They're everywhere on campus: students sporting bro tanks or preppy polos and pastel shorts, traveling in packs or on their longboards.
ASU's large student body and reputation as a party school give it and the surrounding city an abundance of bros, said Ryan Nickum, a blogger at the national real estate website Estately. Nickum compiled a list of the top 18 best cities in the U.S. for bros, and Tempe was named the fifth best.
Tempe fits most of the criteria Nickum set for a hospitable bro area. With one of the largest university populations in the country, an active Greek life and a long-held party school reputation, ASU is a safe place for bros.
It falls behind on having a larger male population —– in 2011, the most recent year represented in the U.S. News and World Report's college ranking index, female students made up 50.5 percent of the University's population. And while Tempe definitely isn't poor, it's less affluent than Oxford, Miss. (No. 15), Durham, N.C. (No. 10) or Boulder, Colo. (No. 4).
"Obviously, there are many more sides to ASU than its bro population, and certainly Tempe is more than just ASU," Nickum said in an email. "However, a trip to local golf courses and Spring Training facilities reveals there are no shortage of bros about town."
Tempe was only beaten out for the position of bro-friendliest city by Boulder, Gainesville, Fla., Columbus, Ohio, and Los Angeles.
While ranking the cities, he considered famous local bros, which cities had lacrosse teams ranked by the NCAA and national party school rankings, like the ones ASU has been eager to shed.
"I feel like our rankings could have been more accurate if we'd had statistics for Axe Body Spray sales and Natural Light beer consumption," Nickum said.
Before trying to rank cities, he tackled a difficult question: What exactly is a bro?
In June, NPR's Code Switch, a team of journalists who cover race, ethnicity and culture, took to Twitter to gather definitions for bros. They ended up with a set of four basic aspects of bro culture: bros are jockish, dudely, stonerish and preppy.
Or, in non-bro terms, they're typically athletic, spend time with other bros, give off the relaxed attitude of someone who uses marijuana even if they don't and dress in a preppy way.
For Estately's blog, Nickum defined bros as "typically white males between the ages of 16-25 who tend to be affluent, immature, loud, misogynistic, and possessing a false bravado."
"They often possess qualities you could also attribute to stoners, preppies, jocks, and douche bags, but they seem to be at the intersection of these different groups," he said. "It's kind of like that Supreme Court ruling on obscenity: It can't be precisely defined, but you know it when you see it." It's a demographic he's familiar with, after growing up in an white upper-middle-class family, playing college lacrosse and being recruited by fraternities.
"I know bros and am sad to admit that I probably shared some of their obnoxious qualities," he said.
To mechanical engineering junior James Karcher, bros are hard to define, but easy to recognize.
"If I'm looking down Palm Walk during peak school hours, I can point out very many of them," he said. The definition of a bro comes with stereotypes, he said.
"Typically, the staple in attire is a tank top or bro tank, which is obviously used to accentuate the muscles of the arm appendages," he said. "The muscles are a common trait because bros also adopt extreme self-confidence, and thus, they often go to the gym."
Many bros are members of fraternities and stay up late to party, Karcher said.
And while they may have differences, he knows he would never be a bro.
"I'm far too geeky and simply don't have too many aggressive traits in my personality that would label me," he said. "I think it's mainly the being a geek part though. You never hear a bro say: 'Bro! I was working so hard on my quadcopter and programming all night!'"
Others have a more negative definition of bros. Management junior Christian Askin said he views them as very cocky.
"To me, a bro is an arrogant, ignorant loudmouth that loves to work out, party and chase women," he said.
Despite Tempe's high ranking on Estately's Top Cities for Bros list, Nickum was quick to assure Tempe residents that the city will not appear on the site's planned Top Cities for Douche Bags list.
"I would like to offer my condolences to all the non-bros in Tempe, but there are always downsides to living in a place with perpetual sunshine," he said.
Reach the managing editor at julia.shumway@asu.edu or follow @JMShumway on Twitter.
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