Let the truth be told

I am a freelance reporter in the Tuscaloosa area. I did a research piece on the Alabama sorority recruitment. I started my research in the Spring semester 2024. I spent many hours interviewing actives and fraternity members on campus. I scoured social media posts during the summer. I talked to numerous PNM's on campus prior to, during and post rush week. I promised them complete anonymity. Disclaimer: I am not in a fraternity or sorority. I do not have a family member who is in the Greek system. I am not a parent. I have nothing to gain or lose by promoting or demoting a sorority.

Following are my findings of the houses who had major changes with vibes and/or reputation coming out of 2024 recruitment.

I've only listed houses that hit my radar with multiple comments/feedback. If a house isn't listed here, there were no major reputation recruitment changes from past perception that I could validate.

ZTA-this house has become known as social influencer clowns. Their reputation during rush with many pnm's I spoke to was to stay away, reputation at play. Fraternity boys view them as high maintenance. Their perceived goal in the last 2 years has been to recruit social influencers who could make their house rise in rank with their marketing to compete with old row. However it has backfired with the type of beautiful, classy girls they originally tried to attract. This year, many pnm's ranked other houses higher or tried to get them off their list to avoid a bad reputation. Parents of pnm's chimed in to let their daughters know that they wanted then in a more serious house. For the first year ever, pnm's were telling me they would be quiet, even rude to zetas during parties so that they wouldn't get invited back (like others have done historical to Sigma Kappa.) Zeta also seemed not to care about their GPA, recruiting girls who had low gpa's coming out of high school in many cases as long as theybwere cute and had a big following on social media. An active told me that if a pnm doesnt have at least 2000 followers by the time the recruitment application opens, they wont be invited to a party. Zetas are now perceived to spend more time making Tik Tok videos than doing anything else. Their work week videos dominated social media sometimes launching 5 per day. The social influencers increase their following by talking about recruitment and making girls feel that if they followed and messaged them they will become their friend and in turn, they will advocate for them in the house. It is a form of dirty rush blackmail. One PNM I spoken with was paired up with an influencer. She was treated rudely as she was not one of her followers. They try too hard to have the image of an old row house but have now taken on the perceived reputation of non-classy girls who are just there to be noticed for their multiple layers of makeup which they show how to apply in their videos. One of their top influencers posted videos giving advice on how to rush only later to post a video swearing after she pushed someone dressed up into a pool. These images are not flattering to the reputation of the house. Pnm's recognize the shallow behavior and immaturity. It caused the house to lose respectability on campus going into, during and coming out of rush week. Maybe this year's pledge class will change things for next year. We will see what happens on social media.

Sigma Kappa-- continued in next post.