Author Archives: swatson

Gamer Folk Speech

Nationality: American
Age: 15
Occupation: Student
Residence: Lancaster, CA
Performance Date: May 2, 2021
Primary Language: English

Context:

My informant, AW, is my 15-year-old brother. He is heavily involved in multiple online gaming communities that exist on Discord and other social platforms and revolve around multiplayer online games such as Valorant and Overwatch. This piece was collected during an informal interview at home when I asked him to share something unique to the gaming community. I refer to myself at SW in the text.

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Main Text:

AW: “Whenever someone is doing really or someone just made a crazy play or an insane play or something like that, um, people would say like you’re popping off or you’re cracked or… um I mean this ones fairly normal but you’re insane or something like that. And people have taken that super far… instead of saying you’re insane people will literally say like ‘you’re absolutely bonkers. You’re mentally unstable.’ Meaning that you did something insane and stuff like that. So yea there’s a lot of terminology like that, that every gamer will understand.”

SW: “Where do you learn it?”

AW: “Um… literally just from talking to people a lot of social cues, a lot of – how I guess you would learn language. It’s just… you don’t ever ask you just kinda know eventually.”

SW: “Why is it important?”

AW: “Cuz every gamer knows it and every gamer says it. It’s… a lot more acceptable to say ‘you’re insane’ or ‘you’re cracked’ than it is to say ‘wow that was a really good play, good rally. That was… that was a good effort. You, you played that very smart.’ Like no one ever says that you say ‘dude you’re insane you’re cracked.’ Or, or you simply just say ‘sheeeeesh.’”

SW: “Which means what?”

AW: “It can mean a lot of things. But in the gaming culture specifically, it’s just a surprised reaction or a… an admiration of something. Like if someone just did something insane you’d go ‘sheeeeeeesh bro.’ Or like… or if someone does something like, super sus, if you know what that means, that’s another word that – yea if someone does that you’d just go ‘sheeeeeesh bro. Sheeeesh.’ It really can be used for anything, it has so many meanings it’s just like, an exclamation. 

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Analysis:

One of my favorite parts of the internet is how quickly folk speech spreads and how some sayings are universal while others only exist within a very specific group. I think the main purpose is to distinguish members of the group from outsiders. As AW mentioned, these phrases are picked up naturally as you spend more time in the community, so it becomes a way to tell how long someone has been in the community. In the gaming community, it’s probably especially important to form a group identity since most people have ever met each other face to face. Gaming folk speech seems to be largely focused on making things more hyperbolic, which might reflect the group culture of being more energetic and dramatic in both your manner of speech and your actions. This probably happens because you can’t rely on body language in these conversations, so you must come up with standardized ways to verbally express emotions of excitement or congratulations that might otherwise be expressed simply through a cheer or a high five.

Legend – Stepping on the School Seal

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bozeman, Montana
Performance Date: May 1, 2021
Primary Language: English

Context: 

My informant is a 21-year-old female MSU student from Southern California. She heard this story from a friend who went to a different university, though she couldn’t remember which one. This story was collected when we were on a phone call and I asked her if she knew any school lore. 

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Main Text:

JV: “Ok so one story I remember hearing about from a couple years ago. I can’t remember the school, but according to A, at their university there is a place where the school seal is on the ground and some distance away is a statue of the school mascot. The story goes that if any graduating senior steps on the seal, they have to touch the statue within five or ten seconds or they won’t graduate… Apparently, A saw a guy step one foot on the seal. He paused, yelled a curse, then dropped everything he was carrying to sprint for the statue.”

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Analysis:

Many schools seem to have superstitions surrounding stepping on school seals prior to graduation. School traditions and lore are one of the ways to build community and are especially important at large schools where students otherwise do not have much in common. Stepping on the deal bringing bad luck might reflect an inherent respect for the school and its official representations, which need to be honored and not metaphorically sullied by people stepping on them. Having a way to “break the curse” provides a fun ritual for students to witness. However, it’s also interesting to note that even students who would probably say they don’t believe in magic will drop everything to participate in the ritual as they don’t want to jinx themselves on the off chance that it might actually be real. For another description of traditions surrounding stepping on school seals, see Laskowski, Amy. “The Myths and Legends Behind the BU Seal.” May 9, 2019. http://www.bu.edu/articles/2019/boston-university-seal/

Pen Fight – School Game

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Irvine, CA
Performance Date: May 1, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

Context:

My informant, AS, is a 19-year-old Indian male who grew up in Mumbai, though he has lived in Southern California for the past three years. He went to a private school in Mumbai, and this game was played at his school, as well as other schools. This piece was collected during a facetime call, when I asked him to share some traditions from home. I refer to myself as SW in the text.

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Main Piece:

AS: “I was gonna tell you about a game we used to play in class… it’s called pen fight – where we would take pens that we use to write with and put them on the desk, and you’re supposed to flick your pen so that it hits the other person’s pen, and you’re supposed to like, get them off the desk, just from flicking your pen towards the other one. 

SW: “That sounds nearly impossible.”

AS: “No! It was, it was so much fun. Not in one go you get like multiple goes. You go once, then the other person goes, and so on and so forth.”

SW: “That still sounds nearly impossible.”

AS: “How? I think you’re imagining it wrong. Like, take a pen, flick one end of it so that it like, flings towards the other pen and it hits it.”

SW: “Right. You’re forgetting that I have absolutely zero hand eye coordination.”

AS: “Hahaha yeah. But, it basically came down to who had a heavier pen. But sometimes you’d just play like, with random pens. That was a big part of like, seventh, eighth grade. Everyone played that.”

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Informant Analysis:

SW: “Why?”

AS: “Cause we had nothing better to do. And then eventually it got so bad that like, while we were playing that pens would leak, get onto our shirts, and… teachers had to step and be like ‘yeah this is not allowed anymore. You can’t play this.’”

SW: “But did you keep playing it even after it was technically banned?”

AS: “Of course. It was addicting. It was so addicting that we would like, beg our teachers for free periods just so we could play that. Cause breaks weren’t enough… And then people would buy like, expensive pens just so they could play pen fight with them. They wouldn’t even care like, about whether they damaged the pen or not. They just cared about the win.”

SW: “So was there like, this whole hierarchy of who was better at and stuff?”

AS: “Yes there was. It was actually one of the… it was actually a thing like, even though there was like a hierarchy of ya know, cool people and uncool people, it was actually the one thing that actually brought us together, in a way. Just, nobody cared about class, in that context.”

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Analysis:
Pen fight is a good example of Children’s folklore and folk games. The rules are very easy and anyone can play, as the only materials required are a pen and a table of some sort. The game served to bring the students together as everyone played and enjoyed it. Since Indian culture can often be sharply divided by class, it’s important to have practices that bring people together that may not otherwise interact, and games are a good way to accomplish this. The fact that my informant would buy pens specifically for use in pen fight shows how invested the students were in this game. Additionally, the game seems to have served as a way to test boundaries by doing something that was “banned” but ultimately not dangerous, which can be an important part of children developing identity and learning to think for themselves away from authority figures.

Gifting Desserts – Indian Tradition

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Irvine, CA
Performance Date: May 1, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

Context: 

My informant, AS, is a 19-year-old Indian male who grew up in Mumbai, though he has lived in Southern California for the past three years. His family is Muslim, and he has also had lots of interaction with Hindu culture also. This piece was collected during a facetime call, when I asked him to share some traditions that he has noticed as different between his home culture in India and the US. I refer to myself as SW in the text.

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Main Piece:

AS: “So, it is tradition, not just for Indian Muslims but for any Indian, to gift desserts to the people they know, when something good happens to them. Like if I get a new job, it’s gonna be tradition for me to send like a box of sweets to my neighbor, my aunt, my uncle, my friend. It’s just a tradition.”

SW: “So when something good happens to you… then you send stuff to other people.”

AS: Yes… Not just stuff, I have to send like, some sort of dessert.

SW: To how many other people?

AS: That just depends on like… if like, you’re really close with your neighbor you could send it to your neighbor, if you’re not close you’re not obligated to send anything. But like, it could be, just ya know your close family, or it could be the whole fucking world, depends on how close you are with them.

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Informant Explanation:

SW: But why do people do it?

AS: I don’t know why they do it, it’s just a thing like the… the saying is like ‘making your mouth sweet,’ that’s what it’s called. Like if you, something good happens to you, it could be anything it could be getting a new job or ya know, getting engaged or something like that. Even getting a promotion or buying a new car.

SW: That’s the reverse of the American thing. Cause the American thing is you send gifts to the person who had something good happen.

AS: Yeah. No, the person to whom it happens has to send. Not gifts, dessert.

SW: I guess like… that’s a way of showing status, right? Cause if something good happens to you, then it’s like well I now have excess to give… would be a way of showing status right?

AS: Not necessarily, no. It’s a… it’s more to do with sharing the joy. Not showing off. 

SW: What kinda desserts? What are we talking here?

AS: Mostly Indian desserts. That’s the tradition.

SW: Like what?

AS: Like… the most common one is (he showed me a picture of kaju katri or kaju katli). That is my favorite fucking dessert. It’s uh… it’s just a sweet. It’s made from like… ground cashews, and you make, like… I don’t know how it’s made it just tastes really nice. 

SW: It looks very good.

AS: Yeah so you get boxes of those, boxes of like, brown balls of fucking sugary flour… 

SW: So is like, Indian culture more focused on like…  ties between, like family and friends than American culture is? It feels like everything is more… 

AS: Ties between family, yes. Like, your… there’s a lot of emphasis on family in Indian culture. Especially Indian Hindu culture, there’s a lot of focus on family and traditions.

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Analysis: 

As AS mentioned, the tradition of gifting desserts serves to reinforce family ties and important social relationships. Indian culture places a very high importance on these social bonds, especially between family members, and it is therefore important to have traditions and rituals to remind people of these bonds and their obligations to one another. There is probably also an element of reciprocity that is established – since you are sharing your joy, you can expect other people to also share with you.

Fighter Pilot Naming Ceremonies and Traditions

Nationality: American
Age: 54
Occupation: Aerospace Engineer/Retired USAF Fighter Pilot
Residence: Lancaster, CA
Performance Date: May 2, 2021
Primary Language: English

Context:

The informant, GW, is my father. He was a fighter pilot in the United States Air Force during the late 1980s/early 1990s and participated in operation Desert Storm. I have heard him tell many stories from his time in the Air Force throughout my childhood, so I asked him to tell me some of his traditions to collect for my project. This was an informal interview in our household. The interviewer is indicated as SW in the text.

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Main Text:

GW: “Another tradition in fighter squadrons, it’s been globalized to most of the squadrons in the air force now I guess, but um I think it really started as a fighter pilot tradition. I think, I don’t know. I don’t know what the original etymology of the naming services, naming ceremonies was but um, when you show up at a new squadron, and each squadron had their own traditions. I was in the 335th Chiefs, was our squadron. And when you show up in the Chiefs, um all of the initiated, all of the guys that have been in the squadron and have been to, we’d have Chiefs parties about once a month. Um, the um, ya know obviously in the military there’s rank structure and whoever had the highest rank is the person in charge. Except for at Chiefs parties, where the longest tenured person in the squadron, so the guy who had been in the squadron the longest, was the Old Great Chief. And he was in charge of the Chiefs parties. And it didn’t matter what rank he was.”

SW: “Yeah, cause you could very obviously have someone who’s been in the squadron longer who is not the highest rank.”

GW: “Yeah, usually a captain was the Old Great Chief. And obviously the squadron was run by a lieutenant colonel, which is two ranks above a captain. So if the squadron commander was gonna come to the Chiefs party, which all Chiefs parties were totally optional you were just a complete wuss if you didn’t show up. Um, he, ya know, squadron commander didn’t have to come, we had squadron commanders that opted not to come, right? But if they came, for tonight you are the commander, ya know? The, uh the Chiefs parties, the Old Great Chief presided, and he had the council, which was the next four longest reigning members of the squadron, who were on the council. Um, the Old Great Chief was responsible ultimately for selecting the name of any new members of the tribe. He would take suggestions from the tribe, who would shout it all out, and then council would retreat into the teepee and meet about deciding what the name of this new chief was going to be and then they’d come out and announce it.”

SW: “Is there an actual teepee?”

GW: “Yeah, of course.”

SW: “I did not know this.”

GW: “Yeah, we had a teepee, and the Old Great Chiefs chair was a big chair that sat up about this high (indicating about three feet) because one of the rules is that no one can be higher than the Old Great Chief. So no one in the tribe can be higher than the Old Great Chief, so if the Old Great Chief drops something and bends down to pick it up, everybody else has to get down on the ground, right?”

SW: “What if you’re just tall?”

GW: “What if the Old Great Chief is not? Because AB was not! Now, at the front, when we’d had the Chiefs parties, this was out in the woods too, this was not anywhere near anywhere. We’d go out to the old great stomping grounds of the many Chiefs that had gone before us, the Old Great Chief would come out in feathered headdress, and the whole nine yards, right? Come out of the teepee, we’d, everybody would get there we’d socialize for a little bit, we’d talk about it, you know? Let the sun go down, um we’d have a big bonfire ready to go, right? And then, the teepee would be there and in front of the teepee was the Old Great Chief’s chair and then the council had two members on either side of the Old Great Chief, they would retreat to the teepee and get into their war paint and big headdress and everything and then they’d come out and beat the drum and, cause part of the, part of the council is you had, I don’t even remember what all of the uh, the uh roles on the council were, but the lowest ranking member on the council was the guy that beat the drum. So he was the drum bitch, so ‘Beat the drum, bitch!’, ya know? Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. So, they would go into the teepee and get all their war paint on and everything. In front of where the council sat, there was the groveling pit, ok? So that would be a place where we dug up all of the, um stuff there, stirred up the dirt and then uh, hosed it all down. So it was a, it was a mud pit, right? In between the groveling pit and the um, uh council was a giant bowl of what we called wisdom, right? So the first thing that council did was come out, right? And because the unnamed Chiefs were not wise and not initiated they needed to grovel for wisdom at the feet of the council, right? You see how that works? Ok so, the unititated were boys, right? They were not fit to be chiefs yet. So all of the boys would be led in and would grovel at the feet of the council and lay in the mud and, uh, every time they did something or said something stupid, which was very often, they were sent to the grov – to the wisdom bowl, to gain more wisdom, right? Then, behind the grovel pit, would be all the rest of the chiefs, sitting in their chairs and, ya know, having a beverage and hanging out and having a good time. Well, as the council came out, the Old Great Chief would start off by, um, applying his war paint, and taking his wisdom from the Chiefs that had gone before. Which meant he had to kneel down to the bowl, to get his paint and to get his wisdom, right? So everybody else had to ‘oh my goodness’ get down this low so that nobody was higher than the Old Great Chief. And he would always look around, to see if anybody was higher, and then call them down to get more wisdom, right? So the boys are laying in the grovel pit, the Old Great Chief introduces the council, and then the Old Great Chief would introduce every member of the tribe. And then each member of the tribe as they’re called, would let out their war cry and then go get some wisdom. Well the unfortunate part is the only way to get to the wisdom was, the boys were between the tribe and the wisdom. So you usually had to step on, over, through, somersault on, whatever, the boys, to get to the wisdom. And once you got to the wisdom, you would take your wisdom, and the Old Great Chief would give you your war paint, and you’d get your feather for the night, and then you would go back and sit in your chair. Again, you had to trip over the boys on the way out. Make sure they felt loved. Which was great, until Chief Blundering Bison was called up, um because he was not a small man. He was a large mammal. And all the, when I was a boy, grovelling in the pit, and they called Chief Blundering Bison, who liked to do somersaults all the way down the grovel pit, um, the boy next to me was, his call sign was Necklace, his Chiefs name was uh, Chief Dripping Loincloth. Um, but, when he was a boy, he was a football player in college. I was about 140 pound soaking wet. So, when Chief Blundering Bison was called Necklace just put his arm around me and I’m like ‘Ok good. I’ll just hide here.’ We had, we told high ranking old guys not to show up to Chiefs parties unless they really meant it. We did break the ribs of a colonel one time when he was a boy, because we treated him – if you’re gonna show up you’re a boy, you get in the pit. We had to send him to the hospital. We tied uh, one of the boys was so unruly at one Chiefs party um, Russ Russon, Steve Russon. So his call sign was Russ. So every fighter squadron has call signs, right? And your call signs tend to kinda stick with you after a little bit. But you still get a chiefs name, even when you have a call sign. Anything else you wanna hear? Because I could probably go on forever.”

SW: “Who decided all of this, where did it come from? Does anybody know where it came from?” 

GW: “Where did Chiefs parties come from?”

SW: “Yeah.”

GW: “Um, so each squadron in the Air Force kind had its tradition for…”

SW: “I mean it seems like it’s a giant hazing ritual.”

GW: “Um… yeah I mean so in my F-15 training unit, which was the deadly jesters, that was done in the squadron bar, we didn’t go out in the woods for that, and it wasn’t quite as elaborate. But, ya know, the deal there is that in order to get your name you had to drink some swill and then eat a raw egg shell and all, and then you would get your name, ya know?”

SW: “Significantly less elaborate.”

GW: “Yeah, it was less elaborate, it was a lot noisier, ya know, but they were naming every class of F-15 guys that came through, right? Cause we’d never been named, right?”

SW: “And that’s probably more people to…”

GW: “Yeah, and it was, ya know we had 15 in my class, so, ya know, it would be, ya know you’d get there and hang out, you’d be part of the squadron for two or three or four weeks, by that time they’ve kind of gotten to know you. Because naming is all about um, giving you… like, like some of my friends like to say, ya know, um, your parents give you the name that’s on your birth certificate but your buddies give you your real name, the one that you earn, right? So you earn it by doing something of distinction, it could be either something really spectacular or really sepctaculalrly stupid. And, and usually it has a double entendre to it in some way, right? Sometimes it’s sexual innuendo, sometimes it’s a play or a pun, sometimes it’s the opposite of what you are, like one of my friends Fast A., Fast Frank, was not fast, ya know? So… ya know. So, how does it come about? It comes about because part of your job is to go to really strange places, live there by yourself, with 20-300 of your favorite male friends, and let other people shoot at you on occasion. So, you kinda tend to come up with things that are silly. Now, in 1992, I guess, which was the 50th anniversary of the formation of the 335th Chiefs, back before the Air Force existed when it was the Army Air Corps, and in 1942, the 335th was actually part of the RAF as the American volunteer forces in Britain before -”

SW: “So you were in like one of the oldest squadrons.”

GW: “Yeah. And when they, in 1992 the Air Force did a um, heritage study, of all of the squadrons in the United States Air Force, to see which ones had the most heritage and the best traditions, and the 335th Chiefs were the number one most historic squadron in the United States Air Force.”

SW: “Which is why you have such elaborate rituals for naming people. That involve a lot of… stomping on initiates.”

GW: “There’s also roof stomping, that’s completely different.”

…

GW: “So this is absolutely initiation and acceptance, building of esprit de corps. It is a common bond, it is, I mean, people walk in, and part of the fun is ‘what’s your Chiefs name?’ ‘Oh… Chief Dripping Loincloth…’ ‘Oh really, where’d you get that?’”

SW: “Yeah you’ve lucked out with names that aren’t really particularly bad. Doc doesn’t really have any story behind it.”

GW: “Well, the story behind that is that the guy, the OpsO, was, his call sign was Doc. And he liked me, and I was excelling, I mean this was in the F-15 class. I’d already graduated number one out of nav school. I’d graduated as the air-to-air and overall top gun out of F-15 school. So, and then my last name being Watson, he just called me Doctor Watson, so, ya know. As in Sherlock Holmes and.”

SW: “Yeah, no, I get that one all the time too. In fact [significant other] calls me Watson now too because of Sherlock.”

GW: “Yeah. So that’s where that one came from.”

SW: “And crooked beak is just a, you have a big nose.”

GW: “Yup. I mean, there were, so I think what was on the table was Crooked Beak and Texas Turtle.”

SW: “Why Texas Turtle?”

GW: “Because apparently they thought I was slow or lazy or something, ya know? Because mostly I’d be like ‘Eh, we don’t need to work that hard.’”

SW: “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

GW: “They didn’t really have much more than that on me. Cause mostly, I was the instigator, not the guy that was gonna get caught. Most of the time.”

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Analysis:

The tradition of naming ceremonies in the Air Force, as well as the names themselves, provide an in-depth look at many values and beliefs shared by members of the Air Force, and especially fighter pilot squadrons. The first, most obvious reason for their existence is to form a camaraderie within the squadron. By having elaborate initiation rituals that only insiders would know, and bestowing unique nicknames that can only be used by the initiated, the group forms a bond of exclusivity. 

This initiation ceremony also both honors and removes the liminal status of new members of the squadron. The “boys,” as they were called in GW’s squadron, can not be considered full members of the group until they have undergone this ritual. When squadrons are sent into combat, it is vital that all members can trust and rely on each other in all circumstances – their lives depend on it. The naming ceremony provides a way to quickly build this trust when you may not actually know someone very well before you are sent into battle with them.

The fact that naming ceremonies are presided over by the member that has been at the squadron the longest, rather than the person with the highest rank who is normally in charge, speaks to both their status as unofficial culture and the fact that they are rooted in the traditions of a specific squadron, not the Air Force as a whole. There appears to be an element of wanting to subvert authority and the usual power structures of day-to-day life, and have the common man take control of everyone for a night. GW’s repeated mention of the “Old Great Chief” and the fact that they made sure the squadron commander knew they were not in charge at the party highlights this fact. Not only is one of their own taking control from the normal authority, they are taking control of what is considered the most sacred practice within the squadron. In doing so, they are showing that as far as the men are concerned, they are really in charge of the important parts of the squadron, even if the commander is technically in charge.

The usage of traditionally Native American elements, while ostensibly an homage to the squadron’s name, the Chiefs, may also serve as a patriotic reminder that this is part of the United States Air Force, and their traditions are uniquely American. At the same time, they borrow from the most wild or “savage” interpretation of Native American culture. This might serve as a way to blow off steam and indulge the wild aspects of their nature that are otherwise strictly confined by Air Force regulations. It might also serve to reinforce their own self-image as warriors and great heroes before they are sent into battle. 

The names that are chosen themselves seem to be a way of recognizing and normalizing something that a member may not like about themselves or may have done wrong at some point. The names serve to poke fun at someone or act as a reminder of something stupid they did, but at the same time this practice actually normalizes that undiserable trait and makes it known that it is not something people are actually judging them for. By turning undesirable traits into a joke or badge of honor, it makes them less likely to be used to actually inflict harm.