The College Fix

ANALYSIS: Comments on ‘Total Frat Move’ do not prove they’re all sexist pigs

Emma Pierson is a 24-year-old PhD candidate at Stanford University who says she loves “using statistics to make sense of the world,” so she recently studied 16,000 comments on the website “Total Frat Move” and concluded “fraternity culture” promotes and condones “sexist vitriol” – and perhaps even rape.

“There are numerous allegations of sexism against fraternities, and studies show men who join are far more likely to commit assault after joining even when controlling for factors like prior history of assault and alcohol use. This makes you wonder just how fraternity men talk about women,” Pierson recently opined in the New York Times.

Her piece links fraternity men’s rhetoric in real life to being equal to comments posted on Total Frat Move, a popular website aimed toward members of Greek Life.

“Many men … emphasized that comments on TFM were jokes or satire. But jokes are not harmless: studies provide some evidence that hearing sexist jokes does make men more tolerant of rape, which 5 to 10 percent of college men admit to committing,” she continued.

Pierson did not respond to a request by The College Fix for comment.

She claims to have analyzed more than 16,000 comments on the site, in particular a section called “Girls” in which female students’ social media photos are highlighted and commented on. Some women apply to be highlighted, others have their pictures culled from public social media accounts.

Pierson notes “the most frequently mentioned body part is ‘ass’… followed by ‘tits.’” Some of the actual comments Pierson touted in her piece include:

There’s just something about those knee-high socks that screams ‘I do anal’.
Dear Santa, I can explain… My dad wasn’t around much.
Would, but there’s no way I’m letting her spend the night.
Someone tell Kelly that I’ve seen her butt, and I’ll pee there as soon as I can.

Yet there is no way to prove that all or even a majority of the admittedly crass comments were posted by fraternity members, as the site has no way of controlling if non-members participate on the site. While it might be safe to assume fraternity members are more likely to frequent the site, it is an erroneous accusation to lump all commenters into one single category.

Pierson goes on to reference an interview with Tucker Max, author of “Assholes Finish First” and “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.” When the self-proclaimed creator of the “fratire” culture was asked to comment on the topic, Max told her via email, “Of course frat guys talk like that.”

“Young guys are basically animals that can talk,” he continued. “If you make it a rule to assume that a guy under about 25 probably thinks like a sociopath, then you’re going to be more right than wrong.”

The striking flaw in trying to support her point by using this author as a reference: Tucker Max was never in a fraternity. He went to their parties. That’s it.

Meanwhile, in a survey of 40 fraternity members from various states conducted by The College Fix, results showed that only 15 percent of the fraternity men considered Total Frat Move to be a quality website. Only 4 percent responded that the rhetoric displayed on TFM’s website is “somewhat similar” to how members of their fraternity speak, and 77 percent said no, the rhetoric does not parallel the style of speech used by their brothers whatsoever. The rest said they don’t read the site.

Asked whether they have ever left a comment on Total Frat Move, 39 said no.

“Total Frat Move promotes a ‘fraternity culture’ that is unrepresentative of the system as a whole,” Joe Janezcko, a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, told The College Fix.

“It’s certainly not the culture that I observe within my own fraternity and I wholeheartedly disagree with their message… it’s a shame that people generalize damaging websites like this to the entire fraternity system, as doing so perpetuates the very same stereotypes that my fraternity actively works to combat,” he added.

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