Things often went too far in the name of one-upmanship. Stereotypes were built and enforced by a small, over-enthusiastic group. Sometimes even submitting it to TFM–the content had to come from somewhere. In this case, a legion of students spanning roughly 8 graduation years was under the influence of the site with the cute sailboat logo. The stupidest among them saw nothing wrong with Snapchatting photos and videos of themselves doing dangerous, illegal things in their chapter houses. The relationship between those who were a part of Greek Life, those who weren’t, and school administrations became increasingly strained. While the site reached its pinnacle around 2013, Greek Life across the country was under siege. As freely as risque images and videos may have been shared in the early years (which were tame compared to rival-turned-sellout Southern Fraternity community Old Row), controversy mounted. “Frattiness” became an objective measure of how well one was assimilated into the Greek Life subculture, while “frat” quickly became a pejorative.Īlong with branching out, the site added editorials and other user-generated content streams, such as pictures of attractive college-aged women, a video section, and Fail Friday, which curated the most hilariously-bad fraternity-related fails. TFM played a large part in Greek Life becoming a front-and-center feature of pop culture into the 2010s. If you looked at participation numbers in Greek Life for the period between 2010-2015 versus 2005-2010, you would notice an uptick. Tempted by party scene rankings and video montages like I’m Shmacked, students were entering college with unprecedented knowledge of what it meant to “Go Greek” as well as larger-than-life expectations. High school kids began to get exposed to the “culture” before they made it to college. They even published a book, which was not bad!Ĭollege students involved in Greek Life found the material funny and poignant. Several spinoff websites were created, the Rowdy Gentleman clothing brand was founded, and viewership soared. For the first few years after launch, TFM was a major success. The site was officially pegged as satire but the distinction has always been blurred. We shared them, recited them from memory, and, to some extent, imagined one day embodying them. My high school friends and I found them hilarious despite, well, not being in frats. The main page had a “wall” listing Total Frat Moves that were user-submitted. The concept behind TFM at its 2010 launch was simple. Maybe College Humor could have been considered the leading platform for college-aged humorists, but nobody really saw it that way. College students had no college-centric websites where they could congregate. Greek life (generally speaking–bro culture) was beginning to penetrate the mainstream. Twitter-like (microblogging) websites were gaining in popularity. Total Frat Move couldn’t have arrived at a more perfect time. At least, so says this article from 2014. It turns out that the popularity of these sites is what inspired the first iteration of TFM–Total Frat Move. The vast majority of articles on my website do not contain any affiliate links.Ībout 8 years ago, there was a proliferation of websites featuring short anecdotes punctuated by an acronym. The prospect of compensation does not influence what I write about or how my posts are structured. Disclosure: I may earn affiliate revenue or commissions if you purchase products from links on my website.
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