Author Archives: Cole Garrett

Tebowing

Nationality: Scottish
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: My informant is a close friend who I have known for many years. He is a 23-year-old college student and has lived his whole life in Orange County, California. He currently resides in Los Angeles where he attends the University of Southern California and comes from a prominently Scottish heritage.

I began this interview a little different than my other interviews because we are such close friends. I started with very casual conversation and because I thought if I put him on the spot asking him to give me folklore, he might freeze up and not be able to think of any. I was interested to see if he knew of any cyber lore so I started talking about cyber lore that I had seen in the past and the first thing he said to me was, “what like Tim Tebowing?” This is where this piece of folklore came from.

Me: What exactly is Tim Tebowing?

Informant: “It is when you, like, just do the Tebow pose pretty much anywhere. You drop on one knee and put your head down like your praying to god”

Me: Where did you learn about this?

Informant: “I saw it online first, but for a while you could see people doing it for pictures on the street.”

Me: So for the most part it is done on the Internet?

Informant: “Yea I guess, cuz that’s where it spread. Like there are forums on the Internet of people “Tebowing” in ridiculous places and I think that’s where it spread the most.”

Me: Have you every Tebowed?

Informant: (Laughing) Maybe once.

Me: Why do you think Tebowing isn’t prominent anymore?

Informant: “It was just a trend, like anything else, it comes in fast and leaves just as fast, plus Tebow isn’t even playing anymore so he is kind of out of the spotlight”

Analysis: The Internet is quickly becoming a vastly popular way to spread folklore. People are constantly on their phones and computers, so when something becomes popular, it can go viral so much faster. In this sense, these new trends become well known across the entire globe within days. Something as simple as posing for a picture can instantly become known by millions of people. It seems as if this genre of folklore is rapidly spreading because of its accessibility and I think in the years to come we will see more and more folklore appearing over the Internet as the performances and speech begin to dwindle.

That’s What She Said

Nationality: Scottish
Age: 24
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: My informant is a close friend who I have known for many years. He is a 23-year-old college student and has lived his whole life in Orange County, California. He currently resides in Los Angeles where he attends the University of Southern California and comes from a prominently Scottish heritage.

I actually collected this piece by somewhat of an accident. As I was talking to my informant and further explaining folklore after we had been talking for a little while, I mentioned to him that it could be something that allows for variation and multiplicity. To make it clearer, I gave him the example of a joke I knew and then said, “see you have this element in the joke but if I wanted to I could, take it out and put this in”. To which he replied, “that’s what she said”.

This joke is very common and it is very widely used. I asked my informant where he first heard this joke and he said, “I have no idea”. Which is understandable because a joke like this is said so much it is really hard to figure out where you originally learned it. I then went on to ask him about the context of the joke and where he usually uses it. He replied, “well definitely not around my mom, that would be weird, but it’s really dumb to be honest, you just use it anytime someone says something kind of sexual and then just interrupt them with that’s what she said. I have also heard people that began to use it way out of context, that kind of became a thing for a while, like someone would just say something normal like “hey pass me the green beans” and someone shouts out that’s what she said. Really stupid but kind of funny I guess”.

This joke is interesting because unlike a lot of jokes, this joke never really made its way to written form because it is situational. You have to look at a situation and apply it, and in this sense it can be used a lot and it was used a lot by many people until it became lame to use it. I think this style of joke also shows a type of obsession with sexuality in our culture. Also it is somewhat taboo to talk about sex so this is another way that people find a way around saying something actually sexual when they put it into the context of a joke.

London Cheese: Fergie Spoof

Nationality: Dutch, Lithuanian, Russian, English
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: English

My informant is a 19-year-old college student who grew up in Chicago, Illinois, then moved out to California where she now attends the University of Southern California. Both her parents are from a Jewish background and her ethnicity is Dutch, Russian, Lithuanian, and English.

This piece of folklore is a very common form of song variation for young children. They will take a popular song and interchange the lyrics with just about anything as long as it follows the same structure as the original song. For example:

Informant’s song:

When I come to the market step aside (oh shit),
All the dieters cant deny (oh shit),
Although it has fat, its just like that (oh shit),
But who the heck cares its cheese (oh shit).

How come every time I come around
My London cheese its gets all green and brown?

Original song by Fergie

When I come to the club, step aside (oh, shit)
Pop the seats, don’t be hating me in the line (oh, shit)
VIP ’cause you know I gotta shine (oh, shit)
I’m Fergie Ferg, and me love you long time (oh, shit)

How come every time you come around
My London, London bridge wanna go down?

Informant: “I just learned it from another one of the kids on the playground. When something like this is brought up at school, especially in elementary school, it catches on really quick. Once you hear it, it gets stuck in your head, next thing you know you are singing it around school and even back at home. In this way, the song gets spread everywhere. The lyrics are kind of ridiculous so it would be easy to see there being multiple variations of this song out there. Also the fact that the original song was such a huge hit really helps the song carry. When people here a widely popular tune, it is much easier to remember.”

I thought that this was piece was very interesting for a few reasons. Firstly, my informant is collecting folklore as well and when she brought this up, it reminded me of how many songs I knew from my childhood that I would sing like this and how many songs I have heard young children sing. Many of them I can still remember every word of. It made me realize how often we use songs for folklore as kids. It is also interesting that for the most part, as kids, we are replacing popular song lyrics, rather than creating our own new songs. I think this most definitely says something for American culture and how much influence popular culture has on children. Also, the amount of exposure children get to popular culture reflects the ways we make these songs.

To See Is To Believe

Nationality: Korean
Age: 24
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: Korean

My informant is a 24-year-old foreign exchange student who was raised in South Korea his whole life.

I asked my informant if he had any proverbs that he could share with me. I was curious to see what I could learn about Korean culture by hearing his proverbs. I was surprised by the first proverb that came to his mind. He told me that this proverb is very popular in Korea and is widely used.

Informant: “The proverb is, “to see is to believe”. This is what it means in Korean, but if you translate to English it means more like, “Watching one time is better than listening 100 times. And it just means that I can tell you something 100 times and you will not understand until I actually show it to you. It also can mean to not trust the words until you see the action”.

Analysis: I thought this was really interesting because the first proverb that he told me was something that I have heard many times in America. This proverb is not limited to just Korea. It was also interesting that the Korean version is close to the English version, if not the exact same, while the translation offers a different reading. The meanings are very close but the translation seems to have a more direct connotation.

Arirang

Nationality: korean
Age: 24
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/30/15
Primary Language: Korean

My informant is a 24-year-old foreign exchange student who was raised in South Korea his whole life.

When I first asked him to give me some Korean folklore he quickly jumped to the first thing that he could think of. He told me about a song entitled “Arirang”.

Informant: “Everybody in Korea knows this song. They play it all on the TV and in many places. It is not something that you learn in school or through book, but like it is everywhere. It is almost Korean anthem because everybody knows how to sing it. I learned it when I was really young because you hear it so much. The song is okay, maybe I don’t like it so much because I have heard so many times, but it is like Korean anthem, so I kind of have to like it”

Analysis: This piece is interesting because Korea has a song that is so popular and everyone knows the song, but it is not the official anthem of the country. The song represents pride in one’s country and when it is played it is sung like a national anthem. It is also interesting that my informant is not so fond of the song because he has heard it so many times. He even went on to tell me that the song is so popular that it is registered in UNESCO.