Author Archives: Yj Si

Legend – Fog of Bellevue

CONTEXT: 

J is a freshman at USC, and a good friend of mine. He is from Mercer Island, Washington, a town within the Seattle metropolitan area. The island lies between Seattle and Bellevue.

TEXT:

“So I lived on an island (Mercer island), and it was surrounded by this big lake, and past the lake, it’s surrounded on two sides – one side by Seattle and the other by Bellevue, and there used to be this legend that the Native American people that used to live on our island would see in the morning – there was a lot of fog, right – and so they couldn’t see through to bellevue on the other side. But in the afternoon, when the fog cleared, they could see the land on the other side. So it was said that they used to believe that the island would rise up out of the water during the day and sink under the water during the night. My grandpa lived right on the lake, and I used to visit him a lot, and so he would tell me that story a lot of times when I was a kid, and one time when I was working at Subway just before I moved here to Los Angeles, there was a guy that came in who said the same thing. As a kid, when I was at my grandparents’ house, I would not see the land in the morning and then see it in the afternoon, and I thought maybe that it was true. I think it’s kind of cool to think about – when you’re a kid, you don’t know that Bellevue – that a city is a city, like you see a city landscape, like “oh those are things,” but you don’t really think about there are people there, so when I was a kid I just thought it was a landmass, and it was a really cool idea that it would sink and rise and it was just part of nature, and I guess I still like to think of it that way, so it’s kind of nice to think of nature as something unaffected by other people.”

ANALYSIS: 

The ways urban legends tend to grow out of a mystical view of indigenous people almost seems like a way to detach oneself from superstition. Especially in more modern and developed areas, there is a strong societal detachment from what is considered spiritual or legendary. In this sense, while modern, non-indigenous people may still believe in this story or be able to perceive it, it is much easier to apply that culturally to an indigenous group much more associated with ideas of spiritualism and natural phenomena. Yet the story regarding those previous folk who believed this still persists, striking a narrative about previously held beliefs that then affect the perceptions by those who currently interpret it. In a sense, this is folklore about folklore.

Legend – Slenderman in Real Life

CONTEXT:

J is a freshman at USC studying screenwriting, and a good friend of mine. 

Slenderman is an online-created urban legend spread throughout the site CreepyPasta. It originated with photoshopped images of a slender, tall and faceless man in a suit.

TEXT:

J: So one time when I was a kid, my cousin and my mom were talking about Slender Man, because I guess they both heard of it. And I was like, eight at the time. And I had never heard of this because I was like, eight years old. And I had no connection to like, creepy pasta or anything on the internet. And so I asked them to tell me a story about it because I wanted to know what he was like. So they told me this story about this girl who was home alone one night, and she forgot to get water before she went to bed. So when she was in bed, she was like, oh, I need to get up and get water because I’m really thirsty. So she went to her kitchen. And as she was getting the water, she saw this weird, creepy figure in the corner of her kitchen, and it really freaked her out. But instead of going back to bed, she continued to get the water. And so then when her parents came home, they saw that she wasn’t there. So they looked around, and they asked a bunch of people. And eventually they found out that she was at the hospital. And so they went to the hospital to talk to her and ask her what happened. But her ears and her tongue and her eyes were all cut out. And her hands were cut off. So that she couldn’t see if he was going to come again. She couldn’t hear if he would come again. She couldn’t speak what happened, and she couldn’t write down what happened. And so that way, he would remain anonymous. 

Me: They told you this when you were eight?

J: Yeah. And so then I remained afraid of Slenderman until I was like, in the middle of high school. Because the legend goes that like, if you cease to believe that Slender Man exists, then he will come kill you. But so long as you believe that he exists, you’re sort of safe. And so that made me not want to stop believing in it. But then it kept freaking me out.

ANALYSIS:

Slenderman is a curious case of folklore in which it takes on a life of its own outside of its place of origin: the internet. Creepypastas tend to be another form of scary storytelling for children and young people, and they are, in a way, a place akin to campfires for the exchange of scary stories. For something as famous as Slenderman, however, it evolves into a cultural being despite having been started with fan narratives that were written down, which is not how we traditionally think of folklore. Yet because there is no official canon nor a copyright, the people are able to be communally creative while making agreements on who this character is and what he should be. 

Legend – Couch Island

CONTEXT:

P is a freshman at USC, and a good friend of mine. In the United States, children tend to go to summer camps, where they spend time with nature and with older camp counselors who supervise and lead them.

TEXT:

P: So the camp was at a lake and across the lake you could see like, I don’t know if it was an island, it was just another strip of land and there was just a couch there. Just a white couch with nothing else around it, just a couch. Yeah, we could see this couch like we could see it and so we called it couch Island. I don’t think it was an island though. That area of land, we called it couch island because it looked like it was surrounded by water kinda, and so I think the legend was, you should never step foot on couch island because — we had boats, like wooden boats. We have like, you know, canoes and we would canoe around the lake. But you’re not supposed to go on couch Island. Because there’s like some shadow guy, some shit that lives there. And like that’s his couch. You don’t want to fucking sit on his couch. But sometimes the couch would get removed and then there wouldn’t be the couch there. Like I would see the couch. Like it just wouldn’t be there some days other days it would be sometimes it was just like a chair. You know, it was switched out? Yeah, it was weird. I think, really there was a house over there. It was somebody’s house and they would just put furniture out sometimes. But we would never see them sitting there, was the thing so we were like they would always switch out the furniture so it must have been like after we’d left the camp because there was a daycare. But sometimes we would have overnights and we still wouldn’t see who was over there. So people would just make shit like people were talking about this they saw like a shadow man over there one time or whatever. But you’re not supposed to go to Couch Island. That’s what I remember. Don’t set foot on Couch Island.

Me: Did you ever hear stories about someone who stepped on couch Island and got killed? Or got caught by the Shadow Man?

P: Maybe, if anything, it was just like they stepped on the island and then they would never be heard from again. Yeah. Like that’s why you wouldn’t go there. Because if you stepped on his couch, if you sat on the couch immediately either the fog and Shadow Man  or the couch just enveloped you.

ANALYSIS:

Folklore tends to be the most believable for children, who are obviously less knowledgeable on how the world works and are more susceptible to believing legends. In this case, there are clear trends on what is unseen and the legends that surround things. When something is foggy or unexplained, there tends to be more mysticism and magic around it. For the couch, there might be a very logical explanation for it. But because there is so much in the unknown, people, and especially children, are likely to come up with a more fantastical and interesting explanation for it. In many ways, the reveal of what actually happened doesn’t matter — what is real is not what’s important, what’s important is what we believe and choose to believe. 

That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles

Occupation: Student
Performance Date: Feb. 16, 2023
Primary Language: English

CONTEXT: 

K is a freshman at USC studying American Studies & Ethnicity (African American Studies). He plays video games with his family.

TEXT:

If I’m playing a game, and I’m losing, and I understand why that’s happening, I go ‘well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.’ I think it was like my brother. And my sister. I can’t remember exactly which one, but we were playing a game together. I think it was on Nintendo, so I think it was Smash. And I lost to my siblings, like several times, because I’m not very good at that game. They’re like masters. And I’m just like, ‘well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.’ Because like, I had basically no chance to win from then to there. But most of the time they’ll be kicking my ass. Like every which way.

ANALYSIS:

There are lots of variations on this saying, such as “such is life,” or “it is what it is.” Essentially, this particular saying seems to represent another way to express how it all breaks down — how everything happens. To people who use it, it seems to denote an acceptance of an unpleasant reality, in which nothing can be changed about how what’s happened has happened, or how the cookie has crumbled. The idea that it is specifically a cookie crumbling, however, rather than a cake or any other sweet, denotes a focus on a sweet that easily drops crumbs. Cookies often take the form of a more brittle baked good, and that means if it is broken, it drops a lot more pieces and crumbs of itself. When a cookie crumbles, one would not know how it does, just that it does and they lose a piece of the sweet baked good. This is, interestingly, the other side of a snack eaten commonly together, while used the same way. Cookies and milk are often eaten together, and there is a saying that goes “There is no use crying over spilt milk.” The same meaning is derived from both — reality has already occurred, and there is no use dwelling on it.

That Gives Me the Ick

Nationality: USA
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: Feb. 22, 2023
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

CONTEXT:

A is one of my best friends. She is a senior in high school from my hometown. She very much enjoys writing as well as consuming literature.

The context of this piece was during a facetime call in which I asked her to share some pieces of folklore with me, and when we got to folk speech, I asked her to break down what the “ick” was, a now popular saying especially amongst users of TikTok and other social media for members of Gen Z. 

TEXT: 

A: “I would say in the context of when I’ve heard it used, it’s always been the lifting of the rose tinted glasses, whether that’s like permanently or just for a moment, in that moment when you’re like, if you really like someone and they do something that makes them seem super real. Maybe too real. Like if a guy runs with his backpack and it’s bouncing up and down, like I’ve heard that described as an ick because it’s just too real and doesn’t fit within your perception of them.”

Me: “How do you use it?”

A: “Just when people do things that turn me off; not sexually but it’s when something’s really off-putting in terms of someone’s behavior and it’s off putting it away that might alter my perception of them for the worse. I think we’re all prone to like seeing people differently from how they are when they’re forced or for the better, but more in the sense of, ‘Oh, okay, maybe I don’t like you as much as I initially did before having this knowledge.’”

Me: “Could you name some examples of what would give you the ick?”

A: “Obviously, they’re different for every person. But if anyone who can’t appreciate literature, or if I send them a poem [on Instagram], and they like the poem and they won’t say anything else. Now, I can’t romanticize you in my head as someone who appreciates literature, so that’s and ick. Or if someone types in a very specific way or uses certain emojis, it’s just like, ‘Ew, just stop.’ So that would be an ick. I would also say that I feel like these days, it’s very obvious that people often confuse icks with basic standards. Where it’s like, ‘Oh, I got the ick because he’s talking to another girl.’ It’s like, no, he’s just not a good person and you shouldn’t be with him if he’s talking to you and another girl at the same time. Or, ‘I get an ick when he cheats on me.’ It’s like no, that’s not what it is.” Those are deal breakers. Icks are just [more minor] things that change your perception of a person for the worse.

ANALYSIS: 

The ick is a rather new term, and in a contemporary sense, it tends to be used in regards to relationships—if someone behaves in a manner that doesn’t advocate for them as someone to date, then that would be an ick. However, it’s also begun to be used in a manner less related to relationships, as indicated by A’s commentary. The ick can refer to normal friendships versus the pursuit of relationships, and it is seeing more common use, especially by young people. Especially in an age of the digitization of dating and the more speedy nature of it, along with hookup culture, the presence of a quick way to stop the romanticization of a person in one’s mind is symptomatic of a culture that is rooted in the idea of a soulmate, but doesn’t behave as such. The ick, romantically, seems to function as a threshold of sorts, or an invisible standard — that to find the “perfect” person or one’s soulmate, they can’t gross one out like an ick would.