I can’t speak for other groups at my HS,but I know when I was in HS, the freshman choir members (male and female both) went through a ritual hazing. The senior choir members would divide the freshman into teams and said seniors would come to pick up the freshman from their homes around 2 am on a predetermined date. The teams would then make their way to a local bowling alley rented just for this purpose and make them bowl and eat bad,cold reconstituted crap from Grandy’s.
Now what happened PRIOR to getting to the bowling alley was always fun. The year I was inducted into the group, my senior team members made us all go to a 7-11 and sing “I’m A Little TeaPot” while running around the store. Other stories I heard involved chinese fire drills, and other extremely silly but non-harmful events.
Did your HS have hazing? If so…what kind of hazing was it? What was involved?
I saw something on Dateline the other day about high school hazing. The senior girls brutalized the under classmen in a Powder Puff “football” game. It turned into what looked like a riot and several of the underclass girls wound up hospitalized with broken bones, concussions, etc. To make things worse the upper classmen made the girls to be hazed each pay 40 bucks for the privelage of a hospital stay. If that had happened to my sister, those other girls would be dead. I wouldn’t have to do anything either, my crazy uncle Vernon Ray and my grandfather (they are brothers) would have left short work of them and been either in prison or on the lamb, not like it would be much of a stretch there.
Anyway, your hazing didn’t sound that bad. One of my boyfriends in high school (who was closeted at the time) was involved in a hazing. The band geeks came to pick him up and were going to dress him up in as a girl. Well, he answered the door and was already dressed as a girl because he was going to do a drag show at a local bar (they had an 18 year old night). Suddenly he was out of the closet and his friends were pretty accepting. They ended up going out to eat at a restaurant. It was a good thing my friend put the makeup on himself and everything because the other clowns they dressed up actually looked more like clowns than women.
LOL that’s not so bad a hazing.
Esp if he was gonna come out anyway. I’ve seen a few gay men who dress like chicks who look MORE like chicks than some women.
I don’t know about other groups but our hazing was more fun than mean and demoralizing. We were all laughing and having a good time and it was a group bonding experience.
Only the normal Thespian initiation. Our theatre is a part of the International Thespian Society (Troupe 575). You work during on shows during the year and earn points. Once you’ve earned ten points, you can be initiated.
The thing is, all of the already intiated Thespians get to pick for the newbies. Once the newbie is in their clutches- er, hands, they get to choose for them to do whatever they want for a day.
No, no slave labor, more like costumes and performances. The year before I showed up, they had a guy dressed as the Lord of the Dance, having to dance to all his classes.
I got off fairly easy. My tortur- er, that is initiator was to have me dress as Britney Spears. Full on drag. :eek: Thank God my dad stepped in. So, I had to dress as a Farmer and make animal impressions for money.
Hah, drama story, eh? It was customary for guys (usually the Tech Crew, you know how those guys are) to moon freshman males in the dressing room on the closing night of their first show. They never did this to me; whether it was because they respected me or just knew I wouldn’t appreciate it I’ll never know.
The year after I left, something worse happened. I’m still trying to remember what it was, but the freshmen were pretty seriously taken advantage of - which is the issue, really. Who cares about mooning, but something that’s
done for the benefit of the hazers at the expense of the victims is different. The freshmen were told they had to comply to get into the International Thespian Society (not true, of course). I remember being furious about it, especially since as I recall the teacher was happy to not punish anybody even though he knew who was responsible.
I skipped HS initiation and went and smoked dope with my sister and a couple of her (super fine!) friends. Nobody ever said jack to me about not going. I thought hazing/initiation was just as stupid then as I do now.
I attended a private boarding school during my junior year. Everyone had to pledge to a sorority - the girls who lived in the dormitory to one and the girls who lived in town to another. The pledges were made to do all kinds of stupid activites designed to embarrass or be uncomfortable. I never could understand why this would be considered a bonding experience.
The seniors would get us up at 4:30 AM and make us jog barefooted over to the front of the boys dorm. We had to do calisthenics in our nightgowns while chanting idiotic phrases. When I refused to dunk my head in a toilet for a banana covered in peanut butter, they screamed at me that I wouldn’t be accepted. My response was screw it, I’ll start my own club- and I did! It was made up of all the girls who had fought against their crappy hazing.
There was a big tiff with the headmistress called in. I broke with 3 generations of tradition in my own family and was the first student at that school who did not join a sorority but not the last
First day of Junior High, a few upper classmen decided to “smear” the new students. That is, hold down some poor sap and draw on their face with lipstick.
Not a big deal, actually.
One fellow tried to smear me. He left with a bloody nose and I took away his lipstick.
Next day, he brought along two of his friends. This time, I handed out two bloody noses and the third fella ran off. I got two more tubes of lipstick to add to my “collection”.
After that, never had another problem with hazing.
Or, “initiation”, as it was sometimes called.
My high school’s hazing was all the 11/12th graders would egg the 10th graders… well not all of them did it… just some really dopy ones who thought it was fun. I managed to get out of it because I’m a geek and would sit in the library on the computer until the library closed (at 4:30) and so by the time I left the school everyone had run out of eggs and had gone home
Another not hazing to endure but fun to go along with…
When I was growing up the Key Club Initiation (for at least two high schools in town, maybe all four) was for the guys to dress up in drag and go to school and out to lunch that way. Let me just say I was stunning, 6’2" in a short dress with hairy legs. The cowboy boots, straw hat brought me to about 6’6" and the chewing tobacco (with lipstick!) made me gorgeous!
The best was to go to the mall where all the really old pople walked. Oh yeah!
The freshman were usually made to wear something silly one day during Spirit Week, like trash bags (which my class wore) or party hats and toilet seat covers.
We had to carry some trays back to the kitchen for some seniors. No big deal.
