Okay Yanks, explain 'Hazing' for the uninitiated?

the two aren't related

hazing is an initiation process, usually (but not always) into some male organisation. not entirely restricted to adolescents or young adults, but most common there. usually some form of violence and/or humiliation plays a role. "one of us".

see: dazed and confused, animal house, revenge of the nerds

see also: douglas macarthur's freshman year at west point, jason newsted's initiation into metallica

also: all military and most fraternity hazing traditions have their roots/corrollaries in the old countree.

how did jason get in to metallica, was it not for his smooth bass licks and free flowing locks (or was it his big specs)

not just for boys...the sorori-whores have some of their own as well. like making new pledges hang over banconies doing shots until they vomit on themselves! and outlining where there's too much fat on a new girl with black magic marker when she's standing naked in front of the rest of the house!

obviously, i'm a little bit cynical about groups that use hazing as a way of initiating into their membership. but then again, i'm not into guys that wear flannel shirts over phish tshirts with braided belts and backwards dirty white baseball hats.

sorry. guess i'm still carrying around a little bit of dislike for that whole thing from my uni days. (i had a job as a photographer for their events one year, can you blame me?) but at my uni there was usually at least one kid a year that died from some hazing-related event. either exposure to cold (michigan winters plus nakedness plus duct tape is not a fun combo) or binge drinking or roofies in drinks...of course hazing is banned on campus, but it still happens.

apparently you get this kind of thing in France too. A French friend was delighting us with stories of her university's baroque initiation rituals. and you can't even opt out of them by not joining a fraternity/sorority - EVERYONE has to take part.

My dad was a frat brother back in the day. When he joined they made the pledges do some rather odd things. The brothers all dropped the pledges off on Martha's Vineyard with no money and no change of clothes. And left.

I'm glad I went to a big impersonal urban university.

I can't believe those girls went to go get their asses kicked and then whined about it, good gravy.

I tend to get more upset about all the really lame hazing that goes on. Like making people dress up as something ridiculous or embarrassing and go around like that for a day. This is absolutely lame and not at all embarrassing to the hazees, because there are dozens of them going around like that, and they're actually quite proud to have you know that they're being initiated into something or other -- like, congratulations, you've put together something about as memorable as a high school chess club initiation. Also there are stupid pranks and scavenger hunts that are far more annoying to the general public than to the hazees. If you ever see a guy in a skirt, lipstick, and an afro wig running around a college campus with a stupid sign on his back, please stop and actually kick his ass as an actual hazing.

Is it the Marines where they occasionally do that thing with pinning medals directly to people's chests? That one creeps me out.

Airforce I think. You get your jump wings or something.

All residences had very minor hazings (chanting, early morning exercises, sliding down a gunked up hill) at my university, though we lacked any greek houses. The football team had a tradtion where the rookies would drop trou, bend over ass toward eachother and suspend a piece of toliet paper that was then lit midway. The loser then got to the rough intiation, while the winners didn't have to shotgunn as much.
Rugby team just got shitfaced. The girls team hired a stripper, the rookies had to then rub for good luck (in the backroom), though plenty of senoirs would join in.
Swim team members got haircuts from hell.
Newfie society grabbed a fish and everyone new gets Screech shots out of the fishes mouth. It was the best we could do to imitate tradtional Screeching In since there are no Cod anywhere these days it seems.

It's totally widespread, both boys and girls. It's a big reason why I never went out for sports in school (besides being weak and lazy of course). But it seemed every group had their initiation. Except maybe the burnouts. Bless the burnouts.

It's so ridculous, so expected, nobody makes a big deal about it when it happens unless someone dies. I hope this incident is a turning point. Do a google news search for 'hazing' and you'll get half-a-dozen recent incidents or pending cases. I know I'm being hardcore about this but I just don't think there's any good reason to encourage one person to harm or humiliate another.

This also happens at high school alot. Minor stuff usually unless your cockey. Most football rookies in grade nine got a raw egg in their helmet before practise one day. I managed to convince the seniors I was in grade 10 somehow and avoided any sorta shit. Besides, only two of the senoir CBs could catch me.

damn, I thought this was going to be a thread about Hazel Dickens. Or Hasil Adkins.

S: Junior Hockey players. They have horror stories.

i saw the chicago footage too.( nz news ) i knew about the initiation stuff but this was a tad scarey in its ferocity.
i agree with you, teeny. the whole idea is pretty 'off'.

haha I read that as S Juniors Hockey!

I'm shocked, shocked to see pain and degradation going on at this... annual hazing ritual! Talk about 'dog bites man'. The fact that's it's making Australian television is pretty astounding. Maybe people want to see evidence of deeply-fucked cultural practices in the American heartland these days?

For the record I think these things are deeply dumm and generally bring out this worst in people. I'm just curious about how none of the coverage I've seen goes into how common it all is. My guess is that it was the video camera that made the difference. And the girl who had to get 14 stitches, that's gonna get you in trouble. Did you know that they guy who shot the videtape was charging 5 grand to anyone who wanted to air it?

My high school had a club called BREAK THE CYCLE, formed with the goal of ending the horrible hazing rituals for freshmen, and the violence and pranks that sprung from the rivalry with the town's other high school. All the Break The Cycle kids got beat up all the time. Pretty sad.