Tag Archives: tag

Cheese Touch

Text

“Cheese touch” a game of tag

 

Background

The informant told me that she learned this game while in elementary school and that she’s noticed that most people played this game when they were younger, even if they did not go to her school. The game originally came from the popular book “The Diary of a Wimpy Kid” when a character touched a piece of moldy cheese and was diagnosed with “the cheese touch.” This game quickly caught on with elementary school children across the nation, even with kids who did not read the book. The game was essentially tag, but instead of “being it” it was called having the cheese touch. The informant notes that it was occasionally used to bully other children (popular kids would sometimes give the touch to a kid they thought was weird so that they would have an excuse to run away from or ignore said kid). She said that boys would mostly give it to other boys unless a boy had a crush on a girl, in which case he would give it to her. She confessed that she never really believed in the cheese touch but that it was just a fun game to play on the black top.

 

Context

The informant goes to a school in Southern California and grew up in Newport beach where she attended a nice public school.

 

Thoughts

While this game was just something that the kids used to entertain themselves during recess, it gives insight on how young children socialize with one another. I find it interesting that the children would use the same strategy on a kid they were bullying and the kid they “had a crush on.” Because children have no prior relationship experience, they don’t know how to handle romantic feelings and may resort to this tactic in order to express their emotions.

 

Traps and Doors

When my friend was a kid she played a game at recess on circular four square court.  The game was essentially a variant of tag.  One person would be it and they would chase the other players around the court.  The rules were that the players must stay on the outside of the court and not enter any of the squares.  The court had cracks in it which could be entered from the outside but if a player was on the inside the cracks became a dead end and they had to turn around.  When players were tagged they went into the prison area (the squares in the court) and they could be tagged out.

My friend invented this game and played it with her friends at recess so the game was very close to her.  I think she felt pride that her friends all partook in a piece of folklore that she invented.

The game seems to be at its heart very close to tag but the moderations allow tag to be played in an area that would ordinarily be much too small for tag.  This shows the evolution of a folkloric game into a form that is adapted for the environment it was confined to.  The addition of the cracks as a rule also shows the complexity in the game practice and an incorporation of the environment into the gameplay.

 

 

 

Mattress Tag

Information about the Informant

My informant grew up in Hacienda Heights where he went to high school, and received his bachelor’s degree from USC. He is a game designer and is currently working for a social mobile gaming company based in Westwood.

Transcript

“This might be from TV, but, um, if you cut off the tag on your bed, that brings you like seven years bad luck. Have you heard that?”

Collector: “I’ve heard breaking a mirror.”

“Oh yeah, breaking a mirror. [laughs]”

Collector: “I haven’t heard take…”

“Cutting the tag. The mattress–”

Collector: “The price tag?”

“Yeah. Or, or like the…I guess it’s the carer tag. Like how to take care of it.”

Analysis

I did a bit of research and found no real research conducted on this piece of folklore. There were some poorly worded comments on Yahoo! Answers and various similar sites where individual people indicated that they also thought it was bad luck to cut the tag off a mattress. But mostly what I found were sites that addressed the false belief that cutting the tag off a mattress would result in legal prosecution should the owner be found out. These sites addressed the fact that care tags used to be required on mattresses so that the customer could read the tag and know exactly what materials were used to make and stuff the mattresses. For the store owner to cut the tag off then in order to deceive his customers then was an illegal move. The warning that the government placed on the tag warning store owners not to remove the tag was worded poorly however, and left consumers consumed as to whether or not they could remove the tags after purchase. How this translated from possible legal prosecution though to bad luck, I’m not exactly sure, although it’s undeniable that being arrested could certainly be interpreted as bad luck, and the origins of this “bad luck” lost somewhere along the line for some people.

Call of Duty

Amari Broadnax was born in Fontana, CA in 2006.  He has lived in Rialto, CA all of his life.  He is a six year old first grader at Lena M. Preston Elementary School.   Amari practices Tae Kwon Do at the Tiger Lee Karate Schools in Rialto.  He is the eldest of two boys to his mother, Keesha Cuthbert, who is a full time student at the University of Southern California and Assistant Branch Manager at JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A.

Me:                        Amari, what games do you play at recess?

Informant:          (looks at me nervously, fidgets with clothes) Why? Did Mrs. Dietz call you?

M:                          What?  Why would she call me?

I:                             … I don’t know …

M:                          Okay, Amari, I don’t know what is going on.  I just want to know what you play at recess.

I:                             Am I going to get in trouble?

M:                          What? No. Why would you get in trouble? Amari, I promise you won’t get in trouble.

I:                             (hesitates) Mom, we are not supposed to play it though.  It’s called Call of Duty. Like the video game. You know?

M:                          Yes, I know.  Continue …

I:                             Okay, so, Mom, the boys umm are the zombies and umm we like try to get the girls.  So the girls umm run away from us so that they don’t umm become like us …like the zombies.  … and then, we  like turn the girls into umm the zombies and then the last human wins! (smiles) Mom, what’s wrong?

M:                          I don’t get it.  So, if you touch the girl she becomes a zombie?   How are there and humans left to win?

I:                             Mom, when I umm touch the girl I turn into a human and she is a zombie.  Do you get it now?

M:                          I think so … It sounds like Freeze Tag.

I:                             What’s that?

M:                          Nothing. Nevermind.

I:                             Mom …

M:                          Amari?

I:                             I’m not in trouble, right.  Cause that’s what you said …

M:                          No, you are not in trouble.

___

This sounds like a variation of Freeze Tag, that I used to play as a kid.  Basically, you transfer the “freezing” from one person to another until there is one person that remains unfrozen.  The thing that I remember about this game is that the more people that were playing, the longer the game lasted.  So, with a playground full of elementary school kids, it seems the perfect game for recess because it would never end.

Flashlight Tag

Flashlight tag is a form of hide and seek played at night. Depending on the age of the players it can be played either during a full moon or a new moon for varying levels of difficulty or spookiness. One team is designated “it” and given a flashlights. The others go and hide while the “it” players wait some predetermined amount of time usually measured by counting. Once the game begins the “it” players must turn on their flashlight and leave them on. They must then use their flashlights to find players and get close enough to determine their identity and yell their name, at which point they must go to jail. Other players may tag players who are in jail to “break them out.” The game is over once everyone is in jail.

My informant first played this game in Boy Scouts when his troop was going on a camping trip at a local state park. The boys organized this game to pass the time during an otherwise uneventful evening. Boy Scouts teach children survival and tracking skills so it makes sense that they would be interested in playing games that emphasize those skills. Its also worth noting that originally Boy Scouts was developed as a program for preparing boys for the military. This game is strongly reminiscent of guerrilla warfare, and the skills needed to succeed in surprise attacks are the same skills needed to succeed in this game. Teamwork also plays a big role in the game as players who work together well have a greater chance of winning.

Flashlight Tag by Daniel Christian

http://www.myspace.com/danielchristianmusic/videos/flashlight-tag/9329136