Author Archives: fresolon

Polybius

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Seattle, Washington
Performance Date: 4/12/16
Primary Language: English

Polybius is an urban legend videogame–meaning a video game that is only rumored to have existed.

 

What’s Polybius?

BA: Polybius is a video game, supposedly made by SEGA, that caused the kids to play it to have seizures. They say there’s only been one Polybius cabinet–this was the 80s, when games were in cabinets in arcades, like Pac Man and Asteroids and stuff…and this cabinet was in Portland.

Why was there only one cabinet?

BA: There was only one cabinet, because that’s how they tested the game before release. It was a big game by a big company, and it used new graphics technology, so they just secretly tested it under a fake name…if the game passed testing, it wouldn’t be called “Polybius”. But… the kids who played it got addicted to it and had seizures. People reported seeing men in suits watching them play, and some say it was the United States government watching to see the effect of the game, to somehow use it as a weapon. Anyway, they scrapped the game and hid it from the records once the kids had seizures, so they couldn’t get any bad press, so nobody’s heard of it since.

 

The mystery of Polybius originated on the internet in discussion boards in 1998. It’s since snowballed to a huge essential question: “Is Polybius real or fake?”. Some claim that it is a fabricated story based on the overwhelmingly negative reception of the early testing stages of Tempest, while others claim to have been part of the developer team responsible for the game.

There are some slight references to Polybius in popular culture, such as a background joke in The Simpsons and the plot of a long-cancelled G4 series, Blister

Pennsylvania Apple & Cheese Festival

Nationality: American
Age: 86
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Long Island, New York
Performance Date: 3/7/16
Primary Language: English

The informant is an 86-year old man who spent his adult life in Northeastern United States.

 

Tell me about the Pennsylvania Apple & Cheese Festival

TS: Every October, for the past ten years, me and my wife made it a tradition to go to the Apple and Cheese Festival in Pennsylvania. Then, after maybe five years, we started going with some people from the fire department, until it became.. uhh.. a whole sorta tradition for a bunch of us in the community.

How many of you go to the festival together?

TS; There are about forty of us that go now, every October. It’s a wonderful place.

 

The Pennsylvania Apple and Cheese Festival is a celebration of the agricultural economy of Pennsylvania, with focus on  apples and cheese production. Using agricultural pride as the foundation for a festival, the festival-runners bring tourists and profits into an area that normally wouldn’t draw many.

MLG Remixes

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/1/16
Primary Language: English

The informant is a 19-year old college student.

 

BW: An MLG Remix is hard to explain.. It’s like,, making fun of the culture of like middle schoolers on Xbox Live, and everything around that. There are these gaming channels on Youtube that celebrate the highlights in a game of Call of Duty or Battlefield or something–usually CoD, and then set it to Dubstep music. MLG Remixes make fun of that by adding lots of really loud dubstep, a bunch of songs piled on top each other ’till you can’t even hear them… and also a bunch of other symbols and reoccurring.. “motifs” you can call them. Like Mountain Dew, Taco Bell, Snoop Dogg, smoking weed–they usually all show up in these MLG Remix videos. They’re meant to be funny too, like over-the-top, hyper-crazy, ironic.

What does MLG stand for?

BW: Major League Gaming. That’s the whole crowd that they make fun of, because they’re so serious about video games.

 

Various MLG Remixes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxmnZ3zVGBY

 

The Shopping Cart

Nationality: American
Age: 26
Occupation: Web Developer
Residence: Long Island, New York
Performance Date: 3/7/16
Primary Language: English

The informant is a 26-year old man who grew up in the suburbs of Long Island, New York

 

BF: The shopping cart is an ironic dance move, I guess you could say. It’s not any fun, and it doesn’t come from any interesting cultural spots, so it was made as a sort of anti-dance to celebrate the lack of culture in the suburban areas.

How does one do The Shopping Cart?

BF: Sure. To do The Shopping Cart, you just hold your arms out in front of you and lean forward, like you’re shopping at a supermarket. Then every few seconds you pretend to pick an item off the shelf, inspect it, and you know… either put it in the imaginary cart you’re wheeling or throw it back on the shelf. I think it’s pretty funny.

How’d you hear of The Shopping Cart?

BF: I heard of it in high school, at a graduation party. Everyone was doing it. It was weird, like a weird ritual.

 

Using Car Horns in Indonesia

Nationality: American
Age: 26
Occupation: Web Developer
Residence: Long Island, New York
Performance Date: 3/7/16
Primary Language: English

The informant is a 26-year old web developer who has spent much time traveling for work.

 

What was driving in Indonesia like?

BF: Indonesia was excellent. I never drove, I was always in a taxi. The funny thing is… everyone honks on the roads. Here it’s offensive or rude or abrasive–but everyone is doing it all the time in Indonesia. Sounds like New York City, with all the horns.

Were the roads different in any other way?

BF: Yeah, driving was also really tough because the cards weren’t as good and the roads were relatively shoddy. I guess that’s why everyone honks so much more. It’s funny how it’s not a gesture of rudeness there, but just the way people drive.

 

 

Video demonstrating the extreme use of car horns in Indonesia