Sorority rush season is over, but sorority influencers are here to stay

• Rushing a sorority has become a TikTok phenomenon in recent years.
• Many women go viral posting about their experiences, and some manage to achieve online stardom.

Ava LeBlanc is 18, and began college at Auburn University in Alabama this year. When she was rushing to join a sorority, she began to document it on TikTok

"Everybody knows about rush. It's a southern thing that everybody does," LeBlanc told Insider.

"Rushing" is the process of trying to join a sorority. It consists of multiple steps that include sorority house tours and different events that demonstrate what the sorority stands for. At the end of the process, sororities send out offers to candidates who have impressed them.

The tradition has spawned a whole new TikTok genre in 2021 known as "RushTok," which reignites every year in August, leading the #RushTok hashtag to receive 2 billion views.

LeBlank started her TikTok account in 2020 as a way to have fun and build her confidence and had found some success, even getting brand deals after a video her sister took of her at a pageant photoshoot went viral, but she knew if she got her RushTok content right, it could be a unique opportunity for her to skyrocket her following.

She's one of many college students who are finding that they can use the one-week experience of rushing a sorority to tap into a huge new audience which has the potential to catapult them into TikTok fame.

Participating in RushTok can lead to huge opportunities for wannabe influencers

LeBlanc's first rush video, which she posted on August 6, received over 1.1 million views. In the video, LeBlanc shows off her "outfit of the day," which is a popular type of RushTok content.

After it went viral, LeBlanc continued posting videos each day showing people what she was wearing. "The thing I love about RushTok is everybody gets so invested in you and your journey. You have this whole other support system on TikTok besides just your family and friends," she said.

LeBlanc also shared her reaction to getting accepted into the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority at Auburn University. The video was posted on August 14 and has over 770,000 views.

LeBlanc said that her viral RushTok videos played a significant role in helping her grow her online presence. She currently has 444,000 followers and 15.6 million likes on her TikTok account. Since her RushTok videos blew up, she said she has received several opportunities to work with beauty brands.

When then-18-year-old Amayah Shaienne joined the University of Alabama and began rushing a sorority in 2022, she decided to document it on TikTok too. Rush is a particularly big deal at the University of Alabama, where it is referred to as "Bama Rush" and the associated hashtag has 3.9 billion views.

Shaienne had previously posted fashion and beauty videos on the platform, but it was her RushTok videos — by far the most popular on her account — that boosted her following, which currently stands at 85,000.

Shaienne relies on tools such as Linktree, a social media landing page, to help her accelerate sales for the brands she has worked with since starting RushTok. Her profile, which is displayed in her TikTok account, includes links to her Instagram and YouTube accounts, and her Amazon Storefront. It also includes several discount codes for brands she works with, which allow her to earn a commission on sales from her viewers.

"Being able to monetize my content at my age for something that I enjoy so much has been the best job ever because I'm actually passionate about it," she said. "I've not only gained followers, but also friends that I see every day, whether I'm on a live stream, doing my makeup, talking to people, or getting love and support in my comment section."

Many RushTok creators are able to leverage their success well beyond the initial flurry

Given that the duration of rush season is so short — it lasts for only a week in August — many creators use RushTok as a stepping stone to building an audience that they hope will be interested in other types of content.

For Shaienne, being accepted into the sorority didn't mean the end of RushTok. This year, she ramped up her content even further, giving viewers a glimpse into her life as a Zeta Tau Alpha member, with videos showing what was in a bag that her sorority gave her, giving advice to potential new members, recording her outfits, and showing behind-the-scenes footage of Bama Rush.

Kylan Darnell, 19, was also accepted into the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority at the University of Alabama in 2022. Darnell's TikTok audience has flourished thanks to her RushTok content. Today she has over 740,000 followers, and has earned a reputation as the "queen of Bama RushTok."

Posting content online has always come naturally to Darnell, who has been scrolling through Instagram and uploading photos to the platform using her mom's phone since she was in third grade. "My social media is my yearbook," she told Insider.

Darnell's enthusiasm for sharing her life online led her to post her first RushTok video, showing her outfit of the day, in August 2022, and it has been viewed over 8.6 million times.

Darnell told Insider that her RushTok presence has led her to work with several international brands, including YSL Beauty, IGK Hair, and L'Oreal. For this year's rush season, she even released her own #RushTok-themed beauty box in collaboration with subscription box brand FabFitFun.

RushTok has received some criticism but the payoff can be worth it

RushTok's popularity has not come without criticism from people who think the content is superficial. Some people have said that the rush process is "shallow," believing it evaluates women based on their physical characteristics, while others have called it an "exclusive club" for "privileged white girls."

Others say the blame lies with RushTokers themselves. Many viewers wrote that Darnell was being hypocritical for wearing expensive designer clothes in her videos while telling people that sororities "look at who you are as a person." Some viewers even questioned whether her videos were satire.

Darnell told Insider that these comments bothered her at first because she wasn't used to them, but now she's come to terms with it being inevitable. "There can be trolls and haters and all of that stuff. So just have your inner circle of family or friends. Have them check up on you every once in a while and tell people how you feel," she said.

Despite the criticism, Darnell told Insider that RushTok has had an immensely positive impact on her life in many ways in addition to helping her to build a brand. She said that her online presence has helped her to develop a big group of friends and that she no longer has to introduce herself to people at her university because she has such a big network.

"It's made my life different in so many ways," she told Insider. "I do a lot of brand deals now. I have built myself an influencer career. It's been a really fun journey."