“Season three” of Bama Rush is shaping up as an epic chapter of a prominent TikTok tradition. With Bid Day coming up on August 20, prospective sorority sisters at the University of Alabama are becoming overnight sensations thanks to their short-form videos.
Bama Rush took hold as a social media phenomenon in 2021, collecting more than three billion views across TikTok. The #RushTok hashtag has pulled in more than 1.5 billion TikTok views on its own, and the University of Alabama is the inarguable epicenter of that community. Each August, Potential New Members (PNMs) arrive in Tuscaloosa and take the internet by storm by sharing their “outfits of the day” and discussing the items in their “rush bags.”
The 2023 edition of Bama Rush kicked off on August 12, when the houses on sorority row opened their doors and began screening PNMs. Skylar Ehlinger and Bella Reaves have emerged as two of the first-year standouts, hauling in millions of TikTok views apiece. Fans of Bama Rush season will follow a handful of compelling characters until the PNMs receive their bids on the 20th.
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But the internet fame associated with University of Alabama sororities doesn’t fade away at the conclusion of rush. Last year’s #RushTok all-stars are now securing brand deals and providing new perspectives on Greek life. Kylan Darnell, who joined Zeta Tau Alpha on Bid Day 2022, now sells a “Viral Edit Box” for her fans and works alongside her reps at Palette Management.
“I woke up [after posting my first rush TikTok] with my phone blowing up,” Darnell told USA Today. “My mom was like, ‘have you checked your TikTok?’ I gained like 100,000 followers in a night. Brands started reaching out, I started getting brand deals and making a little bit of money. It was like an overnight thing. It was crazy.”
Darnell is offering a different type of #RushTok content in 2023. She is providing the point-of-view of a big sister as she and her housemates hunt for their “littles” in 2023.
@kylan_darnell LETS GET THOSE LITTLES #bamarush #bamarushtok #bamarushtok2023 #bama ♬ original sound
By adding that perspective to the #RushTok discourse, Darnell is indirectly addressing one of the prominent complaints that dogged the Bama Rush documentary earlier this year. The Max original included no footage from inside the University of Alabama sorority houses, choosing instead to explore the Bama Rush phenomenon and its cultural implications.
Thanks to Darnell, this year’s Bama Rush viewers will get a more complete look at the spectacle. If you want to follow along with the main characters among the 2023 PNMs, you know which hashtag to search on TikTok.
