What makes Greek life "hot" in the south?

[KyleMcGuire1983]

I think the Pacific Coast (WA, OR, CA) has its own cultural weirdness going on. I think I can name maybe three guys in my graduating high school class who went greek in college. It's just not normal out here. Fraternity guys are seen as sleazy, drunk, date rapists, etc. etc. It's really not fair at all but that's life.

I know when I joined I heard a lot "paying for your drunk friends!" comments whereas in the south it might be like "oh you have to carry on your family name, go join what your dad and your daddy's dad were a part of". Honestly I think it's part of that liberal culture outside fo the south that causes anxiety about greeks.

[Benzgirl]

Originally Posted by KyleMcGuire1983

I think the Pacific Coast (WA, OR, CA) has its own cultural weirdness going on. I think I can name maybe three guys in my graduating high school class who went greek in college.

Honestly I think it's part of that liberal culture outside fo the south that causes anxiety about greeks.

^^^what you said
Out of my high school class (small at about 170), two of us joined sororities and only 1 guy joined a fraternity. As I have said many times on this board, it just wasn't ingrained into our head growing up.

The chapters up north operate the way they do because they fit the personalities of the universities and the people that make up their populations. If you tried to come to Penn State back in my day and tell us to start having high school "teas" and have fashion shows and resume review workshops for HS SENIORS to get them ready for rush, you would have been laughed off campus. Or if area alums had come in to tell us that they were doing that and expected to then have input on who got bids to our chapter, that would have stopped at the door, too. We had a healthy, thriving chapter of 110 (limited to total by the university) and not one of us had been "bred" to rush.

Exactly!!!

[sigmaceli]

Oddly enough, it seems that when you get to the EXTREME South, i.e. South Florida, our Greek systems operate more like a Northern chapter. It's pretty weird.

The "Southern" style of recruitment wouldn't fly down here.

[bamagirl09]

No offense to south Florida, but that is NOT the south. Yes it is the southern United States, but it is not the south in the sense of culture. Most people at UA don't consider FL a southern state at all. It's mostly displaced yankees who got tired of snow.

[DSTRen13]

Originally Posted by bamagirl09

No offense to south Florida, but that is NOT the south. Yes it is the southern United States, but it is not the south in the sense of culture. Most people at UA don't consider FL a southern state at all. It's mostly displaced yankees who got tired of snow.

It definitely depends on the part of Florida --- it's a patchy state, lol

[PhiLove83]

Originally Posted by DSTRen13

It definitely depends on the part of Florida --- it's a patchy state, lol

Most definitely! I am from "south" Florida, my hometown is about an hour north of west palm beach, but the town is extremely southern... and the town where my parents are from is even smaller (one blinking light, an elementary school, two gas stations and a post office but it was founded by our family in the 1800's!). I grew up around orange groves, railroading and commercial fishing... Florida is a very different place, some people embrace the southern culture, but a lot are from the north as well. As for my graduating class, most of the people that went Greek we born and raised in the area, a lot of the "transplants" did not.. it definitely depends on how you were raised. Although neither of my parents are Greek they are very accepting, and even encouraged me to go through rush when I was still iffy.

[BabyPiNK_FL]

While there are many Floridians that are from somewhere else, there still exist those who were born here. Many of us also have relatives and or ancestors from "the South" as well. Not everyone is trying to get away from snow. Believe it or not we have hospitals with maternity wards here and they have existed for significant amounts of time.

[62231]

Originally Posted by PhiLove83

Most definitely! I am from "south" Florida, my hometown is about an hour north of west palm beach, but the town is extremely southern... and the town where my parents are from is even smaller (one blinking light, an elementary school, two gas stations and a post office but it was founded by our family in the 1800's!). I grew up around orange groves, railroading and commercial fishing... Florida is a very different place, some people embrace the southern culture, but a lot are from the north as well. As for my graduating, most of the people that went Greek we born and raised in the area, a lot of the "transplants" did not.. it definitely depends on how you were raised. Although neither of my parents are Greek they are very accepting, and even encouraged me to go through rush when I was still iffy.

Haha, you've got to be from one of three places: Vero Beach, Port St. Lucie, or Stuart!


In my opinion, there's some sort of comformist v individual battle between the southeast and other regions. Down here, social groups are encouraged to help individuals become more well-rounded and become contributing members of society.
Elsewhere, academics seem to be the only things worthwhile and any sort of "conformity" is looked down upon. I don't know- can someone who understands what I'm saying phrase this better?

[FAMUDva]

Originally Posted by DSTRen13

It definitely depends on the part of Florida --- it's a patchy state, lol

I totally agree! I'm originally from Ft. Myers, Florida (south of Tampa); and except for the snow birds and immigrants, the born & bred FLORIDIANS are VERY southern! lol

Same thing in some areas of Broward and Dade county...

[Thetagirl218]

Originally Posted by sigmaceli

Oddly enough, it seems that when you get to the EXTREME South, i.e. South Florida, our Greek systems operate more like a Northern chapter. It's pretty weird.

The "Southern" style of recruitment wouldn't fly down here.

I think the "South" Line stops somewhere just before Jacksonville IMO. I went to school in North Florida and our GLOs acted more like some Northern ones in that aspect.

[Kappamd]

Originally Posted by Benzgirl

^^^what you said
Out of my high school class (small at about 170), two of us joined sororities and only 1 guy joined a fraternity. As I have said many times on this board, it just wasn't ingrained into our head growing up.



Exactly!!!

Same here. Out of my high school class (of about NINE HUNDRED in NE Ohio), I know only a handful that went Greek in college.....a handful being maybe 10-15. It's just not something thats culturally prevalent up here.

[BadCat25]

OTW - I am not saying that Northern alums aren't involved in their sorority. My chapter has a very strong alum association and they are a big help to us. What I am saying that after college nobody else cares if you were an ABC at the University of Somestate.

[1908Revelations]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

People do this?

Yikes.

Yikes indeed.

I'm from Alabama and most of my classmates were interested in Sororities and Fraternities as most of our teachers were/are Greek, family members, church members ect. I am not sure how many from my class are Greek, but I know that several attempted and some want to attempt again on the Alum (i/ae) level. But again plenty of our HS teachers were Greek and once for a talent expo they even did a stepshow (there were about 18 teachers in the show).