to make sure that, if they can't paint their sisterhood in a brilliantly positive light, then don't say anything at all.

Don't most groups have some kind of pre-recruitment workshops going over information like this? Is this a case of a poorly involved advisor? Or are some things just expected to be common sense (and therefore not a concern for either the chapter or the advisor)?

[purplewindex]

Oh my goodness. We just had a workshop about internet sites like Facebook, MySpace, LJ, etc. and were told that it was absolutely necessary to either put it on private for Recruitment or clean it up. It's ridiculous that somebody would put something like that on FACEBOOK, of all things.

[33girl]

Originally Posted by SydneyK

So, I was looking at facebook and came across an active (in a sorority I won't name) who made comments such as (names changed to protect the innocent):

• my sorority sisters don't care about my personal problems - they even make me cry more
• Thanks, Ginger, for being a REAL sister
• we only had (insert low # here) PNMs show up for pref - I wish I could've left town

So my question is this. Aren't actives told to make sure their myspace/facebook/blogs are cleaned up? These comments were made DURING recruitment. If I were one of the PNMs who attended this sorority's pref and saw that comment, I would think, "Well screw you, too."

It just strikes me as odd that women put such inappropriate details in a public place, especially at a time like recruitment. This is supposed to be the time to show PNMs how great your sisterhood is, not a time to complain about having only one REAL sister.

This sorority has been struggling with numbers for a while... I just can't believe they wouldn't tell their members to make sure that, if they can't paint their sisterhood in a brilliantly positive light, then don't say anything at all.

Don't most groups have some kind of pre-recruitment workshops going over information like this? Is this a case of a poorly involved advisor? Or are some things just expected to be common sense (and therefore not a concern for either the chapter or the advisor)?

Umm duh.

If she hates her sorority this much, and is this miserable, do you really expect her to listen if a chapter officer or advisor tells her to clean up her facebook?

[ThetaPrincess24]

Why is she paying her dues as a member if she hates her chapter so much? Regardless of the inappropriate comments on Facebook, if she is that miserable why not just turn in the pin?

[tunatartare]

Networking? Mommy, grandma, and five aunts were all XYZs? Parents paying dues? I worked on a project with a girl who was miserable in her sorority and talked shit about them every chance that she got. She purposely avoided them and never showed up to anything. When she got called in to standards, she asked me to go with her so that they would "cut it short" (hell no!). When I asker her why she would continue to be in it, she said that her parents were paying her dues and that it looked really good on her resume and for possible social connections if she could say that she's an XYZ rather than she was an XYZ in college but left the sorority.

[AnchorAlumna]

Originally Posted by KLPDaisy

I worked on a project with a girl who was miserable in her sorority and talked shit about them every chance that she got...When I asked her why she would continue to be in it, she said that her parents were paying her dues and that it looked really good on her resume and for possible social connections if she could say that she's an XYZ rather than she was an XYZ in college but left the sorority.

I would have NO trouble voting to expel somebody like that. Everybody would be happier.

[tunatartare]

It was the second semester of her senior year. She had already caused them so much grief that they probably figured that it would be less time-consuming to forget about her than it would be to actually go through the process of expelling her.

[SydneyK]

Wow... I hadn't really thought about this being intentional. I just assumed she was dense enough to have forgotten about people other than her close friends having the opportunity to read it.

If she deliberately ignored requests by her chapter officers or advisors to remove the information (or refrain from posting such information), then the situation is worse than I had originally thought.

I just thought it was oversight on someone's part. We give PNMs all kinds of advice on here, so I thought perhaps we needed to give actives advice as well. Don't I feel naive!

Looks like this chapter just needs to do some weeding-out.

[BamaDad DZ]

Thank you for the advice. I will certainly pass the idea of clean Facebook text on to my daughter. Everyone speaks constantly of monitoring your Facebook entries during recruitment for fear of sorority eyes gathering incriminating tidbits ofmorsels of information.

[alum]

I agree with this. Quite frankly I am appalled at some of the interest groups on the college sites, "I got blackout drunk and tried to dance", "what did I do last night?" It may seem harmless and be funny to some members but it really is detrimental to Greek Life. When you have faculty and administration officials who don't look kindly on the Greek system, it belies our case that we are not all about drinking but about sister/brotherhood/philanthropy etc.

[tunatartare]

Originally Posted by alum

I agree with this. Quite frankly I am appalled at some of the interest groups on the college sites, "I got blackout drunk and tried to dance", "what did I do last night?" It may seem harmless and be funny to some members but it really is detrimental to Greek Life. When you have faculty and administration officials who don't look kindly on the Greek system, it belies our case that we are not all about drinking but about sister/brotherhood/philanthropy etc.

I think that those groups are only detrimental to greek life when it's at a big school with a large greek life population. At my school, 1% of girls and 3% of guys are greek, I can't even count the number of groups that we have with names like "my BAC is higher than my GPA," "finish your beer, there are sober kids in India," "I do stupid things when I'm drunk," etc. Seeing as there are hundreds of people in those groups and there aren't even that many people in greek life, I don't see how the administration could possibly look down on us for that.

[devilyangel728]

Panhell at the U of Rochester just made it mandatory for all affilated women to deactivate our facebook profiles during formal recruitment. its only 4 days and the purpose was to cut down on the facebook stalking on all parts. a fabulous idea

Originally Posted by devilyangel728

Panhell at the U of Rochester just made it mandatory for all affilated women to deactivate our facebook profiles during formal recruitment. its only 4 days and the purpose was to cut down on the facebook stalking on all parts. a fabulous idea

If someone ever tried to tell me what I was and wasn't allowed to have online, I'd tell em to go to hell.

[PhoenixAzul]

Originally Posted by devilyangel728

Panhell at the U of Rochester just made it mandatory for all affilated women to deactivate our facebook profiles during formal recruitment. its only 4 days and the purpose was to cut down on the facebook stalking on all parts. a fabulous idea

That's interesting considering our Panhel is telling us (the PX's) to use Facebook to get in touch with girls and to talk up recruitment. We're not to use it for anything official (i.e. talking about invites, bids, serious discussions of recruitment etc), but to send notes of "have a great day" and "don't forget, meeting at 6:30 in BFAC lobby!". They've also sent out invites to pre-recruitment events through Facebook all quarter.I fully intend to take mine down forever after recruitment is done. But till then, up it stays.

[LUgammaphi]

I know for us it's a constant thing. We are not allowed to have any photos with alocohol, quotes about partying, or anything you wouldn't show to your boss at a new job. Even if you are 21, all of this has got to be removed, or you have to remove everything associated with gamma phi, including photos of you in letters, etc. It's a pain, and when we go out we have to all be sure no bottles or cans or koozies are in photos. We're the only sorority on campus who does this though.