My informant told me about this game called Birdman while she was sharing about traditions at Scarsdale High School.

“I don’t know if other schools did this, but it was a game that started. And you basically do this, like, birdman (She holds her hands to her face, palms down, with her thumbs and index fingers making circles around her eyes) symbol over your eyes and if you quote in quote Birdman someone, they have to lie down on the ground for three seconds. And this was, like, a pretty harmless thing that started, but it just started to happen everywhere. So if you’d Birdman, like, you could– there were, like, ways to block a birdman and then, like, if you didn’t respond, you’d get blacklisted. There was, like, a comput—there was, like, an online blacklist for, like, who was blacklisted from Birdman. But seniors especially would take this really intensely and so, like, you, if you got Birdmanned, they would stop in the middle of everything and just get down on the floor for 3 seconds. And it was so intense that you could Birdman someone while driving, while they were driving and they would have to stop the car, get out of the car, lie down on the ground, and get back into the car. Um, and even teachers started to play. I think our librarian was, like, notorious for doing it, like, if you Birdmanned him in the library he’d get down on the ground.”

This was a game that my informant participated in during her freshman year of high school. She says it wasn’t something she was particularly interested in, but many of her friends were very into it. She played if she had to. This is a funny memory for my informant. She looks back on this game and can’t believe the students enjoyed it so much.