Author Archives: kthanos@usc.edu

Baby Blue

Nationality: mostly Mexican/American
Age: 11-12
Occupation: Students
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 2018
Primary Language: English

Instructor: Can you guys think of any legends or ghost stories that you learned at home or from friends?

(There were multiple responses from varying students, however this post focuses on a single student’s response)

Angel*: Yeah! Baby Blue

Instructor: Whats that?

Angel*:

It’s like uhm you go into the bathroom and look into the mirror and uh fold your arms, and if you feel a weight in your arms its Baby Blue and you gotta drop it!

Maria : No no no, you gotta go into the bathroom by yourself and turn the lights off and cradle your arms like you’re holding a baby and say ‘Baby Blue’ in the mirror three times. If you feel a weight in your arms like you were holding a baby, you gotta pretend to drop it in the toilet and flush it before it gets too heavy.

Instructor: Or else what happens?

Maria: The baby will haunt your family.

Daisy : No if you don’t flush the baby, her mom will turn up behind you and scream at you to give it back and kill you if you don’t.

Instructor: So, who is baby blue?

Maria: It’s like a evil baby that will haunt you if you don’t get rid of it I think.

Instructor: And who is the women?

Daisy: Some kinda evil spirit I guess.

Instructor: Have any of you done this?

Daisy: I tried it once with my big sister.

Instructor: And did the woman show up?

Daisy: No, but I felt a weight in my arms and through it in the toilet so maybe I did it before the baby grew too big.

Instructor: Was it a scary experience?

Daisy: Yeah I guess, me and my sister ran outta the bathroom straight after flushing the toilet.

Analysis:

I found Baby Blue to be very interesting, becuase it reminded me a lot of games I played as a child. However, this had a different, darker twist on it. The idea is that the woman has most likely killed her child, at least thats what some of the children thought. However, a google search found that many of these stories are rooted in a much more srious topic. Some theorize that Baby Blue is actually about a botched abortion, or a mother who drowned her child due to severe postpartum depression. Although none of the children were aware of these deeper meaning, both the instructors of the class and the teacher were taken aback by the stories coming from these young kids. I likened this to played “Bloody Mary” in the bathroom as a kid, but upon further examination, i’ve realized that it most likely has a lot more to do with the political climate surrounding abortion and news cases that these kids have been raised around.

3:00 AM Challenge

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 11
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: March 28, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Instructor: Can you guys think of any legends or ghost stories that you learned at home or from friends?

(There were multiple responses from varying students, however this post focuses on a single student’s response)

 

Daisy*: “Does the 3 AM challenge count?”

Instructor: “well, that depends. What is the 3 AM challenge?”

Daisy*:  “It’s a youtube challenge. You have to stay up all night long, until three in the morning. And then you do normal things and they get weird, like, the lights turn off, or you get chills. Lots of people do it and make a youtube video of it”

Instructor: “Have you done the 3 AM challenge?”

Daisy*: “I did it with my cousin. It was hard to stay awake, but at 3 AM we went to make food, and my cousin went and cracked the eggs and he came back and told me that one of the eggs turned black when he cracked it, and at 3:01 it was back to normal.”

Instructor: “Why do you have to do it at 3 AM?”

Daisy*: “I think it’s because that’s when the devil comes out at night. So he is the one that makes all of the bad things happen.”

ANALYSIS:

This challenge is one of many that have cropped up among young youtube users and on other social media platforms over the past 5-10 years. However, this one is unique because it’s focused on a paranormal occurrence, rather than some sort of physical challenge (ie; the cinnamon challenge). All of the students in the class were seemingly aware of what this was, and many of them had varying accounts of either participating in the challenge or knowing someone who did. A quick youtube search under “3 AM Challenge” yielded an astounding 144,000,000 results, the most popular of which were centered about themes of demonic possession, and paranormal sightings at 3 AM. While the reasoning behind the precise time of the activity remains unclear, it is evident that many believe that it has a demonic of dark influence. There is no evidence that 3 AM has any significance in the bible or any other major religious text, however this seems to be a more recent adaptation of the concept of “the witching hour” which has historically taken place at midnight. What is most interesting is that even though this challenge seems rather frightening, none of the students seemed afraid of it, and most were boasting about how it “Wasn’t that scary”.

 

* The informant is a minor and was a participant in the JEP Program at USC. Daisy* is an alias to protect the student’s privacy.