It goes without saying that every pledge class to go through your house will have to face a lot of adversity, and some of the things they have to do will drive them to their breaking point. Elsewhere on the spectrum of required pledge activities are the ones that are not outright hazing, but are still demeaning and make the pledges look like idiots. These kinds of activities are often the most fun to witness, and a little creativity can go a long way. Here are some fun ways to embarrass your pledges for the enjoyment of you and those around you.
Pledge Sandwich
Have a group of pledges go to the store and buy all of the ingredients necessary to make a sandwich. Once they put everything in the kitchen, give them their instructions: Each pledge is to be assigned to one ingredient of the sandwich, and they must eat everything in a set amount of time. You’ll almost feel bad for the poor kid who has to eat all the mayonnaise. The moral of this activity is that the pledge class can’t do anything by themselves, and must come together as a unit, or something.
Pledge Dunk Contest
Time to treat these pledges to an All-Star Weekend. Take them out to the basketball court outside your house or at a nearby gym, and see which of them has the best dunking skills. Once they’ve all had a go at it, change things up by making them jump over their own pledge brothers on the way to the basket. If barely any of them can dunk, this is a perfect chance to chide them for being worthless pieces of shit. To make it even more interesting, have them wear clothing that is completely useless for basketball, such as formal attire.
Pledge Shakespeare
This is a chance for everyone involved to become more cultured. Give the pledges a script for one of Shakespeare’s plays, but only let them have it for a few hours. From this, they must memorize what they can and create a short theatrical version of the play that they can perform. They’ll also have access to very limited costumes and props, but none of these can be appropriate for a Shakespeare play. As the pledges are acting out the scenes, encourage the actives to loudly berate them for badly delivered lines and poor acting, throwing rotten tomatoes at them all the while.
Pledge Picasso
For this, you’ll need to offer a prize for the winner, such as an exemption from pledge ride duties. Each of the pledges needs to be given a canvas and a set of paints. However, the “canvas” and “paints” can be literally anything. For instance, one of the pledges can be given a normal canvas, but only a tube of red paint with no brush. Another can be given a full set of paints, but their canvas is actually an empty 30 rack of beer. Another could be given a cardboard box and a jar of peanut butter. Whatever the case, the pledges’ tools need to be hilariously insufficient for the job, and none of them will end up winning the “contest.”
Pledge Platoon
It’s time for your pledges to be tested on the battlefield. Make sure that one pledge and one active has a radio with them, and send the pledges out into the night with the goal of retrieving a piece of property from another house. Along the way, give them orders such as “Hit the dirt!” and “The enemy has been spotted, so you’ll need to go prone and crawl the next 100 meters.” You could also have one of the pledges “take a hit” and have to be carried for the rest of the mission. Upon completing their mission, award them demeaning medals such as the “Congressional Medal of Being a Slow, Fat Piece of Human Garbage.”.
