DELTA GAMMA RHO EMBRACES SOCIAL MEDIA LABEL WORDS Alex Petry I I PHOTOS KaZ!1 Fujisawa During the 2016-17 school year, a new joke began to circulate around campus. Friendly banter was a tradition between social clubs, but this past school year was different. Among the many jovial insults pointed at social clubs, one directed at women's social club Delta Gamma Rho (DGR) seemed to stand out and made a lasting impression on the student body. The joke was simple: DGR was like a beige wall. Like many jokes of the current generation of students, the statement took over social media and became the influence of many memes, parodies and one-liners. While the phrase wa meant to imply that DGR was bland and uninteresting, the club took the joke and turned it into a moment that proved them to be anything but. Junior Mackenzie Baldwin, one ofDGR's vice presidents in fall 201 , said that DGR recognized the comment as a big joke from the beginning. "DGR's initial reaction, as any reaction to an insult would be, was that of slightly offended," Baldwin said. "As the days moved on though, it became a huge joke that we couldn't get over, and we decided to take it and run with it rather than let some silly comment define us." That wa how Baldwin and her fellow vice president, senior Kaycie Fletcher, came up with the idea of during their club into an actual beige wall at II Club, a set of devotionals held during club week each night. "We announced the idea at the meeting during visitatio•n week and then took a vote on the idea," Fletcher said. "'\ e made sure that everyone kne\\o· they had to wear beige." When DGR walked into 11 Club on Oct. 30, they were an unmistakable sea of beige taking up a large section of the bleachers of the Rhodes-Reaves Fieldhouse. The reaction from the crowd was one of shock, respect and hysterical laughter. "I'm not kidding you, when we walked up the stairs at All Club, the sections [we passed by] cheered so loud," Fletcher said. "People across the court were sending me pictures, and I was honestly impressed." enior atalie Autrey, DGR's president in fall 2017, said that the reaction from the ocher clubs was worth the potential risk of the stunt. "The feedback was overwhelmingly positive," Autrey said. "We had o many people from all different clubs think it was hilarious and commend us on making the joke ours now." Fletcher and Baldwin were extremely proud of their idea and their club for executing it o perfectly. They believed that by reclaiming the joke, they proved that DGR was anything but boring. "~ e were [making] fun of our elve and embracing the label that we wanted to prove wrong," Fletcher said. "We thought that by doing chat, it would actually show that we are not a beige wall." I Freshmen Rebecca Rowsey and Tyler Cosby, junior Mackenzie Baldwin and senior Kaycie Fletcher wear "beige wall," "I'm drying" and "boring" on their faces o embrace the social media label of "beige wall." Baldwin and Fletcher were women's social club Delta Gamma Rho vice presidents for the fall semester and led the new members through club week. II Photo by Kazu Fujisawa Women's social club Delta Gamma Rho (DGR) decides to embrace the new title, decking out only beige clothes on Oct. 30, 2017, in the Rhodes-Reaves Field House at all-club. A social media joke on Twitter called DGR a "beige wall," implying that they were bcring and bland. II Photo by Kazu Fujisawa 0 r C CD ~ m m 7'
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