Hazing

swamp_knobbler_mahan

So now there's hazing to get into BAND?
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/us/florida-am-university-students-death-turns-spotlight-on-hazing.html?_r=2&hp

This is awful. Did any of you play high school or college sports and get "hazed"?

YoursTruly

Jesus! That is horrible. It sounds like the band director had been fighting a losing battle for years and is now having to take the fall, which sucks.

Hazing is so weird. It is SO WEIRD. What even is it, and why??

I have never been hazed. But I know people (my cousins) who are really into hazing. My cousin talks with such pride about being forced to drink an entire pitcher of beer and throw up into a garbage bag at the bottom of which was her pledge ring for her sorority, and only after barfing were you allowed to get your ring (by fishing around in your own barf). I remember her telling this story with such glowing pride, and I was APPALLED.

The pride in hazing is so strange.

Also hazing has gentler roots, like sorority hazing in the 1960's used to be kind of cute. Like oh no, you had to bring your big sister a Coke at 4 in the morning, or oh no, you had to walk three times around the house IN YOUR CURLERS. Or like my mom had to take part in an earthworm race, and it was hilarious. Or you had to sing the sorority's song in the cafeteria.

But even that still raises the question of HAZING: WHAT IS IT AND WHY?

swamp_knobbler_mahan

This isn't really hazing-related, but it's jock-related, and I think hazing has its roots in this sort of jock mentality. So, in my senior year of high school, I had to take a mandatory PE class to graduate.

The jock assistants in this PE class were so mean to anybody who wasn't a senior, and for most of the class, they thought I was a junior or a sophomore, so they were also mean to me. Last month of class, they learned that I was a senior, and started being nice to me.

What the fuck? Why not just be nice to everybody regardless of their age or athletic ability? Anyway, I thought this type of shit was limited to football jocks or whatever, and that band was an escape from this type of mentality, so it's a bummer to find out that the same thing happens in band.

Death

High School band did the exact opposite thing for me. I made a lot of friends and was somewhat shielded from jocks because there was a pretty huge band at my high school. The worst thing I ever saw was a kid who played Tuba got pantsed during a marching band practice and just really had a difficult time for about 3 minutes as he tried to figure out a smooth solution to his situation instead of just taking off his tube and picking up his pants. It was totally funny, but also not funny because it was real life and the face on that poor kid looked pretty terrorized by that moment.

MirandaJuly

The closest I came to hazing anyone was back in my college job, where I was a manager. I would refer to any incoming employee (usually also a freshman) as "knob," because that's what they call newbies at The Citadel, a military college in my hometown (watch "Lords of Discipline" for the actual hazing there). I would usually also make them do the worst jobs, but at this job everything was pretty easy anyways. No one really seemed bothered by it though. I've always been pretty chill when I'm in a management position.

This one guy who worked with me at that job was pledging for a fraternity, and he had to do a whole bunch of stupid stuff like always have this binder of the frat rules with him, and he was forbidden to talk to anyone who wasn't in the frat for like a week. This was extremely frustrating for me, because I needed to communicate with him a lot while working with him. Eventually he fucked something up with the binder and got rejected from the frat, but I never spoke to him again because it had pissed me off so bad.

YoursTruly

remember that guy who got so drunk at the frat party that he passed out, and then as a joke his friends put him down the garbage chute and then forgot about him? But it turned out he'd gone unconscious down the garbage chute, had cracked his skull open when he hit the dumpster below, and then in the morning he had been dumped into a garbage truck, taken to the dump, and then crushed into a garbage compactor?

Pretty neat phone call for a mom and dad to receive, I bet

MirandaJuly

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2011/jun/13/hazing-remains-citadel-tradition-cadets-parents-qu/

swamp_knobbler_mahan

The comments on that citadel story are even more sickening than the article.

UncleBoatShoes2011

I think hazing, in sports (and band), has to do with testing your new teammates.
You want to know that your teammate is not gonna freak out and quit when the going gets tough in a pressure situation.
Marching band at historically black southern colleges is super important and competitive. Being the head of the drumline (like in the movie Drumline) or the Drum Major is super prestigious. Band at these schools is as/or more prestigious and competitive than football.

Hazing for frats/sororities is just a way to enforce the exclusivity while being Bacchanalian/sadistic.

1234

I got hazed on the swim team.

Grabbed from my hotel room, pantyhose over head, and then duct taped to another person and left in the hall.

That's pretty funny.

I got hazed in the army.

When I got promoted they took the rank insignia pin out of our collar and put in the new rank, but without the clasps on the back of the pin. Then everyone of that rank or higher punches you there, which pokes you with the back of the pins. Sometimes a person would even pop it out and then you'd get stabbed again. Called 'the gauntlet' or 'bloodrank' it was a violation of the law, but still happened.

That was less funny.

lml__0_0__lml

delicious

MirandaJuly

No Google results for "bloodrank," which makes it even spookier!

lml__0_0__lml

specials

lml__0_0__lml

easy

1234

I was not "elite" in any sense. We just copied what the "cool kids" did. As an optimist I often forget how dark that time in my life was. Very dark times.

Loose_Thread

Never been hazed... but now I know, when someone gives me a hard time the first time they meet me, they are just testing me. Like with someone you work with. For people I don't instantly dislike, I ignore it and act nice to them. After you have endured their hazing, they accept you. It is a way that insecure people can figure out who to trust?

Loose_Thread

I wonder if "noob" for newbie is a Citadel/knobs riff... I did computers in the 90's with nerds and no one ever said noob, maybe because they didn't have video games. And of course video games have kind of a military connection going on.