Eating cat food, rolling around in dirt, apple bobbing, stripping naked, and consuming some very concerning fluids. (and I’m not just talking about a Wetherspoons pint!)
If you listed these things off to the average Joe, they might assume you were referencing the rituals of a very bizarre cult. In some ways, they’d be absolutely correct; however, we students know better.
These activities are just part of a typical Wednesday social for most university sports societies.
Before I joined university, I thought that society initiations were simply ghost stories intended to scare off incoming freshers. Of course, I had heard rumours of bodily fluid-infused jelly (if you know, you know), but I just couldn’t fathom why these things would be true. Why on earth would someone take any pleasure in bullying and humiliating newcomers of their sports club? This isn’t a fraternity in some tacky American college film.
Imagine my surprise during freshers week when I discovered that these rumours weren’t really rumours at all.
I don’t have enough fingers to count the number of times I spoke to a fellow fresher about some weird food they had to pour into their pint (powdered baby formula comes to mind), or a bizarre outfit they had to wear, or an activity they had to partake in. Not to mention the copious amounts of money they spent on alcohol that would inevitably be regurgitated in the back of an Uber or the communal sink. It felt like every day was a new opportunity to reveal the twisted psyche of sports social secretaries.
It was as though these occurrences had simply become an accepted norm of university life– an open secret amongst students that we all just had to pretend was completely standard and not at all odd.
That was until recent events at the University of Cardiff blew the ‘secret’ wide open.
Cardiff’s Cricket Society have been suspended following reports of “degrading behaviour” at an initiation ceremony. WalesOnline reported incidents such as flushing members’ heads down toilets, forcing them to eat raw onions, and making students down pints.
Public reaction to this event has been varied: some social media commenters have condemned initiations as “mind numbing” and “embarrassing”, whilst others are keen to defend or minimise this practice.
One individual commented, “sounds tame to be honest” – suggesting that the society was suspended for “actually having a life and not being boring”. Others have jumped to defend the heavy drinking culture and peer pressure, questioning why students being forced to drink was “even mentioned” in the report.
To deduce why reporting on these incidents is so important, we need only to look across the pond at the USA’s hazing-related deaths.
A multitude of students have been seriously injured or died as a result of ‘hazing’ in fraternities across America; the issue is so severe that forty-four states have implemented anti-hazing laws, and there have been encouragements to make hazing a federal crime. A significant number of these deaths are related to alcohol poisoning.
It is easy to argue that things will never turn out that dangerous over here, that deaths like this are few and far between in the UK. This is perhaps generally true: most society initiations are more of the ‘eating weird foods and dressing like an idiot’ vein.
But fewer does not mean unheard of.
In December 2016, a Newcastle University student – Ed Farmer – died as a result of consuming too much alcohol during an initiation event. The BBC also reported on actions such as shaving the newcomers’ heads and marking them with spray paint used for livestock.
Physical dangers aside, these society initiations reveal a worrying psychological trend.
Awarded with just a modicum of power over their juniors, it seems as though older society members subconsciously try to replicate the Stanford prison experiment. They exercise the arbitrary powers they do have to abuse and humiliate their younger peers, who are most likely just two calendar years behind them.
Whilst being forced to drink pints or go to Popworld adorned in green facepaint may seem ‘tame’, these are aspects of a wider issue – one that suggests it is okay to humiliate someone and push the boundaries of their autonomy on the basis of age or manufactured superiority.
And, no matter how far-fetched it may seem, this dynamic is reliant on the exploitation of the vulnerable.
Most freshers are bumbling and aimless, joining societies out of longing for something familiar in a brand new place, whether that be friends or playing the sport they love. These initiations leverage their desperation as a way to make the humiliation rituals run a little smoother.
Why should trying to befriend your teammates be accompanied by a non-negotiable pint of urine you must drink?
Considering all of this, it becomes impossible to argue that such society initiations have a place in modern-day university culture. Protests of ‘tradition’ and ‘entertainment’ unsurprisingly fall flat against the actual physical and psychological harm that could come from these types of activities.
So, not to be the fun police or anything, but society initiations have got to go – or at least the ones that make you do a double-take.
Editor: Erin Mclone