Two weeks ago, I was talking with a friend of mine who couldn’t contain his excitement for Hard LA, one of the largest raves in SoCal. Dubstep is this guy’s language, and it wasn’t long before he brought up other events like Escape From Wonderland. But when I told him that several of my brothers in Delta Tau Delta would be going to those same events, he looked stunned. “Really? I didn’t know fraternity guys were into that kind of thing. That’s awesome! It’s good to know we’re not the only ones.”
By “we” he meant ravers. Like hardcore gamers, libertarians, and hipsters, they can be found only if one looks hard enough. Yet based on Pepperdine’s surface appearance, you might never discover they were there. On the opposite side of the spectrum are fraternities and sororities, so public and so ever-present, it drives some people (OK, a lot of people) nuts. Any day of the week there might be a table for a charity by the Caf, or a group of people wearing the same jacket with the same funny looking letters on the front walking together. The thing is, those jackets can (and do) affect how people perceive the groups that wear them.
It’s not hard to understand my friend’s surprise. Greek life carries some of the most vivid (and popular) stereotypes around. Greek letters, philanthropy events, parties, rush — it all culminates into an image that most people hear from someone else, rather than experience themselves; some call it intimidating, others call it pathetic. In one person it may inspire the desire to join a group they believe to be friendly, fun-loving, and purposeful. In others it may evoke nothing more than a smirk. I have no doubt that part of that comes from the inevitable exclusivity that comes with joining a Greek organization. Be it Psi Upsilon or Kappa Alpha Theta, once you put those letters on, you are associated with that body of people.
As a member of Delta Tau Delta, I admit I may be biased. Not just toward my fraternity, but to Greek life in general. This is coming from a guy who, prior to my first semester, would have never even dreamed of joining a fraternity. Like many others, I thought fraternities were full of guys who got wasted, slept in class, got in fights with other fraternities, and made their pledges recite random facts naked in the quad. At schools like San Diego State, those stereotypes would probably have been proven true. But at Pepperdine, I found things to be different. These fraternities were goal-oriented, loyal to one another and dedicated to sets of beliefs that bound them together. In those forming months my perspective changed, even as other freshman developed that timeless distrust of Greeks.
In the founding days of Delta Tau Delta, we were taught a phrase to help us keep our heads from getting too big. “Being a Delt does not make me better than you, it makes me better than I used to be.” Two years later, I like to think that that same spirit flows not just through my fraternity, but equally through all of Pepperdine’s greek organizations. Stereotypes come and go, but go up and actually talk to someone wearing one of those funny jackets, and you may find yourself just as surprised as my friend was.
