One of my favorite hobbies is making sure the people that follow me know I drink. Throughout college, I tried to post a picture of me holding a red solo cup at least once a week, just to make sure it was clear. So when I joined a sorority, I knew the whole “no posting with alcohol” thing wasn’t going to work for me.
At first, I assumed I was the exception to the rule. They couldn’t actually make me delete a picture I was holding alcohol in if it was cute enough, right? Wrong!
I had heard stories about my friends of friends getting in trouble for holding a wine glass in a picture, but it always sounded like a weird rumor to me. You never think it’ll happen to you. Until it does. In case you didn’t know, exec is scary.
Even if you think you’re on their good side, you’re not. Actually, I wouldn’t know — I’ve never been on their good side.
Strike One
Here’s me, an innocent freshman, at what was probably one of the first frat parties I’d ever been to. I had just rushed my sorority and didn’t know anything, not even the fact that the cup I was holding was a brand of beer.
So when I got that dreaded: “Hey girly! Your picture is so cute! Except you have to delete it within the next hour!! Xoxo,” text from exec, I was confused. They could do that?
Yes, they could do that. This was strike number 1. I couldn’t believe they actually had the power to make me take down a picture off of my own Instagram. To be completely honest, it’s not the best photo I’ve seen of myself, so that one was kind of a blessing in disguise.
Strike Two
Here’s me, sophomore year, at a date party. I wanted to post this picture, but I had learned the hard way, and I knew my date’s red solo cup was just begging for a “Hey girly!” text from exec.
That’s when I had the idea to get a little more creative and push the boundaries — I decided to photoshop the cup into a Coke can. Standards never set any rules about having Coke, right?
Here was the finished product! Not going to lie, posting this picture was one of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever done in my life.
I thought I had gotten away with it, but at chapter that Sunday, our Public Relations chair put up a “refresher” slideshow of our social media rules and told us not to photoshop alcohol out of the picture … because it was obviously alcohol.
So basically, it was a two-hour long subtweet directed toward me. This was strike number 2. “Just don’t hold alcohol in your pictures,” they said. “It’s not that hard!”
Uh, yes Sarah, it is that hard. Fun fact about being in a sorority: it means you’re in college. Fun fact about college: it means people are drinking.
Why were frats encouraged to post pictures with red solo cups, but if we did it, we were basically crucified? At this point, I was fed up with the social media rules. So, I protested.
Strike Three
Here’s me as a junior. Clearly in a bar, holding up my double vodka lemonade — not sure why I was ever in a vodka lemonade phase, but hey, we all have things in our past we aren’t proud of, right?
I decided to send a clear message to exec by photoshopping a Starbucks logo onto my cup. I was proud of my work, it almost did look like a Starbucks cup.
To be honest, I thought maybe they’d have a sense of humor about it and let me get away with this one. Spoiler alert: they did not.
At that point, they were just as fed up with me as I was with them. This time, though, it wasn’t just one passive aggressive “hey girly” text that I got. Instead, it was an entire group chat of exec members telling me how I had to delete it or I was going to be sent to standards. They made it clear, they had enough.
I didn’t even fully know what being sent to standards meant, but I did know that I did not want to go. That’s when I realized that my sorority was getting in the way of my passion: making sure everyone knew I was drinking. So I dropped.
Bye, girlies!
