Is "to haze someone" cruel or friendly?

Definately negative connotations. It's considered a right of passage to join a group (eg a workplace, a sports team) but it's pretty culturally outdated, and definately mean. The idea is very much "we had to go through this so the new person does" or "they need to prove they are tough enough to belong" a more neutral word could be teasing or pranking

The point of hazing is typically to intentionally cause suffering, usually as part of some sort of initiation ritual. It is not at all meant to be enjoyable by the one being hazed.

Hazing is almost always negative. There are some lighthearted examples, though, like making rookies carry everyone’s shoulder pads in the NFL. That’s not really cruel at all. However, the stereotypical hazing you’d hear of in fraternities and sororities and certain branches of law enforcement and/or military are pretty exclusively cruel.

it's sometimes meant purely to be cruel, and sometimes meant to be cruel but you're supposed to appreciate it later and feel more like part of the group. Like there is a level of hazing where people do not intend to ever include you. But because you have to be cruel either way, it's not considered to be good even if the outcome is supposed to be good at some level. It's mostly a way to take advantage of the power you have over a newcomer (the wiktionary entry says it doesn't strictly have to be against newcomers but that's the general assumption of the situation hazing is happening in). Now you might use the word a little jokingly and maybe it's not like something crazy like just a simple one-time prank. But definitely at no point is there any consideration of "how can I make this fun for this person". Unless you're a sociopath

If whatever you are doing is supposed to be fun for everyone, it would usually be called 'an initiation' (which is a neutral term) instead. For example, if your gaming group has a tradition where new folks sing a silly song when they join, that could be called their initiation. There's a reason 'hazing' is illegal in a lot of places - it's because it's cruel and dangerous.

So cruel in some places it's illegal.

It's something that's changed a bit with time. If you watch 80s movies that take place at college, there's almost always hazing. It was seen as pretty expected behavior. It was still mean, but the victims saw it as the cost of doing business - part of college life. Now a lot more people see it as abusive and exploitative. Typically outtight banned behavior. So modern hazing is usually less aggressive, to keep from getting in trouble.

Hazing is always meant to be unpleasant, sometimes absolutely brutal, cruel, and dangerous. Pranking can be friendly and well meaning, so long as the person being pranked also finds it funny.

Hazing is abuse, so no, it's not friendly

It is a form of indoctrination, creating a "sunk cost." Fraternities do it so that you feel more committed, because leaving would make all that suffering "for nothing." It's more than cruel, it's manipulative and calculated.

Cruel

Cruel. There are so many news stories of college students dying (from alcohol poisoning etc.) due to fraternity (or sorority) hazing rituals. They’re outright banned in some (most?) places, though that doesn’t always stop people. A similar word would be “initiation”, as in an initiation ritual, which more vaguely means something one has to do to cement or mark their acceptance or beginning of involvement in a group. This word to me isn’t as explicitly as mean, but it still carries some of the same negative connotations as hazing.

Cruel and abusive. For fraternities, it was once a rite of initiation, but now it's largely outlawed.

Everyone is correct that hazing, the actual thing, is negative. For completeness, it still is occasionally used as a substitute for the word teasing among friends who are not meaning they are being systematically cruel.

Hazing is an act of cruelty used as a right of passage into an in-group. Sometimes it’s framed as a test of toughness.

It can be either. But when it's bad, it's really bad, so the bad version gets more attention.

It is only not negative when it's used as an exaggeration in the place of a word like "teasing." It should be very obvious when it's being used this way, and otherwise, it is negative.

There are some forms of hazing which are moderately embarrassing at worst--such as asking the new guy to fetch a bucket of blinker fluid. (Blinker lights do not contain any fluids; trying to obtain "blinker fluid" is an impossible task.) However, places that allow hazing have a tendency to create more and more extreme forms of hazing--which can eventually include forced nudity, striking the person with whips or paddles, making the hazed person drink alcoholic beverages excessively, and all sorts of other extremely bad things. Such hazing can cause psychological and/or physical damage and, in multiple documented cases, death. Because hazing tends to get out of control, hazing in general is highly frowned upon by many institutions.

So it's cruel. Thank you all for your responses!

Hazing is like bullying behavior. The severity depends on the circumstances. It’s humiliating or dangerous or unhealthy. College fraternity hazing is known for illegal and harmful activities.

Cruel, and usually with some element of danger and peer pressure. The association is generally with sororities and fraternities which put their new recruits through humiliating and potentially dangerous rituals as part of initiation. People die from hazing, or end up seriously mentally or physically harmed, hence the dedication to banning it.

Hazing has a negative association. It more generally could refer to any initiation ritual - one could be hazed and it ends up light and fun and harmless, but typically hazing is something abusive and dangerous.

The second one.

It is cruel, but is done under the guise of being friendly, so someone who had been hazed might actually describe it as friendly

It can be either, but without clarification you should assume it is unpleasant for the recipient.

Hazing is definitely negative and an abuse of power by the hazer.

Cruel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazing

Hazing is a brutal form of bullying, typically happens in the Military