The Ilocos Times

Pardon me for introducing these strange new words— fraternimisia (hatred of fraternities) and fraterniphobia (fear of fraternities)—but how else do we describe what we are witnessing today? There seems to be an entire industry of online creators whose main pastime is to hate fraternities, fear fraternities, or simply demonize them for clicks and traffic. When I talk about fraternities, I do not refer only to campus groups. There are also off-campus fraternities such as the Knights of Columbus , the Freemasons , and many civic brotherhood organizations that have existed long before the invention of social media. Are these groups also to be feared and hated? Should the same suspicion applied to young students be applied to long-established civic organizations? Fear is one thing. Hatred is another. I can understand fraterniphobia—some people may have had traumatic experiences, or perhaps the word “fraternity” evokes images of hazing cases splashed across the headlines. Fear can be ...