Author Archives: bmwendel@usc.edu

Creepy LA Hotel Death (Elisa Lam)

Context:

The subject is an Asian woman, born in China, who has lived in Los Angeles for most of her life. I asked about Los Angeles urban legends and she told me this story. I’ve seen this story online and only online before, so much of the story is in the video which appears on several websites. This is a good example of online folklore.

 

Piece:

“Remember there’s that happened a couple years ago. There’s this girl, asian girl who disappeared in a hotel in LA. And then like weeks later they found her body in like the boiler room in like a big can of water where like people shower from. People were either saying that she was possessed and like kill herself, cause like theres footage of her, I need to look this up, it’s very recent, couple years. She went inside the elevator and she was like talking to like invisible man inside the elevator and she was like kinda wandering around. And then like she walked out and no one see her ever again after like that elevator. They found her dead. So no one really figured out how she got from point A to point B. I read it online when it just came out. Yeah, the internet. It wasn’t official, like LA times, but it was some sort of news website, I would like to say Buzzfeed. Really creepy videos online. It turned into this whole mythical, like she was possessed.”

 

Here’s a Buzzfeed video of the incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48jBi86ih5Q

4/20: Origins of the Stoner Holida

Context:

The subject is a white, gender non-binary individual who is a native Angeleno. They have been smoking weed since age 13. We celebrated 4/20 a couple of days before I interviewed them and so I asked them to describe the holiday to me. Stoner culture is folk culture because for so long it was illegal to smoke. So the group is tight knit. I do not think a lot of the culture has been documented by academics so I wanted to look into it.

 

Piece:

“4/20 is a sorta a holiday, like you can define it as a holiday. It’s when all the stoners celebrate, basically you smoke ridiculous amounts of marijuana. Fucking inject that. The actual, the most, what people think is the most truthful reason why it is a thing is pretty much there was a group of high school kids, somewhere in Northern California, where I do not remember, who pretty much their slang term for weed was four twenty because everyday after school they would meet up at 4:20 to smoke. And pretty much when the um, Grateful Dead were travelling around, they had the whole Deadheads following them too and pretty much at one point these deadheads met these kids, they use that slang and the slang simply got spread. And now it is THE number of weed. It was pretty much localized slang.”

 

Here is an article which lists several other folk beliefs on the origin of 4/20 and asserts this verison as true: http://www.laweekly.com/news/mythbusting-420-its-one-true-origin-and-a-whole-lot-of-false-ones-4177495

 

Tupac Isn’t Dead

Context:

The subject is an Asian woman, born in China, who has lived in Los Angeles for most of her life. I asked about Los Angeles urban legends and she told me about Tupac. She did not seem to know a lot about Tupac’s death or the conspiracy that he is still alive, but she was very adamant that he was. This devotion shows a legend is as strongly held even if the facts are unknown.

 

Piece:

“I think, I believe Tupac is alive. So first of all, the way he, so he was shot in the passenger seat when he died and people were like “its a planned death by Biggie”, and then. But I think, eh, ah, it’s too easy. Just think of on the road, and theres a police putting off the work not getting to investigation when like the crime happened, the police, LAPD were not fully involved in to investigating, they just looked at their crime and just like close the case right away. I think thats a little suspicious, I think he was trying to like get away with this whole like, cause he, well ok like Tupac, I feel like Tupac and Biggie beef wasn’t personal, it was more like a fanbase thing like “oh it was west coast or east coast” or whether it was who’s music was better. Totally made up thing, and personally Tupac and Biggie wasn’t like explicitly like having a beef or competition cause like that’s how media tried to portray them. I don’t think anyone killed Tupac. I think Tupac fake death himself. It’s so easy you just pay a lot of money to the police for someone who fake do the crime and you like declare your death. It’s so easy, my family can do it, and so can Tupac. White people can’t tell black people apart, like he can change his hair and be in Cuba somewhere. Biggie was also shot to death, I’m not sure about Biggie. I think he’s alive, more of a Tupac fan.”

 

Dark Side of Oz

Context:

The subject is an Asian woman, born in China, who has lived in Los Angeles for most of her life. She has been smoking weed for several years by this point and so when interviewing them, I asked if there were any stoner folk legends. This was her response. I do not think she actually knows a lot about the custom/ legend. It is also fascinating to me because I can not easily categorize this practice. I know it is folklore because one learns it from another person, and some versions say to start the song late or play it several times so there is variation. But it is not easily a legend or a custom.

 

Piece:

“Dark Side of the Oz. Ok so on 4/20. So there’s this I would say there’s this saying that if you sync up Dark Side of the Moon and the Wizard of the Oz [She mean The Wizard of Oz], the movie, together they sync up really well. I don’t knwo where I heard it, but it’s a thing. So on 4/20 me and some friends, Ian, Jackson, Ben, the other Jackson, were just chilling and then Manny was like guys, we should watch Wizard of the Oz and listen to Dark Side of the Moon cause apparently they sync. So it was a really weird experience ‘cause you see people on screen talking and the like this movie but you hear the music being played. Its a weird concept. I think I enjoyed it. I think it comes from lip-dubbing, like videos on Youtube. The first people were probably some stoners. Like they put it on and were like “oh my god” then the posted it on Reddit and next thing you know, its a thing. I didn’t know it was a thing until Manny brought it up the other day.”

 

Placing Consciousness Into A Coca-Cola Can

Context:

The subject is a white, gender non-binary individual who is a native Angeleno. I asked the subject if they had ever had a ghostly experience and this is was their response.

 

Piece:

“It was me and my two guy friends and they got me into it. We were hanging out at my house and one of them was doing this whole thing were he was like playing with putting his consciousness in other objects. And at one point, he’s like doing that. And pretty much he got possessed. He got possessed and my other friend freaked the fuck out. He just was not acting like himself at all and was being pretty fucking weird, but pretty much when he had gotten possessed — he got possessed one time and then stopped and then  he was like “I’m going to do this again blah blah blah”. And pretty much, it was like the same spirit and pretty much like put his consciousness into a coca-cola can, an empty coca-cola can, which I was then carrying around. And then, pretty much, I whispered into the coca-cola can, because I thought they were fucking with me. I was like “hey, if you actually like are like in here like say toast when you’re back in your body” and what does he do when he’s back in his body is come up, give me a hug, and whisper toast in my ear.”