Regardless of the stereotype, and regardless of the party-boy impressions, frat guys see themselves as honorable. For quite some time, that honor has had nowhere to go. (Men can still find honor is the military or fatherhood, but by current standards those are for a small group of men the culture assumes are not suited for college or only encouraged in men over 30, respectively.) Young men want to prove themselves, and there are so few ways they can do this any more, especially when they are 20 and the conventional wisdom expects them to be oafs who are less-successful than women. When they live down to this expectation, it is often because they don’t see anything better for them to do.

But after the Rolling Stone failure, a bunch of 18- to 22-year-old guys—from Virginia, no less—have an opportunity to prove themselves. They can stand in the face of continued insult to ensure that Rolling Stone, or any other publication, can never again so callously jeopardize real victims of violence or create victims of slander.

They aren’t interested in the money. They are interested in deterrent.