Ole Miss, as is perhaps well known, is in the heartland of beautiful girls. We know this to be true if we are followers—however casually—of something called RushTok, and we know it to be enduringly true because the above sentence was written by Terry Southern in 1963, in “Twirling at Ole Miss,” which was published in Esquire and then included in Tom Wolfe’s essential 1973 anthology, The New Journalism. Let it be therefore established that among the various subcultures of the Deep South, even one as cotton-candy thick and Jolly Rancher wide as sorority rush is worthy of journalistic attention.RushTok, which took off four years ago and chronicles the adventures of young women rushing the powerhouse sororities of southern universities, is now in its late-baroque phase. (Joan Didion was repeatedly told she arrived “just in time” when she went to study the San Francisco–hippie movement in 1967. “The whole fad’s dead now, fini, kaput.”) Those of us who got in at the beginning were observing something being freshly transformed into content, still trailing mists of its previous, unobserved state. This was before sorority rush was turned into reality television and podcasts and exposés and brand endorsements, and before the introduction of new characters, such as rush mothers and rush coaches, and before rush became a launch pad not only to a successful social life but also to a chance at TikTok stardom and the busy, profitable life of an influencer.Some of the most popular content on RushTok is the OOTD (“outfit of the day,” a term of the young) worn by the PNM (“potential new member,” a term of the old, emanating, one assumes, from the managerial class up there at the organizations’ national offices and at the almighty National Panhellenic Conference). The commitment to a dominant style by these southern PNMs is as unvarying as it was in the days of the imperial espadrille and the gold-circle pin, but in its substance, that style has changed completely. Only the mildest trace of southern prep remains, the rest replaced by its opposite: pure femininity. The new look is Hilton Head brunch, country-club Tennessee. It’s sexy, but in a sense it’s more of a mood than a look: a little bit pampered, a little bit willful.The outfits are composed of bright little wisps of clothes worn with sparkly rain showers of delicate jewelry: bangle bracelets clacking together, Kendra Scott jewelry—delicate must-haves with colored stones functioning more as amulet than as embellishment. The look is headbands, blowouts, lots of extensions, and enough bleachy highlights for an advancing army of blondes. We are face-to-face with “conventional beauty standards,” but we are alone with our phones and can freely think, Conventional though they may be, these girls look pretty good.On an OOTD video, the PNM—alone or taking turns in groups of three or four—stands in front of the camera, tapping a finger against every single thing she’s wearing and reporting where she bought it. She likes lacy, girly dresses from LoveShackFancy, which seems to have a symbiotic relationship with RushTok: Over the past four years, it has become a major brand. She loves a venerable Alabama vendor called the Pants Store (“They started buying pants from me and they just called it ‘The Pants Store,’” its founder said), which now includes a Rush Shop selling whimsy in the form of pastel rompers and minidresses with polka dots and ruffles. She likes canvas sneakers, flip-flops, loose shorts with tight belts, and blinding-white T-shirts. She likes hot orange and royal blue and lilac: madras deconstructed, an unwitting evocation of decades past.There’s a strong preference for cheap fashion from mass retailers, which are named without a trace of shame or of the bargain hunter’s savvy. My shoes and earrings are Amazon, she’ll say. My belt is Zara; my skirt is Shein. (Shein’s extremely short, beaded miniskirts owned rush on a national level this year, and you don’t want to be one second over the age of 22 if you try to wear one.)If fast fashion provides the undercoat, the paint itself has many expensive touches. The girls love David Yurman bracelets in the famous cable style, which actually is preppy and starts at $275. (In fact, that bracelet is an economic indicator of whether you should be rushing at all: At Alabama, the average new-member fee is almost $5,000.) Golden Goose sneakers are still, somewhat witlessly, very popular. (Do they not know that the Ageist, a magazine dedicated to the interests of “any generation above the age of 40,” ran an article three years ago reporting that “Golden Goose Sneakers Have Hit Our People”?) Most of those sneakers start at about $500 and go up steeply.But she’ll very often go from the highs of David Yurman to the airless heavens of Chanel, Tiffany, Dior, Gucci. “My necklace is Van Cleef,” one woman says, tapping what looks to be an Alhambra necklace from Van Cleef & Arpels, which is the kind of thing a rich man gives to his wife when she turns 40 or catches him having an affair—not to his 18-year-old daughter who’s going to run around a college campus with it.This isn’t Dubai; it’s Tuscaloosa.Destinee Wilson runs a TikTok account that totals up the price of OOTDs, pausing the videos every time the PNM mentions an item to report its retail price:“My dress is from Free People.” (Wilson: “$128.”) “My shoes are New Balance.” (“$90.”) “My watch is Omega.” (“$23,900.”) “My bracelet is David Yurman.” (“$495.”) “My necklace is from Tiffany.” (“$1,025.”) “These bracelets are Enewton.” (“$206.”) “This is David Yurman.” (“$250.”) “And my cute little rush bag is from Case-Mate.” (“$100.”)The grand total for the look: $26,194.Wilson is assiduously neutral on the question of whether these things are authentic or dupes. But why would the girls be so forthcoming about Amazon and Shein only to lie about Van Cleef & Arpels?Wilson’s account has received many ugly messages from people upset about its existence. That she is Black and the PNMs are almost entirely white lends some tension to her videos. Last year she made a defiant post: “I will no longer be taking down any price breakdowns,” she said. “I’m trying to destigmatize talking about money, talking about prices. Things cost money, you guys.” In August, People reported that she earns up to $8,000 a month from her social media and her storefront on Amazon, where she offers low-price alternatives to some of the items featured in the videos.Her account feels like a revolution; it’s definitely the best thing on RushTok. That she’s also the assistant director of a high-school marching band in North Texas, with an Amazon wish list of things she would like for her students—glue sticks; hair spray; 21 large, white hair bows—makes its own quiet statement.In the category of “affordable luxury” that PNMs want, one item stands tall: the Case-Mate jelly totes many of these girls use to carry everything they might need for a day—and night—of rushing. (The oil-blotting papers! The extra shoes! The portable fan, portable charger, Listerine strips, mini perfume, touch-up lip color and blush, body spray, deodorant, water bottle, auxiliary battery packs for the iPhone. Don’t forget the Band-Aids and—God forbid!—the tampons.) These translucent carryalls (about $100) come in a range of colors, with coordinating grosgrain ribbons—the widest, most luxurious grosgrain ribbons you’ve ever seen in your life—for tying the bag closed with a big, loopy bow. The first time I saw one, I thought I would faint; it was like seeing heaven.Rush moms are apparently fried with anxiety, and I don’t blame them. My life has been rich and uncomplicated because I have only sons, but if I did have a daughter and her very first college hurdle was going to be—let’s cut the shit—a beauty contest, I’d be out of my mind too.Given how freaked out these families are about rush, I wondered how they stood up to the knives-out stress of college admission itself. But then I discovered that many of these schools aren’t very hard to get into. The University of Alabama admits about 75 percent of its applicants. All you have to do is fill out an application and send in $40 and your transcript. Test scores are optional. No essay, no recommendations, no emergency calls to the marriage counselor.In contrast, the sororities have developed a parallel, dream-time system of admission. You cannot believe how many things you have to submit to the Alabama Panhellenic Association to rush. I will say only that it includes $375, something called a “social resumé,” and a digital photograph—“preferably a headshot (no selfies).”RushTok has hours of advice on how to conduct yourself, usually posted by young alumni of the system, one of whom explains: “You want your recruiter’s first thought to be, ‘Oh my gosh, this girl is so sweet.’”One video says: Don’t get too hung up on your wardrobe; it’s really not that important. What does matter? Accessories. “If you have a cool hair clip or piece of jewelry that someone can compliment you on and be like, ‘I love your necklace, that’s so pretty. Where did you get it?’ and you can turn that into an interesting story.” (I got it off Amazon, and—funny story—I was watching The Yogurt Shop Murders at the same time.)The PNM must present herself as an innocent, or at least willing to approximate innocence, in part by avoiding strapless dresses and in part by never mentioning the four horsemen of recruitment apocalypse, the B’s: boys, booze, bucks, and beliefs.Politics, sex, religion, and money are what—we are often told—one was never supposed to discuss in polite society during some more restrained era of American life, so these girls will be set if they get invited to a Charleston supper club in 1957. It raises a question: What kind of future (or past) are these young women preparing themselves to enter?Tradwives, I hear you yelp in horror. They’re all going to be tradwives! It’s true that these sorority girls are more likely to marry and less likely to divorce than the average American woman, but probably no more or less so than the young women who rushed “tent city” at Columbia. It’s the college degree that is most predictive of these behaviors.Educated and ambitious young conservative and MAGA women, such as many of those who pledge southern sororities, have every reason to consider a big professional life, a professional-class husband, and a nanny as being in their future. Some of the biggest jobs in the Trump administration are held by women, including: White House chief of staff; U.S. attorney general; director of national intelligence; secretaries of homeland security, education, labor, and agriculture; and the administrator of the Small Business Association. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, went back to work four days after giving birth and has said, “I would reject that you can’t be a good mom and be good at your job.”For a Wall Street Journal article called “The Conservative Women Who Are ‘Having It All,’” Pamela Paul interviewed more than a dozen young conservative women, all of whom said that the tradwife lifestyle was never a choice they seriously considered for themselves; Paul writes that “they always knew they wanted children and that they also wanted a meaningful career.”One of the women she interviewed is Katie Britt, the youngest-ever Republican woman elected to the Senate. Britt attended the University of Alabama, where she was president of her sorority and of the student body.As cowed as the Bambi-like PNMs may appear in their original videos, membership itself seems to make showgirls of them all. Have you seen the huge production numbers these places make as recruitment tools? To a pumping beat, an entire sorority appears in front of the house. The front line performs the kind of explosive, acrobatic moves we first learned about in Cheer, Season 1, while the others commence something like a Las Vegas revue from the 1980s. They look strong, sexual, unafraid of underage drinking or boys. They will not be driven out of public life easily—not after learning all those dance numbers, gathering all that bravado, and cultivating the kind of personal style that clearly opens doors these days.The girl who more or less created RushTok and became its breakout star is Kylan Darnell. She entered rush as a freshman who had pageant experience and brought a lightly professionalized manner to her OOTD, in which she looked very young and very pretty. She eventually consolidated her extremely positive approach to life in the mantra “I hope you’re having a great day, not just a good day.”Now she is a senior, that fleeting, fragile state in which college seems at once too small for you and more precious than rubies. She recently posted a video while walking across campus in a halter top. “Y’all, my life is so weird,” she said. “It doesn’t feel real. Because how do you go from being at probably the best nightclub in Vegas, sitting at the most expensive table, getting everything for free just because of the way that you and your friends look, and dancing with Heidi Klum’s daughter and Marshmello”—the DJ, not the confectionery—“all at the same time that night to me having an eight-page essay due tonight?”There was a time when this kind of exploit would horrify parents, making them fear that their daughter had become cheap, ruined. But today? Secretary of energy.We have a sense, sometimes, that America has become so homogenized through consumer culture and generalized depravity that we’ve lost any sense of regionalism, of ways of speaking and doing things that are particular to only one part of the country. But rush in the SEC schools is proof that certain old southern patterns endure.The system reinforces many long-standing southern ideals: the importance of social connections over academic excellence; the notion that strong relationships flourish in closed societies; the emphasis on regional belonging over national competition; and above all the cloistering of young white women.We can hardly leave this subject without noticing that the sororities of RushTok are the historically white ones, although, when it comes to several of these schools, they might also be called the currently white ones. It’s very hard to find a nonwhite girl in those production numbers and OOTDs.You would think that the University of Alabama, in particular, would have some anxieties about this fact, considering that just more than 60 years ago it was where George Wallace made his most famous stand against integration, blocking the doors of an administration building to prevent two Black students from registering for classes and budging from his spot only when forced to by federalized National Guard troops.In 2013, according to the university’s student newspaper, a very qualified young Black woman rushed these sororities at Alabama and didn’t get a single bid. A former director of Greek life told Time magazine that it wasn’t the current sorority students who had kept her out; rather, it was pressure from alumni: “There’s definitely some fear, whether real or imagined, that there would be some repercussions if a sorority took an African-American member.”These sororities, like the historically white fraternities, stand on their members’ right to freedom of association, which allows them to socialize with whomever they want. (The segregationists’ rationale: freedom of association.) But after the story broke in 2013, the university ordered sororities to reopen their bidding, and offers were extended to several Black women. The university did not respond to a request to comment, but as of a few years ago, of the 7,481 women in the Alabama Panhellenic Association, just 56 were Black.But enough of all that! We are having fun. We are looking at pretty girls dressed up in LoveShackFancy dresses. This is America in 2025, not 1963. Lighten up, reader!The conclusion of Alabama rush is an event in which all of the PNMs open their bids at the same time and then run to their new chapter house. These buildings are giant wedding cakes, and they are fortresses, and many of them have crystal chandeliers and wide, sweeping staircases big enough for a hundred Scarlett O’Haras to make a thousand dramatic entrances.Let us be among them, thundering across campus in our Golden Goose sneakers, tears of excitement and relief in our eyes. By midnight we have to come up with the money, but our parents are good for it. The sisters are ready for us, they’re clapping us inside, and finally—finally—we can set down our heavy Case-Mate bags in the massive, marble foyer because now it is over, and now we can belong.