Hazing

[WriteThinking]

I've never understood hazing. What's the point, really? To see how stupid/wild you can be?

Do the "empowered" people involved really actually feel powerful? Or do they just do it because, well, everyone does it, and/or it has always been done?

It seems more an exercise in blind thoughtlessness than anything -- not something that would make another person who, after all, is supposed to be/wants to be on the same side, into a teammate/club member, etc.

Feeding/enabling someone's baser instincts and worst behaviors would not do anything to make me want to be a part of something. I just don't understand the need, or attraction from either side.

 

[Della9250]

Down in Texas

 

[Sam Mills 51]

I've never understood hazing. What's the point, really? To see how stupid/wild you can be?

Do the "empowered" people involved really actually feel powerful? Or do they just do it because, well, everyone does it, and/or it has always been done?

It seems more an exercise in blind thoughtlessness than anything -- not something that would make another person who, after all, is supposed to be/wants to be on the same side, into a teammate/club member, etc.

Feeding/enabling someone's baser instincts and worst behaviors would not do anything to make me want to be a part of something. I just don't understand the need, or attraction from either side.

To exhibit as much power and dominance as humanly possible. In some cases, an additional dose of "since they did it to me and I survived, I get to pass down the rite of passage" by doing it to others.

A big problem either way. Psychological for starters, going to physical and clinical in too many cases.

One of the massive issues with team situations is getting down to the specifics. Obviously, suspend and/or toss out anyone directly involved. But at what point is shutting down a team's season punishing those - in some cases, an overwhelming majority of the team that can function without the guilty parties - excessive. And how many coaches know it's going on when they claim otherwise publicly and/or in front of the media?

 

[Scout]

Mechanicsville High pauses football season amid hazing investigation

Hanover, a hamlet north of Richmond known as Klanover, is on the clock.

 

[Scout]

About 10 years ago, a NOVA high school had a black player sodomized with broom by a bunch of white players. School division slow played it, but then found out victim’s mom was an administrator in another school division.

Hilarity ensued.

 

[Cosmo]

Mechanicsville High pauses football season amid hazing investigation

Hanover, a hamlet north of Richmond known as Klanover, is on the clock.

I have never heard that term used to describe Hanover County. Quite accurate though.

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

I often wonder about the person who chooses to record video, but not intervene. Are they complicit? And @maumann, Gwen is correct. Marching bands across the U.S. certainly weren't immune from the hazing culture.

FAMU’s marching band fired the director after a pretty severe hazing incident a few years back, IIRC.

 

[Scout]

I like singing at dinner or carrying bags or fun simple stuff, but there are always people who don’t allow everyone else to have nice things.

 

[wicked]

Maybe one day someone can do a study on why so much of this hazing with mucho macho masculine alpha dog teenage boys much of the time involves the underage booty hole of younger boys. I'm sure the findings would be enlightening.

It has the convenient ancillary effect of making it more unlikely to be reported, because a 15-year-old boy playing football doesn't want it to appear he's had a brush with teh gay.

 

[Pilot]

I remember being terrified of potential hazing when I entered high school (average, public, rural-ish) in the late 90s.

Iirc the first day was the only day seniors (maaaaaybe upper class men?) had the administration’s thumbs up to bully us some. The main thing I remember is pushing a penny across the gym floor with our noses. I was far more terrified of wedgies, trash canning and swirlies, which never materialized. I remember thinking one upperclassman in particular was protecting me from getting swirlied but looking back I can’t remember for sure if anyone actually got swirlied. It may well have been just a myth.

I was such an unimportant freshman I can’t imagine why anyone older than me would care one way or the other for even a second.

My college fraternity was a different story, of course, but mostly consisted of stuff that sounded worse than it was, if that makes any sense. Still, the world is obviously better off without any of it.