Main Text: 

“Don’t stick your chopsticks upright in your bowl – it’s for the dead”

Context:

Informant talked about how this is a bad omen Asian culture. Now however it’s just considered rude to do – without the superstition and is just generally rude socially.

Thoughts:

The informant seemed slightly disinterested in the superstition she talked about, as she does not believe in the superstition; however, she did stress the social connotation and that she still observes this practice and even becomes uncomfortable when other people don’t. It is interesting that this tradition is being maintained without any of the extended beliefs attached and has turned into etiquette outside of spiritual observation.

Main Text:

“Don’t pass food directly between chopsticks.”

Context:

“This action is reserved for handling bones after cremation. The family passes the bones of the person between each other to the container that holds it. Some see it as a bad omen to pass things between chopsticks otherwise – Chinese and Japanese usually. It is just generally rude in any setting unless designated otherwise to be rude.”

Thoughts:

While there a sanitary byproduct to this tradition (no saliva exchange as etiquette demands that when picking up food from the center of the table, the person picking it up should use the backside of the chopsticks – this is true for also then serving that food to other people at the table), this action is primarily something set aside for interacting with the dead. As with the etiquette to not stick chopsticks upright into anything – particular rice – food and food related tools have specific designations when interacting with the dead vs the living.

Main Text:

“When it’s your year of the Chinese Zodiac, you have to wear something red for the whole year and not take it off”. Informant wore a bracelet, brother wore a bracelet, dad wore something around the waist. 

Context:

“I think it’s for good luck? Usually it’s something woven like string. I’ll shower with it on and everything. We put it on at Chinese New Year and cut it off at the following Chinese New Year. I only remember this being a thing for immediate family plus my grandma and grandpa. Maybe other families have different traditions. We also have to go to the temple during their animal year for prayers.” Red is a lucky color in Chinese culture. 

Thoughts:

As an outsider, it is difficult to add anything to the context already described by the informant. This is a New Year tradition and lines up with other Chinese New Year traditions that value bringing about good luck for the coming year or keeping bad luck away.

Context: 

Rocket league is an online competitive game – quickly described as “car soccer”

Text: 

An item called “the white hat” is the rarest item in the game (at least one of the rarest). It is only given to people who find game breaking exploits in the game. The information has never seen one in the game – there are probably 18 in existence and agreed that the status of this item is “Kinda like a cryptid – enough people have said that it really exists for it to be true, and this is believable even though I haven’t seen one”. 

Thoughts: 

Items in this game are cosmetic and do not serve any mechanical purpose. However, this particular item strikes fear in the heart of any opponent who encounters it in competitive play. It takes a lot of creativity and time to find things in a polished, multiplayer game as there has to be substantial faith in the system for pro play to be supported. If the community thinks that the game is too buggy and broken or that it is unfairly balanced and full of exploits, the esport scene rarely develops. Hence, when these exploits are found, they are immediately removed or fixed. A player who can find these exploits is incredibly rare and the hat as a physical symbol in the game functions as a status symbol – recognized by the entire community.

Context: 

Rocket league is an online competitive game – quickly described as “car soccer”

Main text: 

Content creator named Athena. “She plays rocket league a lot, and is like fine? But people give her shit for being bad at it. Mechanics in rocket league are named, and the community named a flick after Athena. When you rotate the car to tap the ball it’s called a flick, and when the ball is flicked, then bounces off the crossbar, it’s called an Athena Flick. You can read into the misogynistic connotations as much as you want as she is one of the few women in the Rocket League content creation space. Again, she’s not like, bad at the game? Sure she plays a lot and isn’t a pro-esport player, but she’ll trash the average player right”
Thoughts:
Named mechanics in video games are often the ultimate status symbols. These mechanics are not named by the developers and are named by the community, so for a name to emerge, a substantial majority of the community must actively start using ang continue to use the name. Male streamers in the space are not “given nearly as much shit” as Athena in particular. In the broader streamer context it should be noted that viewers often “meme on” women in the streaming space by just throwing hate at them. Sometimes it can be funny and tasteful, but often, especially for women who have young communities (not age wise – in terms of how long the community has been around) will receive a ton of hate for no reason outside of the fact that they are women. Some fans try to turn this around by making it humours, but the misogyny is not to be ignored. In the case of the Athena flick, the informant seemed to sheepishly find it funny that this flick was named at all (as mechanically it is specifically a flick that fails), but seemed conflicted because of some of the connotations behind it and an awareness of how horrible viewers can be to streamers.