Author Archives: Sophie Benson

Ruckus, Shenanigans, Mischief

This way of classifying personality types comes from the informant and his friend, although they are not sure which one came up with it first. The classification has spread beyond them to their entire friend group as well as others who other friends have exposed them to. The informant relates the method of classification to Bird, Horse, Muffin which can be found in another post in the archive.

“So related to bird horse muffin is another trio that describes people which is Mischief, Ruckus and Shenanigans, and that’s basically how you have fun, and if you want to just bang around and make noise, that’s ruckus, if you kinda want to be sneaky and do bad things and cause drama, that’s mischief, and if you just want specific often rule based fun you’re shenanigans, whereas if you’re ruckus you can’t handle rules, mischief can handle rules a little bit but usually when they want to fuck with it, shenanigans loves rules, loves silly things, and it you can also describe all of world history and interpersonal relations and the way they interact with each other, and the group of friends will interact with each other. based on bird horse muffin what if there was another trio iteration, but those had too much overlaps, whereas no one is all three. i think in combination with bird horse muffin it really explains the way we interact with each other, it really explains all of the drama we’ve had. And yeah.”

Analysis:

The informant often uses these terms of classification when meeting new people or when justifying a friend’s action. He is able to boil down their actions to their classification. It is an easy way to describe different personality types and whether or not they would want to further any relations. The informant would describe himself as shenanigans with a hint of mischief.

Starbucks Subliminal Advertising

This was told over lunch when a group of friends were discussing the new Starbucks drinks. The informant is a young 20 year old girl.

“Well, I heard once was that starbucks baristas spell your name like weirdly wrong, even if you have a very simple name and someone told me that was because they do that on purpose, because then you take a picture and then send it to people or post it online and that gives them free advertising!”
Analysis:
This is a newer version of a folk tale, that came out of the infamous actions of the Starbucks baristas. Everyone who listened to this story was pretty amazed and believed that it could be true. There is merit to the idea that such a big corporation as Starbucks would use some sort of subliminal, if not Orwellian, advertising technique to make people buy more. There is also the aspect of joining in on the fun of having your name spelt incorrectly, as if you are joining a community of people who have been wronged by corporate America.

High School Song Contest

This tradition was told in a setting where a group of friends were recounting old and weird high school traditions. This is one from a small private all-girl’s school in Ohio.

“So in my high school, my high school is like a school that’s all grades, like you can go there from the time you’re two years old to when you graduate, I just went when I went o high school, and in the highs school there’s this thing that each grade, so just the four, they do a thing called song contest and each grade will pick a theme and it’s super secretive and then you have to pick songs like four or five songs that fit that theme and change the lyrics to be about my high school Laurel, and you have to play your own music, so like you can’t play a stereo, you have to get your own music and your own dances, and then the alumni will vote on the best and which celebrates Laurel the most, and it’s this whole thing because my school’s been around since 1896 so there’s some very old alumni, and like, they’re like, conspiracies that like you have to pick older songs cause the old people aren’t going to know, and last year the juniors did beyonce and it was good like super good, but they didn’t win because basically because they chose too new of the artists or something like that, and there’s another conspiracy that like if the seniors don’t win it’s like a riot, and I guess that like once the seniors didn’t win and all their rich parents were like we’re defunding, we’re taking back our loans and all that, but like the seniors haven’t won a few times, like we didn’t win when we were seniors and we were fine, there was some people though who made it a big thing because they have ties to alumni and all that”

Analysis:

It’s clear to see that the reasoning behind the rumours around the song contest – it would mean more chances to win. However, it is interesting about the seniors needing to win, because it would seem that perhaps it would ENSURE that the senior class would win. However, as the informant noted, her class did not win and there were no repercussions.

Champ: Vermont’s Loch Ness Monster

This story was told during a moment between friends when talking about stories and weird traditions from our hometowns:

“Okay um, so Champ. Champ is a seas monster that lives in lake champlain which is where i grew up. We, it’s like, explained as the Loch Ness Monster but in Lake Champlain, um, and it just kinda like, i think the folklore around it, it’s like, it’s not like a fun thing that we joke about, everyone is pretty sure that it’s real, like, we’re all trying to prove it. Like there’s this little Vermont boathouse that’s run by this French-Canadian family where you can get penny candy, you can rent boats for five dollars an hour, it’s like everything’s so cheap, a land lost in time. Um, his sister, who’s like the face of the operation now, um has the store and was interviewed by the news because she saw it come up on the land. And why would she lie? She’s the most trust-worthy person in all of burlington. Um, so like that’s kinda it, we’re all trying to prove that theres a seamster in the lake. Because it’s the deepest fresh-water lake in the continental US. I think in the US. It’s just so deep, not that big, but so deep. There’s gotta be something down there, it could survive. Um, it’s kinda one of those things that I don’t remember hearing about for the time, because it’s so engrained in the culture, especially in burlington which is the main tourist town around the lake and so much of the imagery around the waterfront is Champ related, um, but I can remember, like i don’t remember if this is, the most memory that I can think of is that there’s a fun little statue of champ, like very cartoony, in front of this like, like, club, but a place you’d go to have a nice dinner and listen to music, so like that, we went there one time and I saw it and I was like what’s that and my mom was like that’s Champ! but yeah, all the imagery is around champ, our vermont minor league baseball team is the Vermont Lake Monsters… so my parents aren’t from burlington, and they aren’t from burlington at all, and a lot of my friends are fourth or fifth generation vermonters, and there’s a place called Ken’s Pizza, and we call it Kens, but the real vermonters call it the pub. It was the part of the place that I get to be a part of that my parents weren’t to be a part of the folklore and be a real Vermonter.”

Champ is a local figure of Lake Champlain in Vermont and New York. Folklore surrounding Champ dates back all the way to the native populations before white settlers. Today, the lake is protected safe waters for the sole purpose of maintaining Champ’s habitat. It’s even been put into legislature! You can find out more by looking up Champ’s folklore, of which there is many.

 

Bird, Horse, Muffin

I asked the informant to retell a way of classification that was very important to the informant’s friend group as a way in which they bonded with each other.

“Ok, so bird horse muffin is a way to classify people as either bird horse muffin and they can be a mix of the two, um but they can’t be all three, roughly, although this a very rough sketch is that a bird would be more reserved, a little weird, kinda flighty, a horse is very out there, controls the room uh, big type of person, muffin is very sweet and nice and has like no edge to them, um, that’s the rough outlines. Uh, I first learned it from my friend Nanase who learned it at camp, but it’s also like a real thing that you can find on like the internet. And apparently, like my friend Anna told me that it’s used uh, that it’s used in corporate team building stuff to find out what type of worker you are, and so like a horse who really drives it, but like, a horse can be hard to work with but when they’re on they’re really on. A muffin is so nice to work with but they’re not necessarily going to lead like a horse will, and then like a bird is going to be quiet but then give one really brilliant idea, and then like not do anything else, and so they were saying that you, in your company, you need a balance of these, like if you have too many horses everyone’s just going to argue all the time, if you have to many birds there’s not consistent work, if you have too many muffins like, it is fine, but you’re not doing anything brilliant if you just have muffins. and you can like explain all of world history and interpersonal relations and everyone’s family and how like bird horse muffins interact and how like, and if you’re two, if you’re bird horse in different situations your horse would come out, in different situations your bird would come out, uh, to help or hurt you in different ways”
Analysis:
Bird, Horse, Muffin is a real classification that is used in corporate world, as the informant told us, however, in my research I was not able to find a definitive source for the creation of the classification. This furthers it’s folkloric aspect, a non-authored work. The definitions are relatively the same but have definitely been changed in this case to fit the informant’s friend group. The informant would describe himself as a bird.