Ya that's the whole point. It's supposed to bring you and the other pledges together because you guys made it through something shitty together.
To all you "independent, free thinkers, too cool for frat" dudes you just sound like bitter, whiney nerds.
No I wasn't in a frat though a few of my closest friends were in the greek system. You really shouldn't lump all of the greeks together and brand them with the "douchebag" mark haha. Of course there are gonna be a lot of pathetic frat people but thats simply because there are A LOT of greeks to begin with.