I am very removed from Greek life here at Stanford. I have quite a few friends who are an active part of the Greek community, but apart from the occasional dinner or study session at one of the housed sororities or a weekend night spent at a party thrown by one of the fraternities, it’s a scene that I, having never rushed, am not a part of. Despite the numerous barriers that separate me from the sororities, I still know who got a bid to what sorority this year. Everyone does, and it’s all because of the infamous Facebook posts.

You all know what I’m talking about — that flood of Facebook activity where all the Stanford sorority girls you know add 30+ new friends and spend all day distributing wall posts welcoming their new additions and telling them how excited they are that they chose to be a Pi Phi/Alpha Phi/Chi O/Theta/Kappa/Tridelt. Thanks to Facebook’s strange and creepy decision to inform me when one of my friends writes on the wall or comments on the photo of someone I don’t know, these posts flood my newsfeed, along with the newsfeeds of just about every other Stanford student (as evidenced by the recent MemeChu post that read, “Brace yourselves. The sorority FB posts are coming”).

Now, there are some things in life that I will just never understand. I will never understand why some people still use MySpace. I will never understand why some clothes that look so great on the rack look so terrible on me. And I will never understand why the sororities choose to inundate Facebook with these gushy declarations of love and sisterhood.

See, here’s the thing: I understand that the older members are extremely excited to see fresh faces and get to know the new girls that they forever more will have something in common with, but you would think that the sororities would realize that Facebook just isn’t the best platform for their excitement. Beyond just being slightly annoying — these posts combined with the constant spring quarter rollouts leave a significant portion of campus with clenched jaws — these posts don’t exactly display the tact and class that the sororities are always claiming to exude.

Every year, many girls won’t get into the sorority of their choosing. As one of the only girls among my group of friends who chose not to rush last year, I remember receiving phone calls from various upset friends who were rushing when they realized they had been cut from the sorority they wanted to be in. An upset friend would describe all the reasons why they would have been a perfect [insert sorority here] and overanalyze all of the things that may have implied they weren’t [insert sorority here] material.

Given the harsh sting of rejection so many girls feel, I don’t understand why the sororities insist on using a public forum like Facebook when they know that girls that they turned down will see those posts.

For most of us, the sorority Facebook posts are nothing more than a part of spring quarter that we have come to expect. Last year, my friends were on the receiving end and this year, as sophomores, they’re among those who have indulged in the excited friending and posting that accompanies Bid Day. But every year, there are quite a few girls for whom the posts are a reminder of the fact that they didn’t quite get what they wanted, and since most of them will never speak up, I’m doing it on their behalf.

In the future, sororities should really try to be more tactful and tone down the PDA. Doing so will not only force them to come up with more meaningful, private ways of expressing their excitement, but it’ll also help promote a sense of sisterhood among a greater proportion of the female population at Stanford — one that transcends just the girls in your sorority.

No need to tone down the PDA with Ravali! Send her an email at ravreddy “at” stanford “dot” edu or, better yet, friend her on Facebook!