Main Text:
Folk Game: Beer Pong

Background on Informant:

My informant is my younger brother, who graduated from UC Davis. While in college, he was part of a fraternity where he regularly participated in social events that included different drinking games. I asked him about beer pong, since it is one of the most common games played in those settings. He explained that he learned it from other members and continued to play it throughout college, often with slight variations in rules depending on the group.

Text:

Interviewer: Can you explain how beer pong works?

Informant: Yeah, it’s a game where you set up 10 cups filled halfway with beer in a triangle on both sides of a table. Each team  made up of two players takes turns throwing  2 ping pong balls, (1 for each player) trying to land it in the other team’s cups.

Interviewer: What happens if the ball goes in a cup?

Informant: If it goes in, that cup gets taken away, and the other team has to drink it. The goal is to make the other team drink all their cups first if you can do that you win.

Interviewer: Are the rules always the same?

Informant: Not really. Different houses play with different rules. Some have an airball rule where if you miss the table completely you got to drink a cup, some have same-cup equals 3 cups and you get balls back.

Informant: you mean if both players on one team make each of their balls into the same cup?

Informant: Yeah, and they get balls back and can re shoot, actually anytime they both make it they get balls back, but if its same cup its three cups not two. Also, if you bounce it into a cup, the other guy has to drink two cups so if you both bounce it into the same cup its 5 cups balls back.

Interviewer: So I take it bouncing it in a cup is hard?

Informant: Yeah, because they can block bounces.

Interviewer: Where do people usually play it?

Informant: Mostly at parties, especially in college, sometimes you will see it at bars.

Interviewer: Where did you first play it?

Informant: Davis.

Analysis:
This is a folk game because although there is a structure, there are no set rules it is learned informally, through social interaction and passed between groups through horizontal transmission, and can change from place to place displaying multiplicity and variation among different social demographics. The game also functions as a way to create social cohesion when people are agreeing on specific rules across different groups, especially in party settings. It also reflects the shared practices of a specific folk group, such as college students, but still remain different enough to create its own niche within the folk community, where different colleges have different stories rules and legends devoted to the game.