Dangerous Scenarios
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Your parents and I faced many of the same dangers you do, with one notable exception: pervasive technology. You would think that technology would make everyone safer, and in many ways it does. For example, cars have many new safety features that help people avoid and survive accidents. But technology also can increase your odds of getting harmed or even killed by providing predators with opportunities and you with distractions.
Your phone and social media
When I was in the fraternity, there was this guy called “The Picture Man”, and he came and took pictures of us and our guests at our charity events and ice cream socials. The next morning, he would deliver pages of “proofs” showing the pictures he’d taken, and we could order off those pages whatever photos we wanted. You could count on that. The other thing you could count on is that one or more of our female party guests, generally feeling the effects of too much charity or ice cream, would be at our fraternity the next morning, anxiously awaiting The Picture Man so she could rip an embarrassing photo of her out of the proofs. No big deal. No one cared.
Here’s the problem with your generation: everyone is The Picture Man, and they don’t deliver proofs. They post to social media instantly. You don’t get any do-overs. And if that isn’t bad enough, the country of China is developing search capability by image, so any employer will soon be able to enter your image into a search engine and find every embarrassing picture of you on the web. Horrifying. It’s not fair and it’s not right, but it’s the world we live in and absent a collapse of civilization, it is not going to change.
That is a long way of saying you have to be extra careful all the time, but especially at parties.
You also need to realize that anything you put in writing can be used against you on the unforgiving internet, where people are free to say the most hurtful things that pop into their deranged skulls, and often do.
A student from University of Maryland emailed his fraternity brothers a horrible racist rant advocating rape. The supposedly private email went viral. He’s going to deal with that forever. No matter what he does with the rest of his life, many years from now that horrifying email will pop up along with his obituary, not to mention in advance of every job interview.
Another University of Maryland student (What’s in the water there?) sent her sorority sisters a profanity-laced email (like, every other word, or I would re-publish it so you can judge for yourself). The basic message was that her sisters were being incredibly rude to their partner fraternity, and it appears, from the email anyway, that her sisters were being incredibly rude to their partner fraternity.
In any event, a sorority sister forwarded the email to Gawker, the email went viral, everyone denounced the author as the most horrible human being on earth that week, and the author resigned from the sorority.
When I was 12 or 13, this girl who was a year or so older at another school liked me and I liked her. We talked on the phone a lot, because texting had not yet been invented. One day through a friend, I got an envelope from her. She had gone into a photo booth, taken off her top, and taken a waste-up nude photo to give me. Unsolicited, I might add. I got rid of it.
But what if I had been the kind of guy that would show that photo to everyone she and I knew? A lot of guys would have done that. Don’t be one of them. Give someone a do-over.
You live in a digital age. Many people get convinced to send intimate pictures to others. PLEASE DO NOT DO THAT. It can get circulated widely in seconds!
But let’s say you don’t listen to my awesome advice and do that anyway. And in response, the person you sent it to says, “I’m showing this to everyone.”
A smart thing to do would be to tell your parents. Embarrassing yes, but they can be helpful and if not at least you have someone on your side.
In most jurisdictions, what you did is stupid, not illegal unless you sent it unsolicited. However, the person who received it, if you are under 18, is now in possession of child pornography. If that person forwards it, that is distribution of child pornography, an even worse offense.
If someone under the age of 18 sends you naked pictures of themselves or others who are under the age of 18, hit delete and respond: “please don’t send me these again”. Keeping it is possession of child pornography. Sending it to others is distribution of child pornography. These are serious crimes that when discovered are almost always charged because they are slam dunks for the prosecutor.
Your privacy online
I understand your desire for privacy online. That would be nice, but it is not realistic. You have no privacy online, even if you are the only person who views your phone and computer.
Everything you do online is tracked and stored by the companies controlling your search engines, your internet connection, your computer, or your phone. If your device is being used at work or at school, then your online activities and communications are known to your employer or school administrators.
In fact, these companies use this data to try and sell you things. A confidential internal Facebook document said that “By monitoring posts, pictures, interactions, and Internet activity, Facebook can work out when young people feel ‘stressed,’ ‘defeated,’ ‘overwhelmed,’ ‘anxious,’ ‘nervous,’ ‘stupid,’ ‘silly,’ ‘useless,’ and a ‘failure.’” Facebook can then share this information with advertisers to target young people when they are most vulnerable.
This is why an app that claims to delete your posts is so dangerous for you but useful to advertisers: they are learning your most intimate thoughts that you would never share with the world at large. They can then use this data to manipulate you through targeted advertising.
Anything you send to someone else is by definition not private, with the exception of communications between you and an attorney where you are seeking legal advice. Apps that purport to delete what you send do not actually delete what you send or protect you against someone else making a copy of something you have sent. Even things you post online anonymously can be traced back to you.
Come to grips with the reality that online privacy does not exist. The internet is very tempting for both kids and adults, making it a great place to get into trouble. A fair number of adult actors, politicians, and other prominent people have been greatly embarrassed or ruined or even prosecuted for supposedly “private” online communications.
My wife, kids, and co-workers have access to anything I do online. Your parents should have access to anything you do online. That way, the temptation to do something that could permanently impact your future is greatly diminished.
Research also shows that you can also protect yourself through self-awareness, and a big part of this book is about helping you create boundaries for yourself so you’ve already considered what you would do in various situations. Once you have done that, you are less vulnerable to manipulation, whether that comes from a company exploiting your personal data to get you to buy something you don’t want or meet someone you don’t want to meet, or someone at a party telling you “take this pill; it’s my mom’s prescription, so how dangerous could it be?”
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Hazing
A fraternity at Penn State had a ritual called “The Gauntlet”. A text exchange from the night before gives us some idea of what “The Gauntlet” entailed:
casey: We were setting up
torrye: Setting what up?
casey: Like the shep test and the fake branding
torrye: Ohh
casey: I in charge of administering the shep test
torrye: What happens first
casey: Fake branding
As does a text from that evening:
casey: It starting … We have them wait in the boiler room after the shep test until we set up paddling
According to an article in the Atlantic, pledges were held down on a table as a red-hot poker was brought close to their bare feet and they were told they were going to be branded. With pillowcases over their heads, they were paddled, leaving bruises. They were also forced to drink alcohol in great quantity.
During the February 2017 version of The Gauntlet, fraternity pledge Timothy Piazza was required to consume 18 drinks in 82 minutes. Piazza tried to go out the front door, perhaps to get help, but he was so intoxicated he could not open it. He tried another door he was able to open and fell headfirst down a flight of stairs.
Four fraternity brothers carried the unconscious Piazza to a couch. He was in desperate need of medical attention, but the fraternity brothers slapped and punched him, threw his shoes at him, poured beer on him, and sat on his twitching legs, perhaps from frustration or in a misguided effort to help him.
According to the Grand Jury, only one fraternity brother, Kordel Davis, was concerned — in fact, very concerned — for Piazza’s life. Davis “screamed at them to get help”. In response a fraternity brother named Jonah Neuman “rose from the couch and shoved Davis into the opposite wall. Neuman instructed Davis to leave and that they had it under control.” Davis continued to press for the brothers to call 911 in an animated fashion.
Twelve hours later, when Piazza “looked f****** dead” and the fraternity brothers had cleaned up the house and deleted security camera video, a fraternity brother called for an ambulance. Piazza died two days later.
The fraternity brothers led the police to believe the security cameras were inoperable that evening, but forensics were able to restore the footage. 25 fraternity brothers were indicted for their role in Piazza’s death and await trial.
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Hazing isn’t needed to provide an awesome brotherhood experience!
The sheep and getting pledges blind drunk makes no sense to me. What kind of clown wants to join an organization where you have to insert yourself into a sheep to be a member? I’d rather NOT insert myself into a sheep and NOT be brothers with a bunch of perverts who did. And if the pledges are blind drunk, they aren’t even going to remember their initiation, which should be a really important ritual.
According to a study by professor Elizabeth Allan of the University of Maine, 80 percent of fraternity members report being hazed. Hazing is a near certainty if you join a fraternity.
But hazing also takes place on sports teams and other organizations. A study of student-athletes by Alfred University found that 80% and 42% were subjected to questionable or unacceptable hazing practices in college and high school athletics, respectively.
A high school sophomore in Seattle was assaulted by teammates who tried to penetrate him with a broom handle during a team-building camp, but he fought them off. Later, a disabled student at that same high school was assaulted by 14- and 15-year-old players who pulled down his pants and underwear and pinned him on the shower floor when older players intervened and prevented the rape. Students at other high schools have not been so fortunate.
If someone tries to do this to you, fight hard but also start yelling that they are trying to commit a rape and if they do it, they will go to jail and be registered sex offenders for the rest of their lives. Maybe common sense will overcome them.
Another study found that nearly 30 percent of respondents indicated they observed some form of hazing in their marching band. Who knew? In fact, a young man named Robert Champion was beaten to death by fellow Florida A&M band members in a ritual called “Crossing Bus C”. Several band members served time for their role in the death.
So how do you protect yourself against hazing other than not joining any organization? You can ask if they haze prior to joining so they can lie to you. Piazza’s fraternity claimed it did not haze. It also claimed to be dry. According to the Atlantic, a Penn State administrator told parents (including Piazza’s) that Penn State fraternities did not haze, and was immediately contradicted by numerous parents who said their sons were being hazed. Apparently those reports fell on deaf ears.
I was a fraternity rush chairman in college. Here is what I would do if I pledged a fraternity: when the rush chairman gives you a bid card to accept, express your concerns about not wanting to engage in things like excessive consumption of alcohol and ask the rush chairman to write on the back of the pledge card: “This pledge’s membership in the fraternity is not dependent on unwanted eating, drinking, bodily harm, or physical touching.”
When a brother tries to get you to do something disgusting, you can at least remind your rush chairman of his promise. Your rush chairman will probably back you on that unless he’s a total weasel, in which case you probably wouldn’t want to be his brother anyway.
Another thing is to talk to the other pledges and vow to stick together and protest anything that is illegal. No fraternity house could withstand losing an entire pledge class over hazing. It would destroy the house financially and also cause them to lose their charter if it got out. A pledge class that sticks together and has each others’ backs has a lot of leverage, and is also representative of the kind of brotherhood a fraternity is supposed to promote.
If someone tries to haze you in a legal organization, keep in mind that hazing is illegal and you cannot be prohibited from being part of a marching band or basketball team or anything else just because you refuse to submit to hazing. Just say you don’t want to do anything illegal and refuse to participate.
Virtually every one of my pledge brothers, had any of us been presented with some stupid gross “test” when separated from everyone else, would have responded, “This is a test to see if I am too stupid to join this house. I’m not doing that.” If they respond “We all did it”, say “There’s no way you would have done that.” Stand your ground using their character as an excuse for why you won’t participate.
If you join a gang or other illegal organization, no one can help keep you safe. Expect not only to get hazed, but also to see jail time. For more on this, see chapter one.
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Does crime pay?
I am often astonished at the level of stupidity displayed by those committing crimes. Take economic crimes as an example. The average convenience store robbery nets less than $1,000, and the average bank robbery nets less than $10,000, which is on the high end of the economic crime “pay scale”. The “solve rate” for a bank robbery is 56%, so a bank robber has a very high risk of getting caught, with a typical prison sentence of 10-25 years.
So, if we play the odds a bank robber does two robberies netting $20,000, and then gets caught and spends 10 years in prison, making $2,000 a year, plus being deprived of all freedom, female companionship, and spending days and nights risking sexual and physical assault. What a bargain!
One of my favorite exchanges occurred during a session where prisoners serving life sentences would come talk to teenagers serving time in juvenile facilities:
Lifer: What did you do to get in here?
Juvie: I knocked over an old lady and stole her purse.
Lifer: How much time did you get?
Juvie: Two years.
Lifer: Yeah? And how much money did you get?
Juvie: Twenty dollars.
Lifer: Two years for twenty dollars. You must be a F***ING genius.
Typically, the people who commit these crimes are impaired, insane, or just plain stupid. But every once in a while, someone commits a financial crime because s/he thinks they are smarter than the police and can get away with it. Maybe so, but anyone considering a crime needs to remember this: the police can make a million mistakes and still make an arrest — the criminal only needs to make one.
A 22-year-old student at Penn State found this out when he was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison (which means no parole, so he will serve all of that time) for robbing 17 banks with two friends, netting their gang $67,000, or $22,333 each. That’s $1,718 for each year behind bars. Why did a promising student decide to rob banks? See chapter one.
Elsewhere in Pennsylvania, 15-year-old Tajuan has a decision to make. He was riding in his friend’s car, trying to sell some crack. He offered the rocks to a 40-year-old man for $20 and held them out in his hand. The man snatched them out of Tajuan’s hand and walked away like nothing happened. Then the man stopped in the middle of the street and looked back at Tajuan like “What are you going to do about it, punk?”
Back at home that night, Tajuan is furious. He needs to go find the man and jack him up. Get revenge.
Tajuan gets a gun, finds the guy high, and blows his head off. Because he committed a cold and calculated premeditated murder, Tajuan gets tried as an adult and serves 30 years in prison.
Actually, that last paragraph isn’t accurate. 30 years later, Tajuan wrote in The Players’ Tribune about the true decision he made:
But [get revenge] over what … twenty bucks? Just take the L, bro. It ain’t worth it. Out on those streets, when it comes to confrontation … a lot of times it doesn’t end well, because nobody wants to be the first to back down. Nobody wants to be the punk.
Tajuan “Ty” Law decided to take the L, stop dealing, and focus on graduating high school and playing football, which resulted in 15 years in the NFL, four Super Bowl appearances, three championships, five Pro Bowls, five beautiful children, and a successful business career.
Ty is a talented player, but there are many equally talented athletes sitting in prison right now because unlike Ty they were more concerned about being the punk than about their future. One bad decision — usually involving pride — can derail a promising young life.
I find it telling that the three most effective fighters in the Trojan war — Hector, Odysseus, and Achilles — didn’t want the war. Odysseus pretended to be insane and Achilles dressed up like a girl to avoid going with Agamemnon to fight the Trojans.
Meanwhile, Agamemnon wanted the war so badly he sacrificed his daughter to the goddess Artemis to make up for bragging about his hunting. Agamemnon is a leader who, when asked to give up his prize to save the Greeks from a plague, responds “Give me another prize at once or I will be the only one of us without one. That cannot be right. … If not, I shall come and help myself to your prize.” To which Achilles says, “You shameless, self-centered jackass! How can you expect any of the men to comply with you willingly when you send them on a raid or into battle? It was no quarrel with Trojan warriors that brought me here to fight. They have never done me any harm. … We joined your expedition, you shameless swine, to please you, to get satisfaction from the Trojans for Menelaus and yourself, dog-face — a fact you utterly ignore.”
Unfortunately, there will probably always be boastful bullies that pick fights and cause trouble for their own selfish benefit or satisfaction. Joining them generally ends poorly.
Police
During a party that had spilled out into the street, a police officer began pushing people to get them to move along. One of my fraternity brothers decided this was a huge injustice.
“You’re way out of line right now, and you know it,” he told the officer.
“Move along,” replied the officer. “I could take you to jail right now.”
“Oh yeah?” said my fraternity brother. “I’d like to see you try.”
My fraternity brother was slammed against a car, handcuffed, and taken to jail. He was charged with obstructing an officer and public intoxication.
As an aside, anytime you catch yourself starting a sentence with “Oh yeah?”, don’t finish the sentence. Just stop talking.
The police have a very difficult job. The vast majority of them are heroes. A small minority of police do some pretty terrible things.
When dealing with the police, be respectful. Say things like “Yes, officer” or “Yes, sir.” If you disagree with a police officer, state respectfully, “My mom taught me never to argue with a police officer, so I’m not trying to start an argument, but I believe the light was yellow.” Keep your hands where they can see them.
A bad strategy for your safety in dealing with the police is to accuse them of harassment or get confrontational, even if the police are committing harassment or instigating the confrontation. Without confessing to anything, say something that de-escalates the situation and shows respect like “Officer, I’m sorry if there has been a misunderstanding. What would you like me to do right now?”
It is really, really stupid to get into a heated argument with a police officer. The police have guns, clubs, badges, and the power of arrest. You will not only lose the argument, but also your freedom and maybe your life. If you see a police officer committing an injustice and feel the need to do something about it, hit record on your phone instead of arguing.
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