Hi! My name is Maggie and get ready with me while I talk to you about Bama Rush!
Sorority recruitment at the University of Alabama has become an internet sensation in the last two years. Young women are going viral on TikTok, gaining thousands and thousands of views and followers seemingly overnight. It all starts with the “Get Ready With Me” videos.
A “Get Ready With Me”, or a GRWM, video is when someone sits in front of their camera and records themselves doing their hair and makeup, and their outfit details, all while talking about topics such as their daily tasks, what has been happening with them recently, and whatever else the creator feels like sharing.
I think the GRWM videos are a great way to connect with viewers and talk to them about the recruitment process. Making those videos is like having an online video journal. I think it is something fun to watch and I love to watch the girls journey’s going through the process. You can see the progression through the week of them finding their “forever home”, and it’s very entertaining to see. For someone like me, who will never go through sorority recruitment, I love watching the process and seeing how it is different for everyone.
During sorority recruitment, many girls will post GRWM’s or outfit videos, or anything that has to do with #BamaRush, in order to try and go viral. For some, it works and they gain hundreds of thousands of followers and people get really invested in their recruitment journey. For others, it just turns out to be a normal video for their friends. This isn’t just limited to the University of Alabama.
After the initial Bama Rush videos started gaining popularity, girls that were going through recruitment at other big SEC schools, and other schools all over the country, started posting videos going through their recruitment experience. Some girls even gained so much popularity they started making YouTube videos. Some of the original “Bama Rush” girls like Gracie O’Conner and Lauren Norris, got their start on YouTube by posting videos about their recruitment experience.
By posting these videos, it gives viewers like you and me a peek into what life would be like if we were involved in Greek life. As someone who would most likely never be involved in Greek life, I enjoy watching the videos of girls getting ready and picking out their outfits and hearing about the experience because it feels like living vicariously through them. Seeing the girls get all dressed up to go through this process gives viewers like me a small way to be a part of it.
While we may be seeing all of these girls that are having the “most life changing experience”, there are many girls we aren’t seeing that aren’t as lucky. The girls you see all over social media aren’t the only ones that are posting videos and trying to go viral. You have the ones that fit the typical sorority girl stereotype, and then there are the ones that don’t. Even though they are posting videos just like the rest, they aren’t going as viral.
When I think of sorority girls, I think of fit, tan, girls that are always dressed up and have expensive taste. On TikTok, and in real life, if you don’t fit the typical sorority stereotype, there is a very likely chance that you won’t be as popular as the other girls. While they may be having the same experience as the other girls, since they aren’t what you think when you think of sorority girls, their videos get dismissed quickly. The videos that typically go viral are made by girls that fit the stereotype.
Last year, a transgender student named Grant Sikes, blew up on TikTok because she was going through sorority recruitment. People were so invested in her journey because at the time, she was a non-binary student going through sorority recruitment at the University of Alabama, which was very controversial. She gained thousands of followers because people were so invested in how her rush experience would turn out.
Viewers didn’t know if she would get dropped immediately, or if chapters would allow her to make it a decent way through the process so they didn’t look bad. She ended up getting dropped by almost all 20 chapters except for two before day one of recruitment. She was dropped by all chapters before the end of the recruitment process.
When watching the sorority recruitment videos it makes it hard to see the other side of it. You see all the highlights but what you don’t see is all the tears and heartbreak of the girls that didn’t make it through the process. On TikTok, it may be all sunshine and rainbows but we don’t know the half.
