Bama Rush Is a Strange, Sparkly Window Into How America Shops
When taking inventory of their rush outfits, the sorority hopefuls at the University of Alabama typically get bogged down in the jewelry. Clothes for the week-long August ritual colloquially known as Bama Rush tend to be simple: Imagine the kind of cute little sleeveless dress that a high-school cheerleader might wear to her older cousin’s outdoor wedding, and you’re on the right track. If you had to spend all day traipsing up and down Tuscaloosa’s sorority row in the stifling late-summer heat, you too would probably throw on your most diaphanous sundress and wedge-heeled sandals and call it a day. The jewelry, by comparison, piles up—stacks of mostly golden rings and bracelets, layers of delicate chain necklaces, a pair of statement earrings to match every flippy miniskirt.
On #BamaRushTok, the informal TikTok event that has coincided with actual sorority recruitment at UA since
