To the first years that just got initiated, I’m glad you’re all alive. I know it wasn’t the “worst thing ever”, and I bet you’ve got a weird feeling in the pit of your stomach that what you just did really wasn’t all that glorious. I know that it ended in celebration, I know that it’s an important bonding moment, and I know that you’re all mates. I get it. I’ve gone through it myself.
Next year, it’s going to be your turn. You’re gonna get to show the boys above you that you’re just as serious as they are, that you’re just as wild and just as tough. The weight of all this tradition falls on your shoulders, and you are not going to be the one to fuck it up. Except - it’s not actually tradition. It hasn’t actually been around that long. It’s just that everyone sort of assumes that’s true, and it isn’t, and you’re the ones who are going to get in trouble for it. Every year, they get more intense in an attempt to outdo the years prior. Every year, someone goes too far. And while there’s “nooo wayyyy” it could be your flat that finally does it, I say this with absolute certainty: with all the booze involved, it’s just a matter of time before somebody dies.
You know this is fucked up. Every single one of you is a good person, even if you don’t want to admit it, and I know you were afraid when the initiation began. I know I was. I wasn’t initiated here; I was initiated into a fraternity in the States which was - incredibly - far tamer and far safer than the ones here. The frat knew it couldn’t afford to get in trouble, with initiated freshmen dying of alcohol poisoning around the country every year. So our initiation was strictly dry, and a week long. We were one of “the good ones”.
Instead of forcing us to binge drink, they just forced us to stay awake for the entire week. I think I slept a total of eleven hours. Another pledge was so sleep-deprived that he fell down a stairwell and was hospitalised. They’d have us complete all manner of impossible tasks and then berate us for failing, because we were delirious. We had to memorise 60 pages of names. They’d gotten rid of the vomit-chugging the year before, but I think I was still waterboarded at one point (though I can’t remember if that was for the frat or just “for fun” at another party). Oh, and they’d have us pledge that we’d sooner go to prison than fess up to the hazing. It was awful, but it was “tradition”. And I wanted that sweet, sweet approval.
When I look back on that time, I cringe. I’m not mad at the older boys, because I know they didn’t really want to hurt anyone. It was all an act, and I’m mostly just embarrassed that I let myself get suckered into taking it all so seriously. It’s incredibly cringe, to be honest, and I’m willing to bet you’re going to look back on your initiations the same way. There’s a reason you don’t want anyone seeing those videos, right? Right.
It’s too late to undo what you’ve done, or what’s been done to you. But it’s not too late to cut it out before you subject another year to the same rituals. There is nothing embarrassing about calling out how incredibly dangerous and gross these initiations have become, and if what you’re chasing is maturity and true masculinity, then man up and call this out for what it is. Stand up for yourself and your friends. I dare you to do something that you’ll be proud of. I wish I had.
Before I left the States, I’d signed up to be in charge of hazing the next cohort. I think I wanted the job because I really wanted to be in a position of power, maybe one where I could get some catharsis by doing unto others what had been done unto me, etc, etc. But I didn’t. On a whim, I moved here instead. I wasn’t mature enough to recognise why I was leaving the States; I only knew that there was something repulsive about my university experience that I couldn’t name. Only in the last few years, seeing initiations in Dunedin far outweigh what I saw in the States, have I really been able to reconcile with the fact that what pushed me away was an intense feeling of shame about what I let myself be subjected to, and how fervently I defended every moment of it despite knowing it was incredibly fucked up. For the record, I’m okay - but only because I was able to make peace with that, and only because there was no alcohol involved. I shudder to think what I would’ve done.
Point being: if you’ve just tortured yourself in the name of group bonding and tradition, to become part of a niche group and to gain some well-earned clout, you have two options. You can either lean into this and convince yourself that it was worth it, that it was all in good fun and that it’s tradition. Or, like me, you can begin to resent every moment of what you’ve just done, spoiling the very friendships that made this worth it in the first place. Neither option is good. The only good option here is to make sure that the buck stops right here, with you, because Dunedin’s initiations are a ticking time bomb. If we don’t get a handle on this, we are going to lose a student.
And when that happens, you’re gonna have a lot more to worry about than vomit and shame.
-Fox