Author Archives: William Anderson

Color in Super Smash Bros

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Peachtree City, GA
Performance Date: 4/26/2015
Primary Language: English

My informant is an avid player of the Super Smash Brothers game series. This game has fostered a very unique community due to its wide appeal and unique gameplay mechanics. This community encompass all players who play the game, but in this interview when my informant talks about the “Smash Brothers community” he is referring to the community of thirty or so individuals who meet up weekly (or biweekly) at his local game store to play the game together. When they meet up and compete with each other it is called a “local” which simply is shorthand for local gathering or local tournament.

Transcription:

Me: So knowing that your main character is a large part of your identity in this game, is there any way to decide who is the definitive player of a certain character.

Him: Well yes and no. Because Super Smash Brothers is such a complex series there often isn’t an objective best player of a certain character within a community. If there is however, he would be the definitive player if that makes sense. However, when you pick a character you also pick what color costume you want him to wear. There are between four and 8 alternate costumes for each character I believe, depending on which game in the series you are playing. When you main a character you usually also pick your color. For example, I am our communities gold Captain Falcon and my friend uses pink Captain Falcon. This way people can tell us apart when watching the game even if they cannot see who is playing.

Me: But what if two people use the same color?

Him: Actually that doesn’t really happen. Once you’ve claimed a color it is kind of yours. Sure some else could use that color, after all there are tons of smashers (slang for members of the smash bros community) and only so many color combinations, but if they do it in your local area, or in a big tournament it would be pretty disrespectful.

Me: Why would it be disrespectful?

Him: I’m not actually sure why people make so much of a big deal out of it, but I guess it is because using someone else’s color is kind of like calling them out. If you use their color and lose the match it looks like you were saying they are bad. If you win the match while using their color it looks like you were saying that you are better than them. People actually get really serious about this. Sometimes at tournaments or other large gatherings people of the same main (people who play the same character regularly) who use the same color will challenge each other to a best of 5 match. Whoever wins the match gets to keep the color. Its kind of a big deal.

Me: So if you lose you just have to stop using that color.

Him: That’s right. At least publicly.

Analysis:

It is fascinating how much a color matters to members of this community. At first glance it seems almost unreasonable how much they fight for “their color” when there is no way to determine whose color it was first. However, when you see the sheer size of the smash bros community, you realize that it must be very hard to stand out. Given that, it makes sense that these players fight to cling on to whatever little piece of unique identity they can have.  In this game there are only two ways to change how you look like. You can pick a different character or you can change your color. That means that your color is half of your visual identity. Knowing that, it is understandable how these player would take their color so seriously.

I Hate White Rabbits

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Peachtree City, GA
Performance Date: 4/26/2015
Primary Language: English

My informant was a Boy Scout as child. Throughout his childhood he was dedicated to the scouts and ultimately earned the rank of Eagle Scout. Because of this he has spent a lot of time in the Boy Scouts’ community and knows of the customs attributed to the branch of this community located in Georgia.

Transcript:

Me: So you mentioned you were a boy scout.

Him: Yeah I was.

Me: Are there any rituals or traditions that you would do in the boy scouts that you wouldn’t do elsewhere?

Him: Oh? Yeah I now a good one like that. So when I used to be a Boy Scout we would often go camping as a troop. At night the whole troop would often gather around a campfire. We would usually sit in a circle around the fire and because it was usually windy the fire would always be blowing in some direction. Smoke would be blowing in someone’s face. We had this superstition that if you said “I hate white rabbits” when the smoke was blowing in your face it would magically change direction. It obviously didn’t work much, but it was still a superstition that we bought into.

Me: And where did you learn this?

Him: I learned it from an older scout when I was a Tenderfoot and then when I was a leader within the troop I would tell this to the new scouts.

Me: One more thing. Why white rabbits?

Him: Honestly I couldn’t tell you.

 

Analysis:

There are two things from this that are particularly interesting. The first thing is that the informant acknowledged that his folk ritual was a superstition and didn’t work. This implies that despite the apparent meaning, they do not say “I hate white rabbits” in order to actually get the smoke away. Instead, I believe that they do this ritual as a subtle sense of community. That is to say that even if you do not believe that saying “I hate white rabbits” will work, you would do it anyways because thats what members of the community do. Knowing this makes you an official member. The second thing of note is the line “I hate white rabbits.” It seemingly makes no sense, as white rabbits have nothing to do with smoke. Furthermore my informant revealed that while he partook in the ritual, he did not know why they used the specific phrase “I hate white rabbits.” I believe that this reveals that the tradition is at least a few generations old, meaning that the original creators have long been forgotten by the Boy Scout troop. As such, it is plausible that the phrase was initially meant to be used as a joke, but ended up persisting and becoming a tradition.

Scarey Windowed Cabin Story

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Peachtree City, GA
Performance Date: 4/26/2015
Primary Language: English

Attached is a sound clip of an oral performance of the story. The informant heard the story from a friend who he believes heard it from a scout master at a Boy Scout camp. He said that the story is meant to be told at night with small groups of people. The story is told to scare or unsettle the audience. He also said that it is probably a campfire story.

Analysis:

The story does not follow Propp’s Morphology, but because it is not a tale about any sort of hero or conflict that is to be expected.

This story is clearly intended to fear people. The fact that the story takes place in the woods leads me to believe that this story would most effective told at night in the wilderness. In this way I agree with my informant that it would probably work well as a campfire story. The whole tension present in the story comes from two uncomfortable situations: being lost and being watched. Ultimately the protagonist is not harmed and was never in any danger, but he was watched intently for an entire night. The uneasiness of being watched is what this story plays on to invoke fear in those listening to it.

Assay DKA

Nationality: Asian American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/27/2015
Primary Language: English

My informant is a member of USC’s co-ed film fraternity DKA. In this fraternity there are many hidden rules and customs not known by the general public. She has a part of this fraternity for over a year now and is well versed in most of these customs. In this interview the term “active” is used. An “active” of DKA would be someone who is currently a part of and involved with the fraternity.

Transcription:

Her: Oh! I can tell you about DKA. We have a lot of customs for instance we have chapter every Monday. Actually, I’m going to talk about something else. If an Active says assay then everyone around who is an active in DKA responds with “DKA.” Its kind of a rhythm thing. Then everyone recognizes that their attention needs to be called and normally its only the president or hte vice president or someone on the board who says it. You can’t just call it out because then it loses its officialness.

Me: I’m sorry what do you guys say.

Her: Assay. A S S A Y.

Me: Okay. Could you just give me a hypothetical situation in which this would be used.

Her: Well like if we were throwing a party and our neighbors complained about noise then we should all say Assay DKA and then we could tell everyone that the party is over.

Analysis:

This seems like a pretty standard way of getting people’s attention. It seems somewhat militaristic in that a figure of authority says something and then everyone under him or her is expected to respond and listen. I believe that this custom stems from practicality as it seems to be used primarily at parties when it would be hard to gather the organization’s attention. By having this unwritten rule, the organizers of the party or event can quickly determine who is a part of their organization and gather their attention in an efficient manner.

Gamefaqs signature habits

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/20/15
Primary Language: English

The ritual:

Gamefaqs is a very popular gaming website and forum that people use as a communal portal for gamers. On this website, there is a sub-forum for essentially every game out on the market today. Each of these sub-forums has its own community with its own culture and cyber-rituals. My informant frequently posts on and reads the sub-forums dedicated to fighting games such as Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and BlazBlue. While all of these sub-forums reference different games, they are very similar games and as such these sub-forums contain similar communities. Because so many people post on these forums, it can be hard to establish a unique identity for yourself even if you are a frequent visitor and poster. However, there are two ways a poster (someone who posts on the online forums) can distinguish themselves from the pact: their avatar (a picture next to their profile) and their signature (a blurb of text shown after everything they post).

Gamefaqs users in particular place a lot of value on the signature. Users will often use their signature to show to the community who they are. As such, the creation of and transformation of a user’s signature is highly ritualized in the Gamefaqs fighting game sub-community. In these communities, the most respected and revered users have a picture of their favorite or best character from the game they play the most in their signature. For example, if someone played a lot of Blanca (a playable character) in the game Street Fighter he would put a picture of Blanca in his signature. The picture is often accompanied by a line of text saying something along the lines of “Gamefaq’s official (insert character here).”

While this seems like a fairly simple and non-confrontational thing to do, my informant, a Gamefaqs user of many years, revealed to me that members of this community take these signatures very seriously. Once someone has a character in their signature, nobody else is allowed to use that character in their signature. My informant told me that “if someone tries to put a character that has already been taken in their signature, they will be ignored or harassed until they change their signature to something else.” He continued to say that, “sometimes, when a user is completely unwilling to change their signature a moderator of the site will ban them from the forums temporary or forcefully change it.  This is something we take very seriously. Your signature is almost your entire identity on [Gamefaqs] so when someone challenges that of course the community is going to fight back.” However, if someone feels like they should be the true “owner” of a certain character’s signature, they may challenge the current “owner” to a best of three (sometimes best of five) match up to claim the title for themselves. Whoever wins gets to keep the signature.

 

Analysis:

Clearly identity is very important to the members of this community. Because it is one of the few ways to separate yourself, it makes sense that a user’s signature would be very important to him. The interesting thing here is how the entire community seems to respond when someone challenges the identity of a single user. This reveals that there is some form of a herd mentality in this community; if you mess with one member you mess with everyone. I believe this may be based on a fear of their system being challenged. If one person’s signature is taken freely, then anyones suddenly becomes up for grabs. In a community where anyone can join at any point by registering online, the old members can only secure their identity by helping each other keep the status quo.