Black Greeks unite to get VH1's 'Sorority Sisters' off air
buzzz worthy. . .
By Mona Austin
Unlike the image that was portrayed on the first episode of VH1's "Sorority Sisters," where grown women ganged up and verbally bashed each other, nearly coming to blows in the name of sisterhood, members of Black Greek organizations are uniting to get the show cancelled. They feel the show is an affront to Black Greek life at large.
During its Monday night premiere, social media was heavy with criticism about how negatively Black women (and the one white soror, a member of Delta Sigma Theta) were depicted on the show.
The name "Sorority Girls" may give the impression the is about college girls. The catty cast members featured on the show are full grown, post-college, and at various level of their lives and careers. The fact that the show is focusing on women who are not college aged makes sense because as the intro of the show indicates, Black sororities make the commitment for a lifetime.
What doesn't make sense is the level of animosity exchanged among the stars of the show. Some of the characters can not get along with members of the same organization or rival sororities so the notion of sisterhood is a complete farce.
Months before "Sorority Girls" hit TV, some people saw the drama coming and tried to get it banned before one episode aired, receiving 40,000 signatures on a petition.
That apparently was not enough.
Judging from the promo for episode two, the storyline will only go down hill as an AKA shop owner calls the police on her DST nemesis.
This time around, Black Greek critics of the show quickly sprung into action launching another cancellation petition to demonstrate they are not having the controversial show make Black Greeks organizations look bad aimed at advertisers.
A person using the Twitter handle @alpha1906 (likely a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.) has taken the lead in an all out social media strike asking other Black Greeks to respond by not getting mad, but getting even. His devised a strategy targeting specific advertisers to place pressure on VH1 to remove the show from the air.
He wrote:
Also, if you’re VERY specific about what product you’re NOT going to buy because of their support of #SororitySisters, then you win even more. So here’s a typical effective tweet:
By Mona Austin
Unlike the image that was portrayed on the first episode of VH1's "Sorority Sisters," where grown women ganged up and verbally bashed each other, nearly coming to blows in the name of sisterhood, members of Black Greek organizations are uniting to get the show cancelled. They feel the show is an affront to Black Greek life at large.
During its Monday night premiere, social media was heavy with criticism about how negatively Black women (and the one white soror, a member of Delta Sigma Theta) were depicted on the show.
The name "Sorority Girls" may give the impression the is about college girls. The catty cast members featured on the show are full grown, post-college, and at various level of their lives and careers. The fact that the show is focusing on women who are not college aged makes sense because as the intro of the show indicates, Black sororities make the commitment for a lifetime.
What doesn't make sense is the level of animosity exchanged among the stars of the show. Some of the characters can not get along with members of the same organization or rival sororities so the notion of sisterhood is a complete farce.
Months before "Sorority Girls" hit TV, some people saw the drama coming and tried to get it banned before one episode aired, receiving 40,000 signatures on a petition.
That apparently was not enough.
Judging from the promo for episode two, the storyline will only go down hill as an AKA shop owner calls the police on her DST nemesis.
This time around, Black Greek critics of the show quickly sprung into action launching another cancellation petition to demonstrate they are not having the controversial show make Black Greeks organizations look bad aimed at advertisers.
A person using the Twitter handle @alpha1906 (likely a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.) has taken the lead in an all out social media strike asking other Black Greeks to respond by not getting mad, but getting even. His devised a strategy targeting specific advertisers to place pressure on VH1 to remove the show from the air.
He wrote:
"So you hate 'Sorority Sisters' and want to do something effective? Good. But you have to know how it all operates.
1. These shows are in the can, so if you are simply telling VH1 that you’re mad, they don’t care. They’ll keep playing them.
2. If you say that you won’t watch, they won’t care. Plenty of people will watch, and enough to be a success.
2a. Advertisers purchase time on VH1 without picking a particular show. Instead, they simply say, “Put me on a show at a certain time, that targets a certain demographic. So guess what, they’re JUST as surprised as you that they’re on #SororitySisters…
So how do you win? Glad you asked…
3. Every television advertiser is very cognizant of their social media presence, and as a result, their reputation in social media. They spend a LOT of money to get people thinking about their product on Twitter (in particular) in the way they’ve plotted it for months. What is their nightmare?
When a bunch of people drive their social media message to the negative, and when I mean negative, I mean to where you make it trend negatively. Don’t believe that all publicity is good publicity. That’s a lie. It may bring awareness, but not good publicity. So what do you do to get VH1 to pull their programming.
4. Watch. Yes, watch. But as you watch, WATCH THE COMMERCIALS. Identify the advertisers QUICKLY, and then send negative tweets with the following:
a. The advertisers official twitter address
b. #SororitySisters hashtag so that it trends to people who don’t know about what you’re doing.
c. #boycott(insert advertiser name)
1. These shows are in the can, so if you are simply telling VH1 that you’re mad, they don’t care. They’ll keep playing them.
2. If you say that you won’t watch, they won’t care. Plenty of people will watch, and enough to be a success.
2a. Advertisers purchase time on VH1 without picking a particular show. Instead, they simply say, “Put me on a show at a certain time, that targets a certain demographic. So guess what, they’re JUST as surprised as you that they’re on #SororitySisters…
So how do you win? Glad you asked…
3. Every television advertiser is very cognizant of their social media presence, and as a result, their reputation in social media. They spend a LOT of money to get people thinking about their product on Twitter (in particular) in the way they’ve plotted it for months. What is their nightmare?
When a bunch of people drive their social media message to the negative, and when I mean negative, I mean to where you make it trend negatively. Don’t believe that all publicity is good publicity. That’s a lie. It may bring awareness, but not good publicity. So what do you do to get VH1 to pull their programming.
4. Watch. Yes, watch. But as you watch, WATCH THE COMMERCIALS. Identify the advertisers QUICKLY, and then send negative tweets with the following:
a. The advertisers official twitter address
b. #SororitySisters hashtag so that it trends to people who don’t know about what you’re doing.
c. #boycott(insert advertiser name)
Also, if you’re VERY specific about what product you’re NOT going to buy because of their support of #SororitySisters, then you win even more. So here’s a typical effective tweet:
'#SororitySisters is offensive to black women. @nissan, I’m not buying your XYZ car because you support it. #boycottnissan'
Most major brands have a war room where they look at a real time screen and can see where their name comes up, both positive and negatively. If it’s negatively, a big ole red circle starts to build. By making that circle really red, it gets put in a report, and folks start investigating. And when folks start investigating, they start weighing: Do I want to piss off one million potential buyers of my product, or do I simply call VH1 and tell them to put me on something else, and get rid of the problem? When that happens enough, guess what? Other advertisers hear about it and, “Hell NAW!” is what they say when THEIR product is next to “Sorority Sisters.” And boom, no more “Sorority Sisters.”
So, the choice is yours…get mad…or get even.
BTW…the KEY is to NEVER let up. Even after the show is over, KEEP TWEETING."
No advertising dollars, no show is the logical conclusion. Other shows like the "Preachers of L.A" were heavily petitioned before they aired, but survived. We will keep an eye on the outcome of the effort to cancel "Sorority Sisters" and post updated.
