There's a pretty central question in a book like this, right?

Why would guys with a social safety net that's so plush, it's basically a hammock,

why would they deal anti-insxiety tranquilizers at scale.

The sort of general reason you learn people deal drugs if you take a

criminology class or something is like, oh rational choice theory, like if you're from a community where you don't have a chance to get a job the normal way your best economic option might be dealing drugs

But that's not the case for these guys at all, right? Like, you know, some of them had trust funds,

all of them had pretty juicy allowances.

And I think the answer, both for why deal

and even more so why black out all the time is it is kind of a sign of

prestige to show how much you can get away with. What guys would tell me in this book is basically, yeah, like I'm the only

one who can black out on a Tuesday and miss class on a Wednesday get arrested on a Thursday go out again on a Friday and then that weekend be on a call with my family to set up a really great internship for the summer.

There is absolute prestige in being that guy.

In 2021, a new trend hit Tik-Tok.

It was known as Rush Talk, and it chronicled the cutthroat preppy world of Sorority Rush at the University of Alabama.

I took an interest in this unfolding phenomenon for one simple reason.

I used to be in a sorority at the University of Alabama

and watching videos of things like Door songs, which is this tradition that

involves a lot of regrettable scream singing

and the mutual posturing of active members and potential new members alike

left me experiencing something like nostalgia mixed with PTSD.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can now see things about this experience that my 18 year old self couldn't.

The palatial sorority and fraternity houses like the 13 million dollar

...