Folk Game

“It’s called No Nose Goes. And it’s basically if there’s a big group of people and one person doesn’t wanna do something or if nobody wants to do something then…somebody can say ‘No nose goes’ and then you put your finger on your nose and everyone else has to put their finger on their nose and whoever is the last to put their finger on their nose has to do whatever it is. I absolutely think this is an effective strategy for picking the person to do the task because it is awesome and…yeah, it’s awesome. Some friends in high school told me about this. In my group of friends we did it a lot. Um, I thought everyone did it until I came to college and then I found out that a lot of people didn’t know about it…The other good thing about No Nose Goes is that one person can just put their finger on their nose and say it really softly so that nobody else hears and then the last person whose clueless that doesn’t notice everyone else putting their finger on their nose gets stuck with it…and it’s fun.”

I agree with Ben that this No Nose Goes “game” is an effective strategy to pick a person in the group to do an undesirable task because it’s very simple (there aren’t a lot of complicated rules), it doesn’t take too long, doesn’t involve use of props (all you need is your finger and your nose) and it’s easy to spot the “loser” because the people in the group just have to look for the last member without a finger on his nose. In a way, the game is meant to punish the oblivious one in the group for not paying attention or actively participating in the group’s discussion or plan. No Nose Goes is commonly played in groups because it’s a form of group identity and inclusion. The outsider who has no knowledge of the game is naturally the one who is forced to do an undesirable task so the game is like a rite of passage that brings a new member into the group.