This week, Kate discusses Bama RushTok from a slightly different angle, exploring the elaborate gender performance and implicit artifice of sorority recruitment in the context of being interpreted as [postmodern] ‘camp’ and a form of high art to consume, per the insight of Tiktok users @shorthouseplant and @themostes. The meaning of camp made the internet collectively melt down in 2019 following the Met Gala (given its defining characteristic being an inability to be concretely defined), but Kate attempts to explore how as a society we’ve embraced this incredibly unserious process with a serious level of investment perhaps due to the naïveté of those earnestly performing within these exaggerated circumstances. She also deep dove breakout star Kylan and just needed someone to talk to about the high/low of her dorm room, her pageant trajectory and [alleged] last minute switch to Bama, and her hypothesis about what’s going on behind the scenes when you show up to Bama rush with a catch phrase and complete ~11 brand deals in 14 days of high exposure. Kate also spends a solid amount of time thinking of the bumping process as a sort of performance art, and talks about the increased showcasing of dancing/cheerleading talent in Tiktok videos, where the performance of sorority values in the form of costumes and choreography is not only performed for positioning among PNMs, but now to the world, and Kate’s worried about the HS cheer gals being pulled out of retirement to do roundoff back handsprings in spirit skirts on concrete in the name of sisterhood seduction. Hope it’s a great episode, not just a good episode!
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