Sex sells… tickets for arthritis benefit!

Guys, in case you weren’t tapping through the Ivy League Snapchat Story in Butler last night, AOII had their philanthropy event, AOKaraoke, and it was wild. Bwoggers Victoria Arancio and Aliya Schneider checked it out.

See photos from the event at the bottom of the article!!

This year’s AOKaraoke event’s theme was Pillow Talk. In all honesty, the theme at first caused me to cringe: watching people try to sing in addition to trying too hard to be overtly sexual sounded like it would just make me really uncomfortable. Once the music started playing, my doubts and reservations were overpowered by Jason Derulo’s, “Trumpets” and Bruno Mars’, “Marry You.” Despite the event’s theme, intended to celebrate women’s ability to take control of their own sexual narrative, the performers—mostly men—proved to instead embrace their self-humiliation, objectifying themselves. It was messy. It was fun. My expectations were low. The event surprised me in the best way possible. I’ll give you the run down on all things karaoke: how the fraternities and sororities performed, what they sang, and more.

AOII kicked the night off with “Teenage Dream.” After they left the stage, I was still unsure as to how the night would go. Would off-pitch singing continue into the night? Yes. Surprises along the way? Absolutely.

Gamma Phi Beta then sang “Fergalicious.” A little tone deaf, the choreography was fun to watch, and will.i.am’s rap in the middle was performed to perfection. I cheered.

Sig Nu then went on stage in suits and sang Bruno Mars’, “Marry You.” None of them could sing, but the choreography was kind of adorable. They gave me a rose, so I might be biased. They ended with, “Hips Don’t Lie.” You could tell that they were really into the music. I was tempted to jump on stage.

Lambda hit home, channeled my childhood and sang, “I’ll Make A Man Out of You” from Mulan. Essentially, it was just frat boys playing with broomsticks, swinging them around when I thought for sure that they would hit each other and do some serious damage. They were eliminated too soon.

ZBT was hysterical. With “Every Time We Touch,” they came on stage and they were all singing. They tried so hard, with their matching black T-shirts and blue jeans. They were so excited, I felt bad for laughing so hard.

Delta Gamma performed, “Smack That.” Honestly, I don’t really remember this one. They were probably reading off the monitors. They later sang a song from Pitch Perfect, but again, the effort was lacking. Compared to some of the other performances, they lacked “pizazz.”

Kappa Alpha Theta was entertaining to watch throughout their time on stage. They first performed, “You’re the One That I Want,” followed by “Hit Me Baby One More Time” and “Wannabe.” All three songs had a strong female lead (yes, like the Netflix film subgenre). They ended up winning the whole thing, and rightfully so.

Fiji was so fun to watch for so many reasons. First, their singing was God awful: they attempted to sing Jason Derulo’s, “Trumpets,” but I couldn’t tell what they were singing until the end of the song. On top of that, the dancing made me laugh so hard that I nearly cried: after seeing some of the other competition, they started to unbutton their shirts and I literally screamed. This one was, from beginning to end, a hot mess, but a mess that made me laugh from start to finish. They later went on to sing “S&M.” It was also pretty bad, but very enjoyable.

By far, D Sig tried the hardest. They tried way too hard to look good, taking off their shirts when no one asked for it (although some people didn’t mind). They started with, “Bed Rock.” They started shirtless with the exception of winter coats, and ended with humping chairs. (Thank you D Sig for getting me on the Ivy League Snapchat Story!) After seeing the reaction to KDR, D Sig tried to go over the top with “Sex,” and I received a lap dance. Guys, it was wild.

KDR was my personal favorite. They began with a nearly perfectly choreographed rendition of “Milkshake.” With matching aprons and overt confidence, you could tell that they thrived in the limelight. They later did “Pony.” As the night went on, KDR gained more and more confidence, if that’s even possible. They were energetic and fun, and lot of the other groups stole some of their ideas: shirts came off, clothes were thrown into the audience, and things got weird. I was all for it.

Somehow, this review is longer than my midterm paper, so I’ll end off here. A night was had by all. AOKaraoke was fun to watch: I felt like I was a part of the performance without even having to step on stage and embarrass myself. The event probably could have been better run, and definitely shorter, but I had a good time. It was a well needed distraction from my responsibilities.

All proceeds of AOKaraoke went towards The Arthritis Foundation. Arthritis is the leading cause for disabilities for women in the United States.

All photos taken by Aliya Schneider