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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1844 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 25, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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The reaction to fraternity hazing incidents is extremely funny to me. “These poor willing adult male participants were socially pressured to do something humiliating to strengthen the bonds of friendship. Such harm can’t go unnoticed; we must publicly humiliate them on the news for millions of people to see and comment on while showing their faces on video whenever possible.” It’s just so stupid.

I think outrage normally occurs only when the behavior is harmful, not just humiliating.

What's harmful about it, absent the humiliation, though?

It varies a lot. In decreasing order of normal-audience concern.

  • Stuff that's basically manslaughter, and only avoid premeditated homicide by sheer stupidity. Forcing people to jump off rooftops, playing with knives, a couple incidents where stupid frat tricks resulted in applicants digging their own graves, .
  • Intentional harm that wasn't intended to result in serious injury or death but did anyway: beating someone until they died or they were aggressively bleeding, hits that most people would survive.
  • 'Unintentional' but predictable harm: drinking hard enough to literally kill someone, extreme physical exertion to the point of hospitalization, forcing people to drive after drinking or sleep deprivation or both, that sort of thing. Sometimes this is stuff that the median applicant had survived and someone just was unlucky or vulnerable, or sometimes the hazing got pushed that little bit further for this one person because they gave lip.
  • ... stuff that we don't call sexual assault or rape because everyone involved says they're a heterosexual man and not taking any gratification from it. Where a victim's willing to talk this can jump a lot higher, but since most of the time it's specifically built to be discrediting to reveal, it's mostly whistleblowers talking and that leads it to be pretty low on the concern level.
  • 'Aversives' that generally don't cause lasting injury, but are extremely unpleasant rather than socially humiliating. Forcing people to eat a raw onion, tasers, chemical sprays, and the conventional array of gross or foul-smelling and tasting stuff. This usually only gets local attention, if that.
  • Predicament bondage taken to extremes beyond what RACK would allow. It takes some actual effort to kill or break a bone, but actual BDSM practice keeps to short sessions because you can really screw up someone's musculature or joints in tens of minutes, and frats like to run for hours. Usually only gets local attention if someone's hospitalized.
  • Pure social humiliation, extremely tedious work, labor that's just unpleasant, or stuff that's just gross but not a disease risk (aka 'cleaning the latrines with a toothbrush'). Nobody really cares about this.

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