Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Why do I feel less able to play this game than Mafia Wars?

A new game called "Sorority Life" on the Facebook

I was not in a sorority when I was in college, so I have no experience of Greek life, but I am still surprised at how alien I find this particular game. As a female, shouldn't I be able to relate to experiences of groups of young women? Perhaps the trouble comes in the "losing body fat as you grow your sorority numbers" aspect of the game. Or, the "people can vote whose avatar is hottest after a face off on the runway" part of the fun. I can't relate to that. I have a suspicion that this game capitalizes on the assumptions of most people about what life is like in sororities, and assumptions of what popular and pretty girls must be like (petty and mean), rather than reflecting the real sorority experience. I mean, I know people who were in sororities, and they're not mean or bitchy or petty. So, what's up with this game?*

The image of sororities being perpetuated by games like "Sorority Life" is hard to reconcile with recent news items about sororities (all in Ohio) having disgusting, absolutely gross piss-and-shit-and-vomit-everywhere-formals in public places. It was shocking to read about young people (the girls AND their dates) who thought it was okay to act like that anywhere, much less in public. But this kind of news also makes me wonder about the freedom of these girls to act like beasts, and whether any of these girls see themselves as feminists, and if they thought that the freedom to act like utter fools was one of feminism's goals. The equal license to be disgusting is, some might argue, a step forward from when young women were supposed to be prim and proper. But I always thought that if women were going to rowdy, there should be a legitimate reason for their rowdiness. I certainly think way of men; if they're going to be loud and aggressive, there'd better be a good reason for that behavior. Hmmm.

Anyway, are there any sorority ladies who could enlighten me on this Facebook game, or on why these Ohio girls turned into shit-throwing chimps at the zoo?

*I also wonder why I, at least initally, found it so much fun to do hoodrat stuff vicariously via Mafia Wars, but I think that's explainable by mass exposure to action movies about the mob.

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