RushTok and the new rules of campus marketing

When Kylan Darnell arrived at the University of Alabama from a small town in Ohio in 2022, she didn’t know what “rushing” meant. “Girls would run up to me and say, ‘Kylan, are you rushing? That’s the only way you can get friends.’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’” she recalls.

What began as a naïve initiation into sorority recruitment quickly became an internet sensation. On the first day of rush, the highly ritualised sorority recruitment process (especially entrenched at Southern universities), she filmed an OOTD and sent it to her family group chat. Her mother urged her to post it. By the end of that day, the video had six million views. From there, she began posting daily rush updates, from hair tutorials to emotional check-ins about the highs and lows of the week.

Now crowned the queen of RushTok, Darnell has parlayed that moment into 1.3 million TikTok followers and a six-figure influencer career, using brand partnerships to pay her way through college. This year alone, content tied to her rush journey generated an estimated five billion views across platforms, while in just four years she’s partnered with over 50 brands, including Bloom, Revolve, Walmart and Anastasia Beverly Hills.

She’s not alone. Since its emergence in 2021, RushTok — the TikTok subculture chronicling sorority recruitment – has evolved from niche curiosity to full-blown cultural phenomenon, with its hashtag now attached to more than 111 million posts. “RushTok is like watching a miniseries,” says MaryLeigh Bliss, chief content officer at youth culture agency YPulse. “It’s not just college students who are watching, either. It has a cross-generational, global appeal that traditional college campus marketing does not.”

It’s why brands are racing to keep pace. Fizzy drink brand Poppi customised cans for sorority “work week” and even sent ambassador Alix Earle to visit chapters, while beauty label Good Molecules turned recruitment season into a mass sampling opportunity. Fashion retailers have been quick to follow suit: Princess Polly and Aerie seeded “rush-ready” outfits to creators with dedicated discount codes, while Revolve spotlighted curated looks in real time through influencer partnerships. Meanwhile, Kendra Scott tapped recruitment vloggers to showcase sorority-friendly jewellery, and Maybelline sent “recruitment survival kits” stocked with mascara and concealer to trending creators documenting the process.

Although not every brand calls out sorority recruitment directly, many are eager to harness the cultural buzz it’s created. Skims, for instance, recently launched a nationwide campus campaign tapping sororities across the US. While not explicitly tied to rush, its first dedicated Campus Collection highlighted “dorm-approved and lecture-ready” staples modelled by real students dubbed the “Skims Class of 2025.” Similarly, Alex Cooper’s podcast platform Unwell issued an open casting call for sorority members to host a new show on its network — further proof that the ripple effects of RushTok now extend well beyond Greek life itself.