Will hazing be accomplished via chatroulette? In what is probably the laziest attempt at fraternity creation (off to a good start), a Florida student has decided to start his own online fraternity. There are already 24 co-ed member (have they ever met one another in person?!) and the founder, Darrek Battle, says he started the frat simply because there was nothing like it. It’s hard to not applaud this innovative student but at the same time it makes you question if just too many things are moving online. We already talk, work, share information, and work on papers together online. Why not turn every potential outdoor activity into an online game? Regardless, the website, err, frat is just a logo right now. The logo, straight out of geocities, has us already expecting big things very little from TOG.
Theta Omega Gamma currently has 24 co-ed members who use the hub to socialize and coordinate service projects. According to its faculty adviser, Theta Omega Gamma is an average fraternity in all respects minus the “going out together and drinking” aspect. Battle says he hopes to to help other schools start chapters of TOG.
A bit more about TOG from Inside Higher Ed: At the Florida Institute of Technology’s newest fraternity, you don’t rush — you log in. Theta Omega Gamma, created this year by a sophomore, Darrek Battle, exists exclusively online, serving a membership of 24 fully online students. According to Battle and the faculty adviser Vicky Knerly, that’s a first. “When I started school I was thinking ‘Are there any fraternities out there accepting online students?’ and I couldn’t find any,”
Battle told Inside Higher Ed. So, he started his own. Theta Omega Gamma serves all the functions of a normal fraternity, Knerly says — “except for going out together and drinking.” But that is not Theta’s m.o. anyway; it is a service fraternity, not a Greek fraternity. And even if its members — which include men and women — cannot convene for service projects, they can coordinate, through chat room meet-ups, efforts to volunteer for national charitable organizations in their own communities.
As for the social side, Battle says he is trying to generate interest in helping online students at other institutions build their own chapters. And he is still working on figuring out how to simulate the camaraderie of a normal fraternity in an online environment. “It’s been kind of hard to come up with ideas like that,” he says. “So I think for now we’re just going to go with the flow.”
So what do you think? Would you join TOG?
