Musings From a Master
At first glance, Fraternal Musings seems like any other pro fraternity blog. There’s a quip about how you can learn lifelong lessons being in a fraternity or sorority, a title about recruitment, and a picture of the author (a handsome, young, white guy). Typical right?
Not so much. In actuality, Jesse Koch is not the most typical #profratlife guy. Jesse is not in a frat, he is a professional working in the field of sorority and fraternity advisement. Rather than making his audience the public, he has decided to target members of greek life. His posts are not about proclaiming these members, but about telling them what to do to be real leaders in a funny, sarcastic way. Basically, he’s trying to tell these kids how to not be one of the hated stereotypical frat guy. For instance, one of his blog titles reads, “Fighting Greek Stereotypes on Campus — Keep it Simple, Stupid.”
Most of his posts detail how students can better themselves and their organizations. In his fighting stereotypes post, he treats his audience like he is their coach on a high school basketball team. Koch’s writing is drenched in sarcasm, but it has a friendly, I care about you, feel. He talks about how people will hold a stereotype until they are proven wrong, and then he implores the readers to be the ones to prove them wrong. One of the main ways to do this, he asserts, is to make friends with people outside of greek life, “dummy.”
The other post that really caught my attention was the recruitment post. Usually, these posts involve being best dressed, having good small talks, looking cool… etc etc. This post, however, had a very different tune. Koch talked about how the most important way to be a good recruiter was to set a good example. He stressed going to class, starting a study group, and improving your academic performance. In all his posts, Koch comes off as a lovable and sassy coach, not a condescending jerk or college frat boy. For this reason, I think his audience really listens to him, and actually takes what he says to heart. He gets on college kids’ levels, which is usually very difficult to do.
If his background isn’t enough to prove that he cares, maybe the longevity of his blog is. Koch has been writing these self-help blogs for greek life students since 2011. He makes a point to keep each individual blog short and to the point — perfect for his audience. He only includes pictures when necessary, and most of them involve some sort of relatable idea, like texting, or Facebook.
Koch’s blog is the most relatable college blog on greek life that I have seen. It does not hush those that believe there are issue with the system. In fact, it acknowledges these issues, and tries to improve them. As a reader of Koch’s blog, I’m sold on the way he presents his information, and the care that he has for students in the greek world.
