Author Archives: madelenr

Tomato Joke

Informant: A baby tomato, a mom tomato, and a dad tomato were on a walk, and the mom and dad went aheaad of the baby tomato, and it was left behind, and the papa went over and smashed it and yelled, “Catch up!”

Collector: Where’d you hear that from?

Informant: My friend grace.

 

Informant is a freshman at the University of Southern California. She is studying Theater Arts in the School of Dramatic Arts here. She is from Austin Texas. I spoke to her while we were eating lunch at my sorority house. Much of what she told me was learned from her sister or her own experiences.

 

This is a good piece of folklore because the joke relies on a punchline that is a play on words. This might be difficult for some people to understand if they’re not familiar with Ketchup, so this joke may be restricted to certain places in the world with access to this specific product.

Footprints

Informant: Okay there’s this story they always talk about where it’s like, there’s a man on a beach with Jesus, and he has these two footprints in the sand or two sets of footprints in the sand. And at one part he looks back, he looks back and he sees in his life there’s a time where there’s only one set of footprints, and he’s like, “Jesus, that was a really rough time in my life, what you doin’? Why you leave me?” Um, and Jesus is like, “No, during those times, those footprints were mine because I was carrying you, and that’s it.

Collector: Where’d you learn that from?

ML: Um, I’m not sure where I learned it from, but the instance I can most vividly remember about hearing it was in religious class, religion class, probably religion class to be honest. They sometimes say it at funerals.

 

Informant is a freshman at the University of Southern California. She is studying animation in the film school here. She is from New Orleans, Louisiana. I spoke to her while we were eating breakfast in EVK one morning. We were sitting together with her two other friends, Ashley and Madeleine. Much of what she told me was learned from her sister or her own experiences.

 

This is an interesting story because it always seems to come up when there’s a difficult time. The story itself is based on a person going through stuff, and seems appropriate to be shared with young people as a way of reaffirming their belief in God, even when times are difficult. This story also seems to have spread pretty far because it’s a part of the Kairos retreat in Sacramento as well as being shared in a religion class in New Orleans.

Louis Tomlinson – Babygate

Informant: I believe in conspiracy theories. Okay, um, can I do the conspiracy theory that Louis Tomlinson’s baby doesn’t exist?

Collector: Yes

Informant: Okay, so, Louis Tomlinson was in One Direction, and there’s always been rumors that he is dating Harry Styles. And, um, but they like obviously could not reveal that they were together because they were in One Direction, a controlling boyband. They had to be like single and into girls and all that stuff because that’s their claim, like why would they release that they’re gay? But One Direction just broke up, so now they can, so they needed a reason to break up, so Louis decided he was going to have a baby, so that way he could take some time away from the group to raise it, and the group would break up, and he could be with Harry Styles. So, the reason it does not make sense is because, so, first off, if you look at the dates of like when the girl says she had the baby and when he says she had the baby, it like doesn’t add up, like, they’re days apart. First of all when the girl was introduced to the public, like when they first hung out, she was already posing for pictures with him as if somebody was like, “hey you’re going to be important later on, like pose for these pictures.” And then, like, um, after she gave birth she was already really skinny, which like, people it’s not like that. And there was never really photos of her as she was pregnant. Also the photos from when she was leaving the hospital, she was not in a wheelchair, no nurses escorted her out of the hospital, and it also said that it was private property, which hospitals are not. And then Louis wasn’t there, the pictures he posted weren’t real or something. But also, all the pictures seem like they’re fake because the baby could be a baby doll because it has the same feet position and hand position in every single photo, and also in all the pictures that Louis posted, if you photoshop, like if you use photoshop to look at them, the baby isn’t even touching him, and it honestly could not even be him because some of his tattoos aren’t the same, and other tattoos are like noticeable, which brings me back to the Harry Styles thing. Harry Styles has a tattoo of half a heart, and Louis has a tattoo of half a heart, but in the photos of the baby, his tattoo of half a heart wouldn’t be showing but it’s photoshopped so it is. And also for the girl, all of her photos are literally exactly the same as one of a mom blogger’s photos as if she just took those photos and was like, “this is my baby.” Isn’t it trippy? It’s totally like, the baby doesn’t exist.

 

My informant is a freshman at the University of Southern California. She is from San Diego, California. We had this conversation in the study room of my sorority house.

 

This is a really interesting piece because it’s so specific to this year, and continues to grow. The conspiracy that the two people in the boyband were in love with each other secretly dates back to when the band was founded, and many people analyze photos and interviews to point out ways that they could be in love. This conspiracy takes it to an entirely new level with many people claiming they’re aware of how types of metadata in photos work. This illustrates a way that a group of people can become so involved with a piece of folklore that they deceive themselves into thinking that it’s true.

Haunted Sorority House

Informant: Okay, so, um, my sister’s sorority house is haunted. And, um, she’s in AChiO at Oregon, and they were like the first sorority on campus, or first ones to have their house that they live in now on campus, so basically like AChiO here. So like because it’s been there for so long, two girls have died there and one of them died at the turn of the century. I think she fell down the stairs, but it doesn’t matter much, but the other one, this girl died in the seventies because she was on the stairs in some high heels and her sister as a joke, like, pushed her, but she fell down the stairs, and it’s a three story staircase, and she fell and broke her neck. And so she died in their house on like a normal night, and now she haunts the house and um her thing is that her ghost comes in the form of a cat so people hear weird meows in their room, and also she’ll come in the bathroom and like flicker the lights. She like threw paper towels at somebody, like this girl was just in there and paper towels just flew at her like peoples baskets will just get knocked off the wall. Also, they have a cat statue in their house, don’t know why, but they always say that it’s the ghost of the woman, and they’ll put it in people’s rooms and their suitcases when people go home just to scare them. It was really scary when I went up.

 

My informant is a freshman at the University of Southern California. She is from San Diego, California. We had this conversation in the study room of my sorority house.

 

This is something that seems to be a basis for some fictional stories. There was an episode of Psych having to do with a haunted sorority house. It seems that in this type of horror story, the person who dies always dies in a certain way, and if there are multiple deaths, they happen in the same way. In this case, both deaths happened on the stairs. It also seems common in many ghost stories and perpetuated by the show Supernatural, ghosts inhabit some type of object to haunt people with.

“Faith over fear.”

Informant: At my gym, we always say, “Faith over fear.” And that was like something we used to say all the time, and that was the one point that I was even semi religious in my life.

 

My informant is a freshman at the University of Southern California. She is from San Diego, California. We had this conversation in the study room of my sorority house.

 

This is interesting because it somewhat can be related to a ritual before going out to perform. My informant was a cheerleader for a while, so this would work as a ritual and a superstition for some kind of performance she would ever do. It seems that many people have religious rituals they do before a performance, such as one of my informants doing the Catholic cross before going on in every ballet number she did. These manifest even in people who aren’t religious, and my informant is not religious anymore. This is interesting and shows some type of dependency on the idea of some hope for help from some other place, even without the belief that a God or higher power exists. It seems to be a type of mechanism that people just develop.