Informant Name: Anonymous
Date Collected: May 15th, 2016
Place Collected: First Floor Berry Library, Hanover, New Hampshire
Genre of Folklore: Transition (Transition from old, non-member identity to brother identity)
Informant Data: The informant, who wished to remain anonymous, is a junior at Dartmouth College. He is a History Major and a member of a Club sport team on campus.
Contextual Data: The informant is a member of AD’s last new-member class. He is related to a few Dartmouth alumni, two of which were also members of AD. His perception of both the fraternity and the school has been shaped by his own experiences and his family’s.
Ritual: “The Hop Challenge involved eating three breakfast bombs a day for an entire week. Each one is massive, so this is a pretty difficult feat to accomplish. While we do this, we may only sit with other brothers of AD. To others this may seem pointless and even unpleasant, but this helps us build brotherhood; shared experiences such as these help create the lasting friendships that the fraternity is known for. Additionally, this ritual instills in us a “no justice” mentality. That is to say, this helps us understand that unpleasant things happen to good people in the real world and that you should not let these things stop you from being yourself.”
Interpretation: The “Hop Challenge” is one of the first rituals that new members of AD are believed to complete. As the anonymous source notes, the ritual entails eating a “Breakfast Bomb”, which is a large breakfast sub made at the “Hop” or Courtyard Cafe, three times a day for a week. Unique rites of transition such as the Hop Challenge allow new members of a club to develop a new identity associated with their new organization and creates a sense of team and belonging among the ritual’s participants.

Collected by:

LM
Dartmouth College
HB 1674
Hanover, NH 03755
Professors Victoria Somoff & Mikhail Gronas
Russian 13: Vampires, Witches, and Firebirds; 16S