Last August:

Fratastic Friend: Do you have any idea what posting this is going to do?
Johnny Quest: What are you talking about, who’s going to care? Like 12 people read this site anyways.
FF: This is going to start some ****.
JQ: Do people really take this stuff that seriously?
FF: Yes, yes they do. You have no idea
JQ: Whatever, it’s just a list. And I’m just some random guy writing it.
FF: Just watch.

Fifty three thousand three hundred and forty seven. That’s how many times you have clicked on The List since I wrote it late last summer. I’ve reviewed over twenty houses, all with varying douche and bitch factors. I’ve read over two thousand comments, from which I’ve received two death threats and three marriage proposals.

Times have changed since then. These days, Johnny Quest is about as relevant as HD DVD, seeing as I’ve dropped off the radar in recent months, and most of you are now home, working or graduated and job hunting. But I wanted to come back one last time to say goodbye, along with a few final thoughts about this year and everything it’s entailed.

First of all, thank you for reading. This site would have never become anything without you and because of your readership we’ve managed to thoroughly give Greek life the dressing down it needed, we’ve found the hottest girls on campus, and you even helped us win an award as the best college blog in the nation. So truly, I thank you.

But people are always asking me why I choose to do this. I originally started out to be a kind of “Daily Show”-like entity, reporting campus news with a bit of a satiric twist. I branched out into giving advice to freshman, which began the discussion of the Greek system here at Michigan. After writing a few entries (Pike being the first) the overwhelming response fueled me to write even more, and I was fascinated as to why people cared so much about Greek life, and more importantly, why people cared what I thought about it, despite the fact they had no idea who I was. But now I get it, I know why people care.

Greek life is a baby step transition to college from high school, where life is 10% about schoolwork and 90% about being popular. When freshman who used to be cool in high school get here and find themselves nothing, having to start over from scratch, they immediately look for a fast-track to stardom once again. That’s why The List has garnered so much controversy, people work as hard as they can to work themselves up the social ladder here, and when they’re told the house they’ve picked to be associated with for four years (sorry, “a lifetime”) is only the sixth coolest on campus? Well, you can bet there’s going to be hell to pay and the top five houses are suddenly “gay douches” or “skanky bitches.” If the names stick, your house might just start to look good in comparison.

I understand why people rush. It is nice to be immediately accepted somewhere in a giant place like U of M, and college can be a lonely place if you don’t manage find a niche right away. Greek life is a shortcut, a shortcut to friends, to hook-ups, to parties, to “the college experience.” This isn’t the problem, the issue is that by taking this route, Greeks somehow feel themselves better or cooler than non-Greeks because they had enough basic social skills to get a bid and survive a pledge term. But really, they just made a different choice, one I’ve found largely to be based on insecurity because secretly they believe that other people would view them, as a person, to be less cool or affable if they were in a lower ranked house, or god-forbid, a GDI. This is why I’ve heard stories from my Greek friends of new rushees saying they showed up to houses simply because they were ranked as “Top Tier” on The List. Does anyone grasp how wrong that is?

The stereotypes are easy to write about and exploit like I have, because for the most part, they’re true. You can talk about “diversity in action” all you want, but the fact remains that people seek out others like them. That’s why Kappas are rich, that’s why SAEs are meatheads, that’s why Tri Delts are blonde and that’s why Pikes are fashionistas. For whatever reason, groups of friends sharing similar attributes decided to rush together way back when, and that’s why today we have entire houses of people looking, dressing and acting the same. It’s actually quite an amazing social experiment to watch, which is why I’ve found it fascinating that I can get away with writing solely based on stereotypes because 95% of people confirm them as true.

I know I’m sometimes viewed as a hypocrite in all this. After all I’m the one saying who’s cool and who’s not cool and I crafted The List in the first place. But really, do you actually think that when I meet a Phi Psi, I think he’s cool because he’s in that house? Or that if a girl tells me she’s in Alpha Phi, I’m going to suddenly think she’s hotter than she would be otherwise? No. But people do, and I’ve crafted these rankings based on what the Greek system thinks of itself, and the thousands of comments have shown how seriously people take their houses as a reflection of themselves.

But this isn’t high school, it’s college. This is why I find older members of houses not giving a **** about these kind of popularity contests. They deactivate, or stop going to chapter, or stop reading sites like this one. They’re growing up. And they damn well should be because once they graduate everything is turned on its head. The “coolest” jobs go to the GDI engineering geeks now being served filet mignon at Google and the most fratastic member of Theta Chi might be stuck pencil pushing as an accountant at a mid-range paper supply firm.

But if you guys want to keep fighting, go for it, and I know you will, much to everyone’s entertainment. As my final act, I wanted to make a big ceremony crowning the fraternity and sorority of the year, and possibly even to debut a rewrite of The List. But now I find myself just tired and graduated and forced to grow up and leave this chapter of my life behind. I feel like an old man, despite the fact that today is my 21st birthday (no joke) and can only pass out a few strands of typical advice to you young up-and-comers.

College is over in an instant. I remember moving into my Guantanamo-esque room in Markley like it was yesterday, and in a flash, I’m sitting here, writing blog posts in my gym shorts with my horizontal license and a diploma on the wall. College has been the best time in my life, and I hope the same will be true for you. Don’t take everything so seriously, be it an OCD like attention to GPA, a thirst for useless extracurricular activities to put on a resume, or concern over what number your house is on some arbitrary list. Just enjoy it, as there will never be another four years like this again.

So thank you again for everything, and I promise this is the last time you’ll be hearing from me on Michigan OTR (for real this time). And remember, never let school interfere with college, you only get to do this once.

- Johnny Quest