Category Archives: Stereotypes/Blason Populaire

The Joke of the Google Self-Driving Car

Nationality: Swedish
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/24/18
Primary Language: Swedish
Language: English

Background information:

Palo Alto in the Silicon Valley area is located in California and is beautiful in a myriad of different ways. It is close to nature, has beautiful architecture, and is an extremely environmentally conscious, friendly, and accepting location. I grew up in Palo Alto since I moved from Sweden to the United States when I was almost six years old and went to high school just around the time that Google started releasing their self-driving cars to test-drive around in the Palo Alto and Mountain View area, as Google’s headquarters is located right next to Palo Alto in Mountain View. The Google self-driving car projected was later named Waymo, but people always referred to these unique cars as the Google self-driving cars.

 

Main piece:

Because I was enrolled in high school around the time that Google released their self-driving cars out into the public traffic, I would often see them on my way to school and driving around my neighborhood. They truly began to gain popularity throughout my junior and senior year of high school (2015-2016), however, which was just around the time that everyone my age was receiving their driver’s license. Therefore, as more and more high school students started driving themselves to and from school, and Google started releasing more self-driving cars into the public, students my age would often run into them in the traffic to and from school everyday. The Google self-driving cars are amazing in their technologically advanced feats, but the one striking problem is that they drive very slowly. Therefore, because they are extremely slow cars, people would often get stuck behind them on the rush-hour getting to school and leaving school, so getting stuck behind the Google self-driving cars became a local joke in Palo Alto that people would always use if they were running late or to simply be funny.

 

Personal thoughts:

I am very grateful to have lived in the Palo Alto community because there are countless technological advancements around us everyday. Some of these advancements come with their host of disadvantages, however, as was seen with the Google self-driving cars. I remember being very frustrated when I was in a rush and ended up behind one of these cars because there were often very few ways to get around them and they often contributed to the traffic overall, so it is nice that there are no Google self-driving cars near USC.

Litchfield Biker Gang

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student - Interactive Meida, Music Production
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/26/18
Primary Language: English

Transcription:

Interviewer: “You’re from Litchfield?”

Informant: “Yes.”

Interviewer: “Is that a small town or a big town?”

Informant: “Small town 8000 but between two cities that I think are 50(000) or 80000, respectively.”

Interviewer: “Are there any stories with Litchfield?”

Informant: “Um…(laughs) so okay so I don’t…so there’s not really…there’s a rope swing which is creepy but…and I’m sure that had I frequented it more, I would have found some more creepy lore there but I never really did go there. Um…but…so there really isn’t a ton of specific lore. I know the town is almost 300 years old so there’s a lot of like local history. Um…there’s like a graveyard. That kind of thing. So it’s a very uh…there are spooky places in it. But what got me laughing was…there is… and this isn’t necessarily lore as it is objectively factually true but I will continue, I will tell my kids about this. Um…there’s this group of children…we called them the LBK: Litchfield Biker Krew with a ‘k’. Because they’re basically a bunch of um… I think I was in high school when we sorta like designated them but they’re about like just this pack of like 8th graders…like not even like super big but like it was a pack of like 8th graders or something who would just bike around, be punks, smoke cigarettes. And like…yeah it was just so funny because they thought they were such badasses but we’re just like ‘heh look at those kids biking like…around and just thinking that they’re badass’. So it’s like…it’s sorta just this think like ‘oh lol that’s Litchfield Biker Crew’ like everyone sorta knew about that and it was sorta like a rich topic to explore in terms of just like…jokes and things.”

Summary:

So the informant talks about a group of bikers in his hometown, known as the Litchfield Biker Krew. The LBK, as they’re known are a group of 8th grade kids who would ride around on bikes and smoke. They were well known throughout the town. The informant plans to pass this story along to his own family one day, making him an active bearer of this legend.

Lawyer joke

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Southern California (San Diego/Los Angeles)
Performance Date: 3/28/18
Primary Language: English

My friend and classmate Pauline told me the following joke, which she learned from her dad, who is a lawyer:

“It was so cold outside today that earlier, I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets.”

This joke relies upon the stereotype that lawyers are greedy and corrupt, and the metonymic use of the phrase “having one’s hands in someone’s pockets” to refer to squeezing money out of someone, like a legal client. The humor of the joke may be based in a genuine belief in this stereotype for people resentful of lawyers, but in this case its humor comes from a self-aware and ironic acknowledgement of the stereotype by a lawyer who presumably does not believe in it.

Pauline says that her dad has a number of lawyer jokes in his repertoire, which he tells “any time we’re with, like, any other lawyers, or if someone’s giving him a hard time about being a lawyer.” Such jokes are pieces of occupational folklore, which may serve to bond lawyers over their common identity, or may function as self-deprecating humor performed for the entertainment of non-lawyers. Lawyer jokes are a common staple of mainstream American humor, indicating a distrust of or misanthropic feeling toward lawyers from the general public outside of the profession. Their embrace by lawyers themselves is somewhat surprising, but is representative of the ways folklore may shift meaning depending on context.

Don’t Wear White After Labor Day.

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student/Gemini
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/10/18.
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish.

Bella Estrada, a senior studying History at the University of Southern California, who hails from Los Angeles, California, provided four pieces of folklore for this collection.

The interview was run, amidst dinner and drinks, at the University of Southern California located Greenleaf, a popular post-class bar for many students at the prestigious institution.

Folk Performance: Don’t Wear White After Labor Day.

Folk Type: Proverb.

“You’re pretty into fashion, right? Any folklore related to that?” – Stanley Kalu

STORY: So…I’m not sure if this is a nation-wide thing or just specific to California but I was always told growing up to not wear white past labor day. I don’t know what the origins of this social faux-pas/fashion faux pas is but it’s a proverb nonetheless.

Background Information:

The fashion rule came into effect late 1800s and early 1900s. Post Civil War, there was a sudden rise in “new-money” families and the sudden rise in millionaires threated the way of life for the “more respectable, old-money families.” In the 1880’s, the old money women created a bunch of rules designed to exclude the “new-money families.” This folk-practice was one of the many exclusionary rules.

Context Performance: As aforementioned, this was a practice used to exclude “new-money families” from high-society situations. This would include balls, galas, garden parties, and the opera.

The context of Bella’s rehashing of the tale was done after our “Forms of Folklore” class taught by Tok Thompson because the both of us had a folklore collection project due.

Thoughts: This appears to be an inversion of the traditional function of “folklore” as described by Abrahams, in the sense that it is folk that was spread by high-society, which is to say it is top-down, rather than the traditional bottom-up movement.

 

 

 

 

The Old Man, The Young Man and the Donkey

Nationality: Armenian
Age: 83
Performance Date: 04/02/18

There is this guy, this man, you know, uhh, with his grandson and their donkey. So he’s going from one village to another village. The grandson is sitting on the donkey and the old man is walking next to it. There’s a bunch of people… they look at him and say, “Look at this young guy. He’s so heartless and so selfish; letting this poor old man walk while he’s sitting on the donkey.” The young kid gets very upset, gets off the donkey and makes the old man sit on the donkey… he walks next to it. So another group of people see them and said “Look at this mean old man, he lets this poor kid walk in the sun and he’s sitting on the donkey.” So the old man gets embarrassed and he gets off the donkey. Then what he does is ask the little kid to sit on the donkey and they end up both sitting on the donkey. Then there’s another group of people who see them and they say, “Look at these horrible people they’re torturing the poor donkey.” So they both get off and pass another group of people who say “Look at these stupid people, they might as well have the donkey ride on there.”

Sometimes you can never win no matter what you’re gonna do some people are gonna say you’re doing bad and some people will say what you’re doing it right. So do your best with what you’ve got and ignore other people.

My Thoughts:

I have always been told “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” This is a variation on that story I suppose, whereas listening to peoples words will only cause problems. Do what you think is best and don’t be distracted by others… the haters… if I may.