Shmob | Dartmouth Folklore Archive

Title: Shmob

General Information about Item:

Informant Data:

Henry Wilson is a senior at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. He is an Economics major, with a projected graduation date of June 2018. He is from New York, New York. Henry is an avid skier. He is the first person in his family to attend Dartmouth, but his little brother is a senior in high school who is currently waiting to hear back from admissions.

Item:

A “shmob” is a large group of freshmen that travels throughout campus in unison. The origination of this term is met with a lot of confusion as many students believe that “frob” would be much more appropriate as it joins freshmen and mob together, which is what the term describes. Nevertheless, the term is frequently used at Dartmouth.

Contextual Data:

Social/Cultural Context: When a large group of freshmen walks together, especially at night, the group is referred to as a shmob. This is a term used to taunt freshmen who walk throughout campus without much of an idea of where they are headed. Since freshmen are not allowed in fraternities for the first six weeks of school, they typically hang around outdoors on campus on Friday and Saturday nights. Typically, freshmen students are very enthusiastic and energetic as they are new to the social scene at Dartmouth. This annoys the upper classmen who see the newcomers as ignorant and inexperienced students. This term is simply used as a way of hazing freshmen who are new to campus. This is an example of a rite of passage.

A “Shmob” outside of Dartmouth Hall

Informant’s Comments:

“I first learned about many of the slang terms during First-Year-Trips, but I didn’t hear ‘shmob’ until my first weekend on campus. Myself and ten or so other guys were walking around campus on a Friday night and an upper classman yelled ‘Shmob!’ at us. We were confused at first but then made the connection. We were a bit cautious not to hang out in such big groups the rest of the term.”

Collector’s Comments:

I first heard of this slang term on my official visit during my senior year of high school. I was with some of my future teammates on campus, and one said: “Check out that massive shmob.” He then explained the concept to me and I was pretty confused by it. This is a pretty good representation of all slang terms here at Dartmouth as they seem very strange at first, but most people eventually begin using them.

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