Photobombing

I did a lot of asshole things in college, most of which I was drunk during. A lot of things were broken, sinks were puked in, people were punched in the face (sorry Pagel), and drive-thrus were peed in. I've never claimed that I was the pinnacle of class and elegance in my early 20's... okay, maybe I have... but one of my favorite pasttimes of my college days was a hilarious trick known as photobombing.

What's photobombing, you ask? Well, I could give you a long, over-detailed and drawn-out explanation, or I could just copy and paste from the Urban Dictionary:

"The act where one or several persons ruin (sometimes improve) a photo by performing funny acts in the background which may include a dry gangbang, holding stick like objects up to your crotch or raising your clothing."

And then I could see you an Urban Dictionary definition and raise you a link to, and example from, This Is Photobomb:


So is the whole class clear of what photobombing is? Yes? Okay. Moving on.

And so, following my preceding statement and summary of asshole things I did in college, one of the few things I am extremely proud of was a school-year-long declaration of Greek War. For those who don't understand the intricate political workings of university Greek life (that's sororities and fraternities, not our gyro-loving friends from the Mediterranean), every sorority is different. You have the Stepford Wives, you have the bleach-blonde barbie doll sluts, you have the stoners and fat girls and the misfits.

I was Queen of the Misfit sorority. Don't get me wrong. We were fun girls. Hilariously fun girls. But we weren't your typical peroxide Malibu barbies. No, I rushed the Malibu Barbie sorority and wasn't offered a bid. Which is what sparked my long-running grudge -- like the awkward, dorky girl who held out hope for the head cheerleader to invite her to the class sleepover and that invitation never came (not that I'd know what that was like, *ahem* I had something else I had to do that night, so whatever), I declared war on the snob sororities, and with my army of misfit minions, I made the most amazing strategic move ever known in college Greek politics:

I declared a yearlong photobomb war.

By "war" I mean that most likely they had no idea what we were doing, and were probably completely oblivious at the time. But Flying Spaghetti Monster as my witness, when they developed their pictures (this was before digital cameras), there was someone mooning the camera behind the Barbies at the bar, or flying-lead-face-making behind them at Dance Marathon, or flipping off the camera in a recruitment picture.

I photobombed. I dropped the mothereffing Hiroshima of photobombs. For an entire year.

It got to the point that we could do it without even communicating to each other that it was photobomb time. I would just spy a group of AZD's gathering together, forming into your stereotypical sorority girl pose (no, I don't mean on all fours presenting to a frat guy...or passed out spread eagle... I mean the group pose in which the girls in the front row all bend down, hands on knees, boobs out, and everyone behind them leans forward), I would instantly running to leap through the background, or throw up a middle finger, or just look retarded/lost/confused, and I would find a fellow AOPi standing beside me looking equally retarded/lost/confused. It was like an unspoken call to sisterhood.

This, THIS, my friends, is why my sorority dues were worth every penny. Because for a split second, despite all the drama of who hit on whose boyfriend and what certain chapter president was desperately in love with a Lambda Chi Alpha, who said what and who stole whose shoes/boyfriend/whatever, we were united in our hatred and disdain. Loyal forever, Alpha to Thee, ladies! (Side note, I wonder if this is going to cause me to get another shitty email from headquarters about "image" and "sisterhood" and "saying fuck too much".)

It was kind of like Where's Waldo, except I was even dorkier than Waldo, usually much drunker, and much more self-congratulatory. Somewhere, in a sorority scrapbook somewhere, damn near every photo has myself and several other members of my sorority making obscene faces, gestures, looking lost, or flashing random body parts in the background. (Note: I don't mean my sorority's scrapbook -- no, we do it front and center as the object of the photo in our own sorority scrapbook.)

And today, those Delta Gammas may feel nostalgic and flip open and look through those scrapbooks, and they'll furrow their perfectly groomed and waxed brows, and they'll curl their perfectly manicured fingers into little fists and raise them in vain to the sky and they'll curse those damn photobombing AOPi's. And they'll rue -- RUE! -- the day they refused to give me a bid even though I was a legacy, and they'll wonder what kind of god would forsake them in that he would allow the AOPi's to ruin every single group shot they took, for an entire year.

It's the Curse of the Photobomb, my friends, and it was glorious. And you may be expecting that years later, now that I am more mature and have grown as a person, that I would apologize to the Delta Gammas and Alpha Xi Deltas and Kappa Kappa Gammas for ruining their lovely pictures.

And you're wrong. Fuck you, we were hilarious. The end.