Bid Day.

Bid Day is the yearly UBC event in which young men discover they have been admitted in to the Greek Fraternity System.  Bid Day is the final segment of the week long RUSH process.  Students who are interest in joining a fraternity apply and go through a long interview like process with the frat’s of their choosing.  On Bid Day they gather at the Student Union Building and go through two rooms one to find which Fraternities have selected them and the second to confirm and sometimes choose their position in 1 frat, if they’ve been accepted into more than one.  If you find your name on the list, you’ve earned your “bid” and are officially admitted to begin your initiation.  The process is very quick and efficient.  It oddly resembles a sports team roster or discovering you’ve been cast the lead in the school play.

There are very few surprises on bid day.  Most of the Rushee’s have a pretty solid idea of where the stand with their first choice of frats.  From what I gathered from talking to active frat members the process is rather straight forward.  The Rushee’s find their name on the list a select few will have names on multiple lists, but for the most part this step is just a matter of formality.   However there are always a few disappointments.  A handful will walk by the lists and not see there name and will have to walk out with some inevitable rejection.

Following identifying your name on the Bid Roster for your desired frat you then make your formal acceptance in a second room where you are greeted by an active member who usually greets you with much enthusiasm and a t-shirt.  Lots of hand shakes, embraces, smiles are in the second room.  However this is not the event.  This is the behind the scenes work.  The backstage.  Bid Day is truly about what happens on the ground, or more specifically that spot in between the side of the Sub and the Aquatic Centre.  Entrance into Guyland (according to UBC Frats) happens there.

I was invited to step onto the balcony upstairs at the SUB to peer down onto the scene unfolding outside.  My perspective of the charade that is Bid Day was from above.  An eye in the sky if you will.  Below me were a lot of young men, or frat boys, congregated in to their respective packs.  Distinguished by their coordinated Fraternity t-shirts or matching attire.  They were all staring at the side door from the basement of the SUB with alarmingly eager anticipation.  Energy is high.

One frat guy comes out of the door in question and gestures for his entourage to come front and centre.  The Phi-Delts distinguished by their navy t-shirts push they’re way to the front of the crowd.  The door bursts open once again and a Phi-Delt rushes out into the mob of navy shirt frat brothers and announces a new member, who quickly follows behind the hype man and is engulfed by a sea of Navy.  The begin chanting in unison and push and shove the new member until finally hoisting him above the mosh pit of Phi-Delts.  These guys are loud.  This is the boisterous frat welcome. (Link to short YouTube clip of Bid Day 2014 t UBC)

This welcoming chanting hoisting embracing phenomenon is repeated many times over.  With each new “pledge” that comes through the door is again welcomed with a thundering chant and exclamation from his new Greek brothers.  This is supposed to mark the moment that officially welcomes them into their new community and certainly the new  dimension to their identity.  I could only imagine what a moment this would be for the newcomers.  I could imagine a whole host of reactions from “This is so awesome!”, to “What is happening!!” or even “What the heck have i gotten myself into” all could be expected.  However for most there was a quick look of shock at just the sheer volume of the chanting which was usually responded with equally excited expressions.  Some newbies cheered, some chanted along (even if they didn’t know the words), so laughed and most just gave animalistic shouts.

To say I was overwhelmed with the energy at Bid Day would be a slight understatement.  I was jaw to ground, fit a tennis ball in my mouth shocked.  More because it was almost equally as energetic and enthusiastic for every single guy that walked out of the door, and this had been going on for over 2 hours, in the middle of the day.  The whole time I was observing what was going on below I just kept thinking to myself “That’s a lot of testosterone.”  Which seems to be quite a normative response to such events because of the chauvinistic hegemonic masculine behaviors I was witnessing.  There was playful aggression, loud barbaric chanting, a sense of competitiveness to see which group could out-do the other, and of course an glorification of the Kimmel’s “guy code” also referred to as the “bro code”, as many of the frats refer to their collective groups as brotherhoods.

I believe the events of Bid Day would fit very well as a case study in Kimmel’s exploration of Guyland.  The sense of passionate unity between the Frat guys and their new recruits was evident.  They wanted to welcome them into their uniform club, not only do they dress the same (with their matching t-shirts), but the chant in unison and follow a strict hierarchy, yet instil a sense of mutual respect as they want the welcome to warm and ego-boosting before the  embarrassing and frankly humiliating initiation rituals begins.  Bid Day is about celebration of brotherhood, and its genesis in young men’s lives.  The whole process is very symbolic, with the emerging from behind closed doors into a swarm of cheering admirers and new peers.  Some would say its as dramatic of a ceremony to say that many of the frat brothers are literally entering a whole new world.  With a unique set of values.  But what Bid Day certainly reiterates is that brothers stick together, from day one.

Many of the frat brothers that I spoke to identified strongly with the Greek system.  Strongly enough to consider being apart of their frat as part of who they are as people.  I believe the electric masculine intensity that Bid Day exalts has a large part to play in the loyalty to Guyland or frats that these young men strongly identify with.