{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Rush","description":"Some tactics used by masters of propaganda back in some dark times are still in use today and remain very effective. ------------------------ Leni Riefenstahl is known today for her savvy efforts at creating Nazi propaganda during World War II. She constructed images that deeply influenced the masses. And today, many organizations who are hoping to gain followers, whether they know it or not, copy her manipulative techniques. Big bold colored banners placed in highly visible places showing the symbols and emblems of their group. Pictures of frenzied crowds wildly cheering their leaders who stand waving, smiling, showing quiet confidence, their expression saying, \u201cyou should want to be with us. We\u2019re the powerful. We\u2019re the influential.\u201d It\u2019s incredibly manipulative. I am, of course, talking here about sorority rush. My daughter arrived on her campus a week before rush began to assume her role as banner committee co-chair. Her team worked until the wee hours every morning painting the banner for use the follow day which was then hung from her sorority house\u2019s balcony. Mind you - there were no rush-ees on campus. The sorority sisters gathered on the house lawn in front of the banner late each afternoon. They wore costumes in the theme of the banner \u2013 Disney, Wizard of Oz, the Circus - for the sole purpose of taking pictures to post on Instagram. They were hugging each other, cheering, horsing around while laughing and smiling gratuitously. From what I saw, their goal was ten million pictures each day. The banner was then removed, crumpled and thrown in a corner, and the process began again for the next day. Meanwhile on Instagram, the freshman females were stalking - figuring out which sorority looked most fun, which had the prettiest girls, which one they should aspire to. This whole tableau was done by each sorority to try and get an edge. They wanted to be the \u201ccool\u201d sorority. The leader. They wanted the freshman girls to want them so that sorority could have the \u201cpick of the litter,\u201d so to speak. It was exhausting my daughter said. And bear in mind, rush hadn\u2019t started. The next week, when the freshman arrived, the intensity escalated. This manipulative persuasion campaign, this carefully manufactured veneer, yielded a bumper crop of new best friends for my daughter\u2019s sorority. It was a raging success. Bid day squeals, heard from far away, have become an Instagram meme, like 5000 car tires simultaneously skidding to a stop. It\u2019s insanity. But, I loved hearing about it. Those long hours, those late nights, and those friends working together forge the long-lasting friendships and memories my daughter and her friends will share. They\u2019re the stories they\u2019ll tell and retell throughout their life. Whenever people work together for a common goal and sacrifice to achieve it, a bond is created. My daughter told stories of the work she and her friends did. What I heard are the memories she\u2019ll relive over and over again. I\u2019m Cam Marston and I\u2019m just trying to Keep It Real. ","author_name":"Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston","author_url":"https:\/\/cammarston.com\/keepin-it-real-with-cam-marston\/","html":"