As someone about to go through recruitment herself and checking out videos, I've also seen a lot of people mention the Alpha Phi video, but I have to say, I don't see anything particularly wrong with it. Maybe because I'm younger and more social media connected, what you see in the Alpha Phi video is nothing new at all - in fact, a lot of what was shown in that video was "done" by other Alabama sororities.
1. Practically every sorority recruitment video uses "brain-shaking" club music in the background, so that's not something that can be put on APhi's head.
2. The jumping up and down aimlessly in the air, imaginary laughing at God knows what, and blowing glitter into the camera is something already done by Alabama Phi Mu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS_sa6CCoYQ. As a matter of fact, Phi Mu does a lot more of the jumping up and down aimlessly than Alpha Phi did in their video.
3. If you want to talk bikini shots, Alabama Zeta had a video this year which has just as many, if not more shots spent on partying in bikinis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NEmsoCKkRc. Also, Alabama Pi Phi
https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=tQ41sevtlD4. Additionally, I'm following a lot of sororities on tumblr and instagram and even the "classy" and "conservative" sororities at my campus have pictures of girls in bikinis and short shorts. It's not like the girls in any of these recruitment videos are grinding on a stripper pole or walking down the street in their lingerie, they're at the pool or at the lake.
4. Honestly, can any of us say with a straight face that any of these videos shows true "sisterhood?" Showing sisterhood should be during the skit and preference rounds of recruitment, not 3-4 minutes of a highly edited, scripted video.
5. I thought actually going
inside the football stadium and having the mascot and football player were really great touches and it's really different from other videos that I watched! I'm really disgusted by what some people are implying about how they got the football player to participate in the video though (on other social media platforms, not necessarily GC). No one deserves to have comments like that made about them, and no, saying "they're asking for it" is not right either.
6. What's wrong with Alpha Phi trying to portray themselves as more "West Coast?" If they're fairly new, then it's probably a smart idea for them to find a niche and be really strong in whatever they choose. Besides, isn't Alabama recruiting more people from OOS anyways? Who is to say that they wouldn't choose the more "West Coast" sorority over the pearls and Bible sorority? Who are we as outsiders to judge what PNMs should value and like in a sorority?
I actually have a few high school friends going through recruitment at Alabama right now, and even though they're really busy, they told us (the girls in our GroupMe) that Alpha Phi has been nothing but lovely towards them, and a lot of the current PNMs actually view the video quite positively.
Maybe it's a misunderstanding because of the generational gap in the use of social media, but I think it's petty to be criticizing the girls who made this video when there are so many others who did very similar things, but they somehow flew under the radar. Hopefully it's just a result of Groupthink that some of the more petty comments are flying around, not because the commenters themselves are petty people.
Hybrid Mode
