Simply put, there are people in every group that like to look down on others. In this case, frat boys make a convenient target.
On any given campus there is probably a house or two that has exhibited the worst of the stereotypes. Because the frats are not under the same RA oversight as the dorms, some behavior can even get worse, I admit.
However - why does frat stuff hit the paper? Because it is more interesting. When I was an undergrad back in the 80s, a frat that had a party shut down made the campus paper. A dorm that had a party shut down did not. If there was a case of sexual assault at a frat - everyone in that frat was accused. If there was a case of sexual assault by someone from a dorm, it was independent event.
Every house is different, and every chapter of a national organization is different. The Sigma Chi’s at one school may be rich boys, while at another they are the jocks and at a third they are the stoners. On any given campus there is probably a jock house, a drug house, a drunken house, a rich boy house, and several groupings of just regular guys.
Please, however - go on with the broad brush painting and anecdotal evidence in the finest Doper tradition.
Of course not. There are always exceptions to the rule. Still, the rule exists for a reason in the first place. In my experiences, the stereotypes are often true for typical fraternities (but obviously not so for non-typical fraternities, such as honor clubs and whatnot). Fratboy means immature, alcohol-driven party animal who is more interested in college for the girls and drinking than for getting a higher education. Obviously that’s not true for all of them, but it’s true for a disproportional amount of them.
You are justifying a stereotype - nicely done. May I cut-and-paste this for threads in regards to illegal aliens, minorities, and other groups who carry the weight of a stereotype?
But seriously, I’m purposely painting with a broad brush here. In my very limited interactions with other beings in The Universe, I’ve found the vast majority of frat boys to be as annoying and whorish as the sorority sluts. A million years ago, a quasi-friend/acquaintance in my freshman dorm asked me about joining a sorority. When I asked why, she said something like “camaraderie” and “connections.” Camaraderie - really? Lady, you don’t know how to make friends? Do the ones you make suck so horribly that you’re going to pay money to join a sorority? That’s ridiculous. And connections? Please, that’s why we waste money go to a snooty private school in the first place.
Same at my school. Every single person I knew of who was pledging (it was supposed to be some big secret, but everybody knew) got in. Congratulations, you paid dues to hang out with the assholes none of the rest of us wanted to hang out with. So why do people pay, other than being socially inept, but still rich and entitled?
Nope. Race/gender/orientation status are not clubs that people choose voluntarily. Making observations about frat culture is no different than making observations about political or religious groups.
Christ, the question originally posed was “Please explain the negativity surrounding the label ‘fratboy.’” Of course people are going to be repeating stereotypes. Get off your high horse.
Gentlemen, please. The OP asked why the term “frat boy” is used derisively, and people have offered explanations. The stereotype of obnoxious (to be polite) rich boys exists, so here we are. As for the OP’s second and entirely different question - Is it deserved? - I’m not sure, but frat boys usually irritate the crap out of me. To be fair, most college-aged boys, period, irritate me.
There are many, many frat boys who do not fit your stereotypes. From my house (oh so many years ago) we have military, peace corps, state dept., film producer, screenwriter, start-up technology folks, stoners, drunkards, and a couple tenured faculty members. Very similar to the spread spectrum of guys from my Freshman dorm (the last year I lived in the dorms, having joined and lived in a fraternity house beginning my Sophomore year).
While at school, we had the Honors students, the newspaper guys, the ROTC folks, the athletes, the stoners, the drop-outs, etc. My house had more diversity than the campus as a whole. During school we drank, but that had zero correlation with fraternity status. My fraternity held open parties - all you needed was student ID to get in.
With the tens of thousands of fraternity men (aka frat boys) on campus and now as alums, I am sure that we can cherry pick some horrible events. However, if I did the same here to paint a picture of the Womyn’s Studies field, the minority athletes, or another group - I would be justifiably attacked.
Gee, sorry - I guess I was responding to being painted as a drunken, date-raping, racist, pretty-boy who needs to buy friends. What was I thinking, taking offense at those statements?
I went to Penn State–obviously a big fraternity school. My freshman-year roommate pledged his first semester to Kappa Sigma. I came to believe the stereotypes pretty hard, he met 'em all–bizarre/annoying hazing rituals (I actually called the cops on his frat after they prank-called the room at 3am in retaliation for some imagined slight), excessive use of alcohol and marijuana, different girl every week, potential repressed homosexuality with one of his fellow pledges (I wish I was kidding).
Simultaneously, one of my best friends asked me if I was interested in the good side of the fraternity scene. He told me that I should give it a think, since I would have to wait until January to pledge since they don’t take kids in their first semester, dues were under $100, there was no official “house” and in fact they met in the music building for weekly business meetings, and that their alumni included a whole heck of a lot of medium-famous to “holy shit HE was a frat guy?” names.
Then he invited me that January to show up to an open rehearsal of the fraternity’s acapella group. So I was hooked, and that’s why I’m to this day a proud brother in Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, which is a national social fraternity for musicians but not necessarily music majors. I sang professionally with them for four years, we eventually got “a house” (read, eight guys all rented rooms from the same brownstone off campus and the landlady was happy with the extent of our partying), and to the extent networking happens, it’s not really all that career related except to the extent that I know anyone with the Phi Mu Alpha letters believes or pays lip service to believing in certain froofy things like the power of music, charity, and the nobility of man.
So yeah, I’m a fratboy of the second kind. Right along with Fred Waring, John Phillips Sousa, Duke Ellington, Luciano Pavarotti, and Fred Rogers, who all wore the Phi Mu Alpha letters at one point.
These days, it’s an excuse to get together with a bunch of my college buddies and sing every five years for the increasingly huge reunion concert.
As for my freshman year roommate, their Boomer alumni were so embarrassed at their shenanigans that they sold the frathouse out from under the current collegiate members. There’s a pizza shop and a church in there now.
Are you asking what the word ‘fratboy’ connotes to the average person?
Much has been said above. I referred to Gingrich et al as post-fratboy GottaProvers because I believed that it would accurately and concisely convey a larger set of pejorative descriptors that are aptly related to the overall context. Of course there is overbroadness inherent to all such situations, but I daresay the subject of the Pitting didn’t lend itself to accusations of date rape. Rather, I hoped to evoke ideas including testosterone-infused, prone to violence against non-clique members, non-nuanced thinking, and herd-mentality.
Trusting in the contextual awareness of readers, I believed it much more likely that they would associate my comment — and its application to Newt — as akin to the antagonists of Revenge of the Nerds rather than to the protagonists of Animal House.
Of course, not every fraternity member — or fraternity — meets the stereotype, and it would be absurd to object to the use of such linguistic shortcuts. Granted, there are situations (e.g., racial epithets) in which there is more societal harm than good, especially as the stereotypes are frequently used to prolong subjugation. However, there is (as far as I know) no claim in this regard, and purging language of all such stylistic uses would result in quite a dull society.
Speaking as a member of a major fraternity, it would be disingenuous to say that these stereotypes aren’t sometimes deserved.
Here’s the deal. There are all kinds of fraternities just as there are all kinds of college students. A fraternity at a small, elite college with a strong Greek system and an intelligent student body is going to be different from a fraternity at a big state school or a 3rd tier liberal arts college. Overall, I found being in a fraternity to be a positive experience. I made a lot of friends who I have kept long after I graduated. I had a much larger social network than I could have had living with 3 independents in some off-campus house. And I feel much more connected with my college experience. And I don’t think we were too big of assholes.
I went to a pretty elite school with a strong Greek system though. On a campus with over 35 fraternities where almost half the student body joins one, you really need to offer more than just “hey we’re a fun bunch of guys to drink with!” Big deal. I can drink with anyone. Most of the fraternity guys I met were pretty cool. They were involved in things like sports, student government, school paper and other extraciricular activities.
Ultimately you join a fraternity because you like the guys and would want to spend the next several years (or longer) hanging out with them. Some of my best friends are still the guys who I was in a fraternity with 15 years ago.
Using the term “frat” (at least at my school) was frowned apon and considered an insult. Quality fraternities generally do not think of themselves as “frat houses” full of douchebag “frat boys” who look to do nothing but drink, do drugs and date rape unsuspecting women. They think of themselves as “fraternities” that share a common bond of brotherhood and high standards. Or at worst, they view themselves as a bunch of cool guys who like to hang out and throw parties.
I’m not saying that fraternities are for everyone nor are all fraternities quality organizations. If you didn’t have quality houses on your campus that you would want to join, that is unfortunate. But don’t paint all fraternities with the same broad brush.
Even at the big state school I attended, there was a notable difference between the kind of fraternity that called itself a “fraternity” and the kind that called itself a “frat”. The latter typically referred to the former as pretentious snobs (and then got busted for underage drinking and noise violations).
Frankly, I found that 90% of the people I know in real life who ostentatiously called me a “fratboy” and lumped me in with the kegslurpers, even after a comment that Phi Mu Alpha really wasn’t in the same scene as the stereotypes, aren’t people who I care to associate with anyway, since they usually demonstrated poor reasoning abilities and broad-brush prejudices in more areas than just that.
I think going back to the OP, probably the reason why “fratboy” remains an insult speaks less about fraternities in general and more about the kind of people who are likely to say “Yeah, I’m a frat boy! Come to our party at the house!” rather than “Oh, I’m in <fraternal organization name>. We’re having a little get-together at brother X’s apartment tonight.”
You know, there’s also the factor that calling someone who is clearly older than a typical undergrad a “fratboy” is to imply that this person is immature, which isn’t entirely a slam on actual frat boys. The stereotype often refers to adults who talk about their frat days as the best time of their lives, and go on about all the partying they did, how boring life is now that they’re settled down, etc.
Like saying “My husband has the sense of humor of an eight-year-old” (after he cracks one too many fart jokes) isn’t a slam on actual eight-year-olds.