Dr. Tait Martin of Taproot Creative, spent the past two weeks digging through FAU’s social media pages sorting through Greek Life’s dirty laundry in preparation for the highly anticipated event.

From party pictures to trashy tweets, Martin uncovered a vast array of evidence that suggests that the values of sisterhood and brotherhood that greek life promises is marred by the image that is portrayed on the social media. “[Greek life] is really screwing up,” claims Martin.

With 90% of pictures on social media showing alcohol and drugs, it’s no wonder greek life is associated with the Animal House stereotype.

This is the first time FAU has ever addressed the image of Greek Life on campus. The event formally called #Fail: Cleaning Up Social Media Messes and Redefining Who You Are Online, yielded a 250 member turnout, with a majority of the audience containing greek members.

Greek members turned a blind eye to the drunken pictures, lude comments, and overall bad reputation that was being broadcast to the public.

It wasn’t until this eye-opening seminar that members really seemed to assess the damage they had done to their organizations reputations. And it’s apparent to all that something must be done to turn their reputation around.

When asked the first thing that came to mind when you say greek life, “partying and conformity” are the two things that come to freshman criminal justice major Stefanie Cunningham’s mind. Cunningham chose not to partake in a sorority due to the chaotic nature that is perceived through social media as greek life.

All it takes is a simple online search to uncover pictures of underage fraternity brothers funneling beer and scantily clad sisters downing jello shots. This evidence proves no different than the already damaged perception of Greek life.

There are are dozens of others who associate greek life with wild nights full of themed parties. Still stigmatized for hazing rituals, it seems like Greek life is unable to recover their image of so called brotherhood and sisterhood.

Greek life claims to offer promises of sisterhood, brotherhood, friendship, and compassion, but according to Martin, a former fraternity brother “we are not living up to our values.”

If FAU greek life continues to go back on their principles, they run the risk of decreased recruitment members or worse, being shut down. To the crowd of 250 sisters and brothers, Martin says “We are damaging our reputation based on what we share digitally.”

Not only are the eyes of the digital world upon FAU greek life “faculty and alumni are definitely checking it out,” says Martin. Some universities even hire grad students to scroll through the social media sites looking for the notorious drinking and the partying that goes on in the fraternity and sororities.

The process of completely redefining the image of greek life is a daunting task. To make it a bit easier, Martin hands out some sage advice to FAU greeks. “Don’t feed the trolls,” he advises rather than passing on the latest greek gossip, use social media to highlight the members.

Martin even suggests posting praise-posts that share the great things that members achieve on the FAU campus. The greek system should be part of the FAU community not an exclusive club for partiers.

With the reputation of the greek system, across the country, tarnished by their misuse of social media, it seems FAU greek life has a great weight on their shoulders.

Either continue to perpetuate the stereotypes portrayed on social media or use social media to actively tell the story about why they belong on  FAU campus.