Category Archives: Folk Beliefs

Packers v. Vikings ~ Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, from Wisconsin
Performance Date: April 29, 2014
Primary Language: English

Informant is a theatre student at USC who was raised in Wisconsin and comes from 65% German heritage. 

—

The big joke is between Wisconsin and Minnesota. This one has been going on for a while, I know, and everybody knows it.

“Two Packers fans die, and go to hell. And they’re like, “Dude, it’s fucking freezing down here. Like, this is supposed to be hell. Can’t you turn up the heat?” And the devil comes and is like, “Oh, no didn’t you hear? The Vikings won the Superbowl.”

The joke is that hell froze over because the Vikings won the Superbowl. We find it funny.

The Vikings – I think they try and tell a similar joke in response, but it doesn’t work as well because the Packers actually have won Superbowls. At least three, maybe four. So it’s like “Sorry guys, nice try.”

Packers are like a freakin’ cult. Everything else it’s like “Yeah, that’s a sports team we’ve got.”
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This joke was prefaced by one about a specific place’s name in the area, which came from the informant’s dad and was a bit of a groaner/lame pun, though the informant remembered it fondly (identifying it as a lame pun themselves). This joke the informant found particularly funny and made themselves laugh with it even when I didn’t, because I didn’t have as much knowledge of the context. Later in the session, the informant elaborated on the extremes that the Packers fans exhibit – big painted bodies, cheese heads – and generally showed how the Packers are a very big deal there.

White Lighter Superstition – Musicians

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: January 15, 2014
Primary Language: English

My informant is a college sophomore, animator, and casual pot smoker. He sees weed as a way of bonding with peers and enhancing creativity, and while he knows quite a bit of stoner folklore by just participating in the culture, he’s not very attached to it and it doesn’t mean much to him outside of a social context.

He learned about the white lighter superstition from a friend in high school, who relayed to him this take on it.

This interview was conducted in the informant’s friend’s bedroom, with another friend of his who had a different version of the superstition.

“So what’s your version of the white lighter bad luck thing?”
“Well you see, since I’m actually pretty sure that all… all, all lighters have a white bottom, um, it’s more of a bad luck thing because peoples… people that, that yeah—“ (Stephen interrupts) “Not all of them do, bro” “Well, BIC lighters… buncha musicians that were like ‘I like white lighters!’ died when they were like 20.” “So that’s why it’s bad luck?” “Yeah, cause you don’t wanna like, die when you’re 20.” “Ok, ok, so two musicians used white lighters and they died at the same age so therefore white lighters are bad.” “Yeah! Yeah.”

This is one of two versions of the white lighter superstition I collected that day, and has more to do with celebrity culture and bad luck concerning the phenomenon of famous musicians dying young. This lends a dark twist to the superstition but distances the consequence a bit from the bearer, as opposed to the other version, which has more to do with the luck component of being caught with marijuana.

Mangoes and Marijuana

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 26, 2014
Primary Language: English

My informant is a college student, rapper,  and avid pot smoker. He knows a lot of “stoner tricks” as he calls them, most of which he learned from friends in high school. These and other aspects of weed culture mean a lot to him because he sees pot as a way of bonding with peers and enhancing creativity. Uniquely, as far as I have heard, he also uses it as a form of self-medication; he has ADHD and takes Ritalin, but says that it makes him feel mentally cloudy and slow, and that weed, for him, clears things up and makes him able to focus more easily. Thus, pot is an integral part of his daily life, both socially and personally.

He heard about this method of enhancing a high from his best friend back home. Essentially if you eat a mango 30 minutes to an hour before smoking pot, the high is supposed to feel stronger.

He performed this piece of folklore—or rather told me about it—during a break in class, outside the classroom on a balcony.

“So what is this mango… thing?”

“Right! So, mangoes. Um, so there is a chemical in mangoes that is also in cannabis and I don’t know what that chemical is off the top of my head but it is essentially the chemical that opens up, it, it opens up to the, probably the receptors… I guess, are they technically enzymes? I don’t know. They open up the receptors in your brain and make them susceptible to receiving THC, so normally what would happen is you smoke the cannabis and you get all the different chemicals that are in the plant when it combusts, and some of those include the THC, some of those include those chemicals that are in the mangoes, and they would both kinda hit you at the same time so as the receptors are opening up THC is also filtering through so some of that THC is lost because it’s being filtered through before the receptors open up. So with the mango, what people do is you eat a mango like an hour before, and all your receptors are open so when you smoke, you don’t have to waste, like, it doesn’t have to take, your body doesn’t have to take time to open those receptors before, before the THC attaches to them, it just gets all of it at once. So you get a stronger high.”

“Mhm. So where’d you hear this?”

“My best friend Oliver told me. And then uh, and then there’s also like a timing element, too, cause if you do it like right before, it’ll just make the trip—not the trip, the high longer just because like, um, it’ll kind of open those receptors slowly as your brain continues to process the remaining THC that’s left over. But then like if you do it an hour before, then by the time you digest it it will have all kicked in, so then it’ll just make it stronger, it’ll hit you all at once. So there’s a timing element to that as well.”

“Cool. Have you tried this before?”

“I have! I have.”
“Does it work?”
“It does, but it doesn’t work to the point where it’s like, amazing. It’s just kind of like a little extra kick.”

“You don’t think that might be, like, a placebo effect?”
“Oh I’m sure there is somewhat of a placebo effect, but it’s a combination, like, part of it is placebo and part of it actually is that you’re getting higher. Because it does, it does do the work, I’ve fact-checked this and everything. It’s a legitimate thing, it’s not just a wives’ tale. I mean it started out as folklore, obviously, and it still is, but if you wanna look it up for yourself there is legitimate information on this.”

My informant is obviously very interested in having accurate information, and sets his stories apart from “wives’ tales” in stoner culture as truth and having been “fact-checked”. I found this interesting because upon asking him, most of what he thought was “wives’ tales” came from friends and most of what he thought was true he had fact-checked on online forums about weed. He uses scientific sounding words like enzyme and receptors to do this, which may all be true but certainly reinforces, at least in his mind, the fact that they are more true with scientific backup. His attachment to the truth reveals his attachment to being more “legitimate” within his identity as a stoner.

Folk Remedy for Mosquito Bites

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 74
Occupation: Professor
Residence: Mexico City, Mexico
Performance Date: March 15, 2014
Primary Language: English

My informant is my 74 year old grandmother, who is a language professor born and raised in Mexico City, and currently living and working there. She heard of this folk remedy from her mother when they would go to Veracruz (her mother’s hometown), because the climate there is very hot and tropical and mosquitoes are a big problem. She likes it because it’s useful and reminds her of Veracruz and her older relatives, and she can pass it on to the younger generations as a useful thing.

The folk remedy is for mosquito bites, and consists of tobacco and rubbing alcohol. You’re supposed to steep the tobacco for a bit in the alcohol and then rub the combination gently on a mosquito bite; she’s done this for as long as she can remember and always reminds us to do the same.

Don’t Talk About Crashing – Cyclist Superstition

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 18. 2014
Primary Language: English

My informant is a 21-year-old animation student who was a nationally and internationally recognized competitive cyclist in her high school years. She has since given up cycling professionally but teaches spinning classes at the Lyon Center. She heard this word of advice from an older cycling teammate when she started cycling. This interview was conducted during a break in our animation class.

“You never talk about crashing, that’s the number one, because if you talk about crashing, you’re gonna crash. Anytime I’ve ever crashed, I talked about crashing immediately before.”
“That happens to you?”

“That happened to me so… (chuckles) I’m like ah fuckin hell, they’re probably right. Just don’t talk about crashing. If you like, talk about it, it’s just like, bound to happen, which I guess, my old coach, the reasoning she said was that, like, uh, you know that psychology thing where if you say like ‘I’m not gonna do this’ then you do it because you’ve like, brought the idea of doing it to yourself. If you think about crashing… and she’d be like no, no, you can’t phrase it that way, you just have to like, think about staying upright and being alert! And I was like, this is stupid, this doesn’t actually, this isn’t a thing. But uh, yeah.”

With a sport like cycling where everything is so up to chance, crashes are one of the scarier possibilities during a race. It makes sense that there would be superstition about it, especially among higher-consequence competitive cyclists.