‘RushTok’ madness hits New England: Sorority TikTok craze comes for Massachusetts girls

If you’re not following #RushTok — or, more sanely, if you’ve never even heard of #RushTok — buckle up.

It’s the corner of TikTok devoted to sorority rush, and what started a few years ago as a niche obsession with recruitment at mostly Southern universities has gone into beast mode, complete with an HBO Max documentary, a Lifetime reality series, breakout stars, brand collabs, and, of course, a Meghan Markle angle, very slight though it may be. (She was in a sorority.)

When Reese Witherspoon announces a movie deal, rush will have achieved its ultimate monetized glory.

Behind the scenes — either juicing it, feasting on its clicks, or both — are $5,000 rush consultants, mental breakdowns, scandals, designer outfits, and enough spray tans to fill a Trump cabinet and then some.

Think debutante ball, but with elimination rounds and video rolling.

Alas, in earlier times, Bostonians could have gawked at the show from a safe physical and emotional distance. But now a growing number of our kids are going South for college. They’re seeking fun and better weather and, according to some, an escape from divisive progressive politics. And what it all means is — well, let’s listen to a New York City rush consultant:

“I am seeing a ton of girls from New England,” Lorie Stefanelli, the founder of Greek Chic Sorority Consultants, told me in late August.

And the New England girls have a lot to learn. “When you go down to a school like Georgia or Alabama, you have to be the cute girl, not the cool girl,” said Stefanelli, a Chi Omega from the University of Texas at El Paso; a former human resources professional; and, per her website, a brunch obsessive.

More on us in a moment, but first back down South, and to the rush videos. In the early videos, when rush is just starting, potential new members (PNMs in Greek speak) face the camera and narrate a ritualistic description of what they’re wearing to that day’s rush parties. My shoes are Kate Spade, my shorts are Gucci, my bracelet is Cartier, my earrings are from Amazon…

As the days pass, and the parties get more selective, the tension builds, and eventually, on bid day, PNMs record themselves screaming into the camera as they get bids; or capture themselves on film looking despondent after they learn they’ve been axed.

And through it all, in their own, parallel videos, are the sorority sisters, decked out in suggestive Western wear, or white garters or thigh-high boots and short shorts. They’re twerking, they’re kicking, they’re flipping their hair cheerleader style.

Or in some cases, they’re chanting or singing their sorority songs, some of which are so off-key and contain such weak lyrics that commenters can’t help but attack. “This feels like the intro to a horror movie,” read a not-atypical comment on one post.

The day Stefanelli and I spoke, she had recently returned from a 10-day, rush-long residency at a hotel near the University of Alabama.

Ten of her clients were vying for bids, and when I asked her what she had been doing, she answered instantly. “It’s a lot of therapy.”

She was also there to give real-time advice on clothing and makeup.

Although rush is obviously the big event, a consultant’s work typically starts months earlier (perhaps in April, for fall rush), when they advise clients on video and headshot strategies (you want to look authentic, even if you have to fake it), and drum home the necessity of scrubbing social media feeds of anything that could be seen as lacking in class.

No-nos include: drama, bikinis, crude language, red Solo cups, and anything political. The ideal Instagram posts show the PNM volunteering, having clean fun with friends, interacting pleasantly with a pet, and so forth.

Brooke Goodrich, 17, of Worcester, was one of Stefanelli’s Alabama clients, and she recalled a particularly helpful pre-rush session.

“We had one Zoom call where we just practiced small talk,” said Goodrich, who is, somehow, a water skier, race car driver, and Princess America National Teen 2024 (among top pageant honors).

She learned that she should not discuss any of the “five B’s,” she said. They are: boys; Biden (aka, politics in general); bucks (as in money); booze; and the Bible, although depending on the sorority, she said, that may be OK.

“You have girls that will try and trip you up,” she said, “and then they’ll drop you.”

Goodrich didn’t get dropped; she pledged the sorority she wanted, Alpha Chi Omega, and proclaimed that “rush is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

She was low-key and humble when we spoke, and it was only later that I learned — from TikTok’s algorithm, not her — that she had achieved a fame few do: She had become a viral Bama Rush star.

Alabama’s Greek system, as you might know, is both famous and infamous for two reasons. Most recently because of the 2023 Bama Rush documentary on HBO Max, but before that, for its racism, a vestige of the past that is still present, New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote in a 2023 piece headlined, “In Alabama, White Tide Rushes On.“

Emotions run high on sorority row during rush, but also back home, where parents and friends are standing by like cheerleaders or grief counselors, depending.

In a Boston suburb the day before her daughter was poised to start rush at the University of Kentucky, a mom named Kendra was bemoaning the fact that she had long ago planned a trip that would take her out of the country.

She’s going to Tuscany with her husband but knows she’ll be more focused on her phone than any vineyard she’d visit. “I think it’s a six-hour time difference,” she said anxiously.