The Fraternity Effect Is the Male Version of The Cheerleader Effect
We’ve all heard of the cheerleader effect — when girls appear more attractive than they actually are just by standing in a group with other girls.
But hotness aside, the biggest culprits of suddenly thinking they’re cool after joining a squad are dudes.
It happens every year: Some innocent try-hard who strove desperately to fit in throughout high school goes to college hoping for a fresh start, or at least hoping to finally lose his V-card. A fraternity seems like his perfect way in. After he gobbles up full jars of peanut butter in one sitting and human-centipedes with his pledge brothers for four months, he’s finally a brother, but he’s not just any brother, he’s the dude who suddenly thinks he’s the shit.
Just like the cheerleader effect can be applied to other groups such as sororities or Taylor Swift’s squad, the fraternity effect doesn’t only affect guys in fraternities. Before college, there’s the athlete effect, when a dude suddenly feels worthy of a girlfriend just because he’s on the football team. After college, there’s the Wall Street effect or the start-up effect. You know Jonah Hill would never have a wife like he did in Wolf of Wall Street if he was working at Wal-Mart, and the young bros at start-ups might as well be a post-college version of a fraternity. You can’t forget the band effect, because even though the lead singer gets the babes, the bassist probs thinks he’s the shit by association.
Arguably, the majority of fraternity dudes think they’re the shit, but the dude who’s finally peaking in college after a lifetime of dorkiness is another breed. He’s like that dude who creeped on you via DM and then told you that you were fat after you rejected him. His “cool bro” persona is a defense mechanism against all the years he was a nobody in high school, and he’s a bigger douche because of it. He’ll try to emulate everything that a stereotypical frat bro does, including ghosting girls that are out of his league and voting for Trump just because women are “meant to be in the kitchen.”
The dude who’s been cool all his life can join a fraternity and still be a douche, but he’s unlikely to be anymore douche-y than he already was prior to joining that fraternity. The dude who was a fucking loser before joining a fraternity is suddenly drunk with the “power” that results from him wearing letters on his chest. Sure, maybe he has a dad-bod or a face full of acne, but some girls are still going to be nice to him to get into his frat’s parties or to get a formal date, and an unlucky girl will probably get drunk and hook-up with him from time to time. Which brings me to the point that dudes who suffer from the fraternity effect don’t know shit about consent because their first sexual experiences were probably drunken ones.
Yeah, not only is the fraternity effect unfortunate and not chill, but it’s also dangerous.
Ladies, don’t make the mistake of falling for a dude this semester who’s come down with the fraternity effect. Sure, he may look hot in his dining hall group of 12, but once you get to know him you’ll realize he still wears patterned boxer shorts and took his cousin to prom in the eleventh grade because he couldn’t find a date. Just like how Tom Hiddleston isn’t suddenly sexy because he’s dating Taylor Swift (no matter how hard he tries) that bro that lives across the hall from you isn’t suddenly bang-able just because he got a bid from the best house on campus. You’re better than that, and you’re still way out of his league regardless of his “sick brotherhood.”
