Hazing is supposed to be fun and entertaining for everyone involved, except of course, the person being hazed.
Whether for a fraternity, sorority, the army, or another exclusive organization, hazing rituals run the gamut from funny and inventive, to borderline violent and traumatic, and in all cases, the memories are hard to scrub from your brain.
In a popular Reddit thread, people shared the craziest hazing rituals they've witnessed or gone through personally, and the only appropriate response is "yikes."
1. From trackerjack:
A guy I used to row with had a pretty crazy novice initiation at his old club. They would blindfold the first year guys and throw them in a dark closet which was empty except for a strobe light, a fog machine, a stereo blasting "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor" or something similar, and a pile of Skittles. They would then scream at the new guy to sort them into piles by color, and lock him in.
They would come back in after ten minutes and usually the kid would have some semblance of piles. But one time, they came back and the kid had just spread them out and was sitting there crying.
They were shocked and started yelling at him again, "WTF is this?" "This is garbage" etc.
And through his tears, the kid says, "I'm colorblind!"
They felt pretty bad and let him do something else.
Edit: forgot about the fog machine. Definitely increases the difficulty.
2. From moby__dick:
In the army we used new guys for radar tests. So we could track them, we wrapped them head to toe in aluminum foil. We even made a foil mask. The we gave them a walkie talkie and had them run, stop, walk slowly, run some more so we could track them.
Of course, there was no radar test and you can't track aluminum foil anyway, so we just had new guys in foil suits... And foil masks with eyeholes... Running all over the base. Good. Stop there. Now wave your arms and jump up and down. Calibrating.... now jump higher. Good."
3. From pharabius:
A rather notorious sorority at my college made new initiates call their boyfriends/love interests and have phone sex with them, with everyone listening. The boyfriends would have to be told after the call was over.
While this is not physically all that harmful, it ended a lot of relationships/created permanent trust issues, and is really just quite cruel in my opinion.
4. From cheeseyitem:
There is some ridiculous sh*t at my uni that sports clubs do for initiations (or adoptions as they're now called to get around the rules). The rugby club is banned from the SU for an initiation ritual in which they would hold freshers over the edge of the terrace bar (first floor balcony with brick underneath) by their ankles and make them whack pints.
The football club can't hold adoptions in the SU, last year there was a choice between playing soggy biscuit, downing a pint from a shoe with a live goldfish in or shaving your head. I was surprised to see a large number of footballers still with hair the day after.
5. From snowpup:
I was in a fraternity in college. Our house was off campus and the front yard had a nice big elevated porch, so when you stood on it, you overlooked a big front yard from 8-10 feet up. We would play American Gladiators Assault with the pledges as contestants. The real game looks like this.
So we would set up the front yard with tables, mattresses, whatever we could find to create the course. Pledges then ran through the course while we shot at them with a paintball gun. At each barrier, they had eggs they could throw back at the shooter. A bit unfair, but they were pledges. Anyway if you got shot, you had to slam a beer and start over. If you made it through to the end you were done. If you hit the shooter with an egg, he become a temporary pledge and had to run the course until he made it through.
Not all hazing is death and injuries. This was fun as f*ck, for both pledges and brothers.
6. From bigtonto0131:
This wasn't me but was something my brother did. When he was in college in a fraternity he use to make one pledge come over to his place ever day to do "human alarm clock." The kid would sit next to his bed and wait until 7AM to gently awake my brother for his class, if he smacked him on the head that meant snooze for 5 minutes. After my brother woke up it was then the pledge's job to go sit on the toilet bowl to get the seat warmed up for him.
7. From BlueMacaw:
The worst hazing ritual I've personally witnessed was a 6’4" shirtless hulk of a man braced/held down while two other men used a blow torch to heat up a branding iron with the organization's symbol. As soon as the branding iron was glowing red, they put a hood on the initiant's head... then pulled an identical branding iron out of a bucket of ice water and pressed it to his chest.
8. From Diredoe:
My first job was as a cashier in a small family-owned grocery store. Apparently, the stock boys had a tradition that went back years where they'd tell the new guy that one of his jobs is to shake up the Italian dressing bottles every couple hours. It makes them look better, after all! The owners were in on it, so they'd give them sh*t for it.
9. From squibulch:
A guy that lived in my dorm freshman year pledged a fraternity that same year, and he had 5 other guys in his "pledge class". One of their tasks was to complete a 500-piece puzzle in a pitch-dark bathroom with nothing but the assistance of two bic lighters.
10. From BackJurden:
Semi-related but I thought I'd share anyways:
Back in college, I jokingly made a rumor that a rival fraternity would buy watermelons for their pledges and time them having sex with said watermelons. The closest your time was to another brother was who your big became in the fraternity. The person who lasted the longest then would have to eat the cum soaked food.
Eventually this became such a well-known rumor it became accepted as fact and the fraternity had to make an effort to tell potentials and girls that they in fact, did not duck watermelons.
Ah, good times.
11. From co0p3r:
I used to work as a rigging technician in the movie industry. All the equipment had funny names so a new guy wouldn't think twice if you asked him to go fetch something that doesn't exist. A popular one is the "long weight".
He'll go to the truck or store and ask whoever is there where the long weight is. If the guy is in on it, his response will be something to the effect of "ok, just hang on over here and I'll go fetch it for you"... and then just leave him there while everyone else uses the radio to harass him to hurry up. Other popular fictional items include "sky hooks", tins of "elbow grease" and packets of "grinding sparks".
12. From Andrw_Ryan:
The basketball team of one of our rival schools had a hazing ritual where they played ookie cookie (when everyone jerks off on an Oreo and the last one to cum has to eat the jizz soaked cookie). They got caught, big news story and stuff. During our game against that team someone handed out Oreos to the other teams fan section.
13. From bayganbohagan:
I work in a restaurant. Whenever we get a new busboy, at the end of the night we tell him to make sure the Pilot Light is working for the Ice Machine. They spend 15 mintues trying to figure it out and asking managers for help. It is great.
14. From InfoSponger:
Stripped naked and thrown in the trunk of a car. Driven 20 miles from campus. Once removed from trunk, smeared with sheep blood from head to toe. A bloody hatchet super glued to hand and told to get home by midnight.
15. From Newell2:
I wasn't involved in this organization but they did it the best ways I've heard. They would give you tasks, where you could do it the dumb way which was harder, or if you were clever take an easy way out.
The best example I have is they separated a group of 12, 6 in a small room with a window leading outside to each. And they placed a keg in the room and said they couldn't leave until it was gone. One group attempted to drink the whole thing, the other group placed it outside the one story building window and left the room.
16. From Gingergurl63:
There's a frat at my school that makes all the pledges go into the basement and get on their hands a knees. The pledges have to push a coin across the floor with their nose. Not the worst thing that goes on by far, but pretty funny.
There's a sorority on campus that is on probation because they made their pledges sort sprinkles and blow up balloons. They gave them ice cream afterwards, but apparently one girl had a panic attack.
17. From i_could_be_an_idiot:
I was blindfolded, lead in to a bathroom and been told to sit on the ground. A brother asked how far I'd be willing to go to get initiated in the fraternity. I said I'd do anything, and he forced my hands into the toilet. So I'm sitting there, elbow deep in the frat house shitter, wondering what the f*ck is happening.
He says "Grab it,".... I was in disbelief. The soft, mushy turd spurts between my fingers as I clench it in my hand. "Bite it. If you want to get in, you have to bite my shit." Oh my f*cking god. I'd already pledged for 8 weeks, and I wasn't gonna let this end all of it. So I pulled it up to my blindfolded face, and took a bite. It was a banana.
18. From ARHVYM:
Pulled off the street, blindfolded, stripped down to underwear, driven two hours out of the city and left handcuffed to another person. We had been left a camera, a metcard with $20 on it and a list of tasks that had to be accomplished before we were allowed to get back to uni.
Ended up composing a song and dance number, busking in this tiny coastal town until we got enough money to buy clothes from the Salvation Army. Ended up dating the guy I was cuffed to. Made for a pretty good "how we met" story.
Edit: I'm female and this was part of a week long scavenger hunt/drinking contest/nudity festival type thing.
19. From Drasia:
Guys who play for my uni's rugby team had a pretty hideous initiation. They had to tape a baby-sized diaper to themselves and walk about a half a mile with no clothes or shoes on. When they arrived at the next point they were given a bin in which all bodily fluids had to be put. Each individual had to drink a "dirty pint" and neck a bottle of red wine. By this point, the bins are getting pretty full of piss, vomit etc.
Finally, they were given 3 pints of milk, orange juice and sprite, all of which they had to down. After downing them they had to sprint as hard as they could to a nearby field. Once at the field (and emptied of any bodily fluids once again, due to the curdling of the milk) they were told to lay down and then proceeded to have the bins thrown all over them.
20. From LuluBadonkadonk:
For my sorority, we broke into frat houses at night and stole their composites. Keep in mind, these composites were very heavy and worth thousands of dollars. We stole about 18 composites, then told the frats they had to do something nice for us to get them back. There's nothing like felony burglary charge to ruin your future. Good times.
If guys broke into sororities, they would be arrested.
21. From Horsemon:
I work at an Equine Hospital, a Horsepital if you will. It is tradition for the new guy to stomp down the muck trucks (dump trucks full straw, hay, shit and piss) in their underwear. This is usually done in the morning so for the rest of the day new guy smells like hell while appearing clean and meeting all the vets and his coworkers.