Author Archives: Amanda Suarez

Speak Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace

Nationality: Dutch
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/23/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Dutch

Collector: So tell me about frat initiation.

Informant: Well, it’s mandatory for every guy in the house. You have to welcome your new brothers. Normal initiations are like, everyone gets in a circle, you chant something. Every brother in the house has to accept you. If they don’t, they have to, like, speak at that time. Like, if there’s a reason.

Collector: It’s almost like a wedding.

Informant: Kind of. Like, it’s a ceremony, there’s chanting and stuff. And normally no one speaks because there’s four months before for them to tell you no and that you’re not gonna be in the frat. But, then again, that depends on the frat. Or if there’s that guy who’s like “Well he didn’t do this!” and everyone’s like, “Well is that good enough reason? He’s witnessing our initiation. Could you have brought this up earlier?” Yeah, ‘cuz initiation is secret in fraternities. I mean, that’s the whole point of them. Sororities are the same way. Normally brothers talk about it after college. Some even keep them secret throughout their life and only talk about it to other frat guys.

Collector: Oh wow.

Collector’s Notes: This is the second case of marriage-like ceremonies in Greek life at USC.  There seems to be a fascination with having the people involved make lifelong unity vows, like matrimony.  I especially liked the fact that this specific account included a sort of “speak now or forever hold your peace” part.  Then there is the chanting that makes another appearance.  This, as I’ve noticed in previous accounts, helps to create a sense of unity and brotherhood, because it’s something that everyone can easily learn and be a part of right away.  Another thing that’s important that the Informant said was the part about secrecy.  In class, we talked about the importance of knowing who’s in the community and who’s out of it, and establishing how that distinction is made.  For fraternities and sororities, I think it’s the secrecy involved.  They have a vast repertoire of chants, songs, handshakes, and sayings that no one outside of the group gets to see, hear or even know about.  That is really important to them, and is a large part of their identity.

Sex Circles

Nationality: Dutch
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/23/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Dutch

Informant: I actually have another folklore story. So, the musical at my high school was great. So, what happened was there was like a patriarchy with males and females. And so there was the male tradition and the female tradition. And so, once the show started…well, before every show we’d have a Grand Master. You know, for both men and women. And that’s always elected the year prior. It’d be whoever was going to be in the musical the next year.

Collector: Oh. That’s a little bit presumptuous!

Informant: Well, I mean, if you’re in the musical as a junior, you’re probably going to be in it as a senior.

Collector: That’s true.

Informant: Yeah, and so we had our own chants as well. I don’t know what the women did.

Collector: I wouldn’t expect you to know!

Informant: We all had to do our first assignment. It was that we had to give a name to our penises.

Collector: Oh!

Informant: That was our first assignment. It was due by the next performance.

Collector: Like homework!

Informant: Yeah it was homework, right? A lot of guys were like, “Oh, I already got that.” And then our second assignment was that we had to go to our musical crush and whisper our “name” in a context to them. Some had harder times than others. And then the last thing we had to do was before our final show we had to draw our “member” on some place on school property.

Collector: Oh my God.

Informant: So, it was great. Normally janitors found them before Monday morning, so they would all be cleaned already. But the ones that we hidden well enough, they’re still there.

Collector: Yes! Did yours get to stay?

Informant: I think so because I drew mine very small and on the back of a security camera.

Collector: Smart! What a genius. What name did you pick?

Informant: Mayor Dipschtick.

Collector’s Notes: It’s funny that the gender roles played out in such a unique way.  Automatically, the two sexes separated, and formed their own little secret groups with assignments.  All these assignments, however, were based on things that technically involve the opposite sex and sex in general.  This addresses the sexual tension between the two groups and how they chose to cope with that.  Also, I’ve reported other instances of “marking” school property, but never in a way quite like this.  Adolescents feel the need to leave a physical reminder of their presence at their schools, as if they’re saying goodbye in a way that can remain permanent.  Also, I think that it’s interesting that the whole thing played out as kind of a metaphor for their school life.  There was a Grand Master, who acted like a teacher, and there were assignments that needed to be completed in a certain amount of time.  Maybe this was a way of them turning something that they didn’t quite understand, like sexuality and tension, into a format that they could deal with, like a classroom.

 

 

 

 

Inappropriate Chanting in Theatre

Nationality: Dutch
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/23/15
Primary Language: English
Language: Dutch

Informant: In theatre you normally have an opening night to get everyone to, like, get excited and pumped.

Collector: How does that work?

Informant: So normally everyone just gets in a circle and we talk about the experience. Like, what we’re excited about, and what we really wanna show these people tonight. In my old theatre group, in high school, we did this chant. It was ridiculously inappropriate! But it was great because it got everyone pumped up.

Collector: What was the chant?!

Informant: Um..it’s a little inappropriate.

Collector: It’s okay!

Informant: “Fuck that nigga shit, fuck that nigga shit.”

Collector: Oh! Why??

Informant: I don’t know how it got started, but to like build that up it was like “Energy, energy all around. You can bring a nigga up you can bring a nigga down!”  And as soon as that got built up, everyone would go, “Ah! Fuck, that nigga shit. Fuck that nigga shit.” But it was great because it was a sound-proof room, so we would do that before almost every show.

Collector’s Notes: I hear about a lot of circles in ceremonies, and I think it carries a lot of significance.  We talked about circles symbolizing cycles and the seamless movement from beginning to end back to beginning.  A show, in a way, is like a cycle, and the opening night is the beginning of the end.  This is especially true in a high school or college theatre group that puts a couple shows on every year.  They cycle through the different stages of the show.  The opening night is the liminal point where they go from practice to performance.  I’ve also heard about a lot of cases of group chanting for ceremonies.  There is a unity I think that comes from saying things in large groups of people.  Also, when something is chanted and repeated a lot, it lends itself to being learned by others.  That way, people can easily enter into the community.  This particular chant was a few choice words to say the least.  That may have had something to do with the fact they were in high school, and that sort of  language was taboo.  However, the tension and adrenaline they got from using that kind of “forbidden” language at a school function probably gave them a lot of energy to put toward performance.

 

 

The Rake

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA/Charlotte, NC
Performance Date: 4/10/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: Okay, so, I don’t really know if this is true, but I read these stories online, called creepypastas, like you. And there’s this one called “The Rake.” Have you ever heard of it?

Collector: Oh my gosh, yeah!

Informant: So The Rake is like this creepy thing that some people say looks like a dog, others say it looks like a deformed human. No one really knows. It walks on all fours, and it’s just, like, naked and scary.

Collector: Ew! I remember seeing, like, someone’s drawing of it and it scarred me.

Informant: It’s so scary! Yeah, so like apparently it’s a sign that you know he’s coming for you if you can feel him like sucking your soul out of your ear. And so, I read the story, and one night I was lying in bed and I swear, like—Something—I felt this breeze in my ear! And I was like, “What is that??” And then it was like this sucking and I was with my friend and I hit them and was, like, yelling their name!

Collector: Ah! That’s crazy!

Collector’s Notes: Creepypastas have taken the Internet by storm.  I personally love them, as I’ve always been a fan of scary movies and ghost stories.  Pretty much what they are, are stories where the author is very hard to find, if known at all.  These stories, all scary, are passed around from user to user, and are sometimes even spoken aloud for YouTube videos, in a way that is almost like a podcast.  I’ve heard of the story of The Rake, but I’ve never actually read it or listened to it being read.  Every creepypasta changes a little bit over time, and different Internet users put their own spin on things, but generally what my Informant told me is what I’ve heard.  In class, we talked about people transferring ghost stories into their own real-life experiences.  This was called a memorate, and I believe that’s a way to explain what happened.  In class, Professor Thompson talked about how people experience things that they don’t understand and so they use popular belief to make sense of it.  Because the Informant had read the story, and it was late, they were more likely to apply that explanation.  That being said, I believe them because I’ve always believed in ghosts and paranormal activity.  It’s a widely held belief with little to no religious or scientific support, but many people believe it nonetheless.  This story proves it!

 

REFERENCE: http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Rake

Here Comes the Pledge

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA/Charlotte, NC
Performance Date: 4/10/15
Primary Language: English

Collector: So, you’ve been in a sorority since freshman year?

Informant: Yes.

Collector: Do you guys have any like, special initiation rituals or traditions?

Informant: We have, I guess, a formal initiation that happens a few weeks into the first semester in the sorority. They kind of try to scare you, but it’s not actually scary. Like they turn off all the lights and they blindfold you…

Collector: Oh my God!

Informant: Yeah. It’s weird, like I don’t know. Nothing really happens, they just like tell you the “secrets” of the sorority and the secret handshake and stuff like that. Like, all the symbols and what they mean. And then we, like, take an oath and then you’re “initiated.” Then there’s something called Inspo Week, before you get presented to your parents in your white “wedding” dress. That week it’s all sisterhood things, and everyone shares their secrets. Like we have something called Bear Pass where all the girls in your pledge class get locked in a room for, like, six or seven hours and you pass around a bear and you have to tell heart-to-heart stories. People like comfort you and everyone cries. That was cool.

Collector: Yeah that sounds like a good sisterhood bonding thing.

Collector’s Notes: Initiation ceremonies are really common in sororities and college groups in general.  Kids are at a time in their life when they’re no longer kids and experimenting with their identity.  One of the many affiliations that they can choose from is Greek Life.  Greek Life at USC has a reputation of being very strong.  I’ve even heard a rumor about our Greek Life and The Row being used as inspiration for the ABC Family show GREEK.  That being said, I think it’s really cool that the sorority of my Informant was really focused on creating closeness with the “sisters,” a term that implies familial relationship, which is one of the oldest and strongest.  Also, I found it interesting that they are supposed to wear a white “wedding” dress for their formal initiation.  It’s as if the girls are marrying themselves to the sorority, much like two people marry each other, or a priest becomes “married” to the church.  It’s a ceremony marking their transition from out of the community to within it.  They proved themselves “pure” enough and now that purity is being represented by white.  The white in this case does not mean actual purity, I believe.  I think it means purity from the ways of the Greek lifestyle. Like they are little sorority “virgins” so to speak, and they are becoming united with their chosen group of girls.