Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Don’t Step on the Symbol

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Occupation: Radio producer and sports media
Residence: Lake Bluff, Illinois
Performance Date: 3/18/2013
Primary Language: English

My informant does some work in the sports media field, which basically means he gets to interview players after the game in the locker room.  On of the teams he has interviewed is the Chicago Blackhawks, and he says that in their locker room, there is a big Blackhawk head on the middle of the floor.  It’s the team emblem.  You are not allowed to step on it, and the players ask all the media people not to step on it either.  Anyone who steps on it “gets a major razz from the players.”  During the playoffs, there are a lot of media people in the locker room, and some of these people don’t know the tradition because they don’t regularly come for interviews.  During these busy weeks, the team goes so far as to rope off the Blackhawk emblem to make sure that no one steps on it.  It’s not necessarily bad luck, but it’s just something you aren’t supposed to do.

A similar tradition is observed in the USC Trojan Marching Band.  There is a big emblem of the band trojan head on the floor in the band office by the front door, and you are not supposed to step on it.  If someone (usually a freshman) steps on it, everyone in the band office will turn to that person and yell at them, and say stuff like “Don’t step on the trojan!” and yell obscenities at the offender.  Like with the Blackhawks, it isn’t really bad luck, it’s just something you aren’t supposed to do.

My high school back home had a similar tradition but with a twist.  In the front entrance to Lake Forest High School, there is a big Compass-Rose-like star in the main hallway, right by the front doors.  I’m not entirely sure, but I think this was a gift from a graduating senior class.  When new freshmen come to the school, all the older kids tell the freshmen that this is the Senior Star, and that no one except seniors are allowed to walk across it.  And they say that any non-senior who violates this rule will get beaten up.  The reality is that nobody gives a shit about walking across the senior star.  In fact, given how big the star is compared to the rest of the hallway and the given the amount of students who walk through it in between classes, it would be pretty hard for everyone to avoid it.  But the reason they tell this to freshmen is just to see how long it takes them to figure out that indeed nobody gives a shit who walks across it.  Nevertheless, the fact that this faux rule exists proves that “Don’t Step on the Symbol” is a somewhat universal concept.

Clovers

Nationality: Romanian Italian American
Age: 53
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 4/17/2013
Primary Language: English

My informant grew up in a town outside of Springfield, Ohio, in a relatively small community.  According to her, there wasn’t much to go out and do, so one of the things she loved to do was pick clovers and knock them into a necklace similar to a Hawaiian lei.  Some of her other friends would also make these necklaces with her.  Also she and her friends use to take these clovers and make them into a sort of potion for the fairies, and in exchange for this potion, they believed that the fairies would grant them three wishes.  My informant says she and her friends used to wish for stuff like having the longest hair of anyone they knew, but later in life they started making their first wish to be for a hundred extra wishes, which made the wishing get out of hand.

While I never made potions for fairies, there were certainly times in my life, especially after watching the movie Aladdin, where the topic of conversation between me and my peers turned into “if you had three wishes, what would they be?”  And almost everyone’s first wish was for a hundred extra wishes, or a million extra wishes, or infinite wishes, or something.  Usually we said stuff like that wasn’t allowed.  We certainly weren’t the wish police or the wish distribution bureau, so we didn’t care about fairness per se, but the point of the game was to see what kinds of things people wanted, so limiting someone to thee wishes was in the interests of a fair personality test.

Thunder Dome

Nationality: Italian American, African American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Pasadena
Performance Date: April 16, 2013
Primary Language: English

Um, okay, so I guess I’m talking about Thunder Dome, which was a ritual thingie for my water polo team in high school. Um, uh, so, basically, it was like this exercise we did every week for hell week, which was like the most intense part of practice, I guess. It’s before the season starts, like a week. Anyway, this particular exercise, um, basically what they would do is, they wouldn’t tell you what it was until you were about to start it, so for like the freshman it was like this big deal. So what they would do is wheel out this big speaker system. And they’d start playing “Thunderstruck” by AC DC, like really, really loud, on the pool deck or whatever. And then, uh, they would have to uh line up in two different rows on each side of the pool. Basically the rules of the game is you have to stop the other person—you were like matched up with someone on the other side—you have to stop the other person from scoring any way you wanted to. And if you didn’t you had to keep going against another person, and another person, another person, another person, until you do. And, yeah, that was basically the game.

This sample of folklore describes a rite of passage. The secrecy and fear of the mysterious “Thunder Dome,” is a way for older high school students to intimidate, and allow new freshman team members to prove themselves in order to be accepted as part of the team. The game is an extreme version of water polo that allows freshman to show the team what they’ve got. If one performs poorly at Thunder Dome, they are off to a bad start as a member of the team. Doing well can increase one’s standing in the eyes of older players. This tradition can lead to acceptance by a niche peer group.

Rally Monkey

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Diego
Performance Date: May 1, 2013
Primary Language: English

Okay, uh, in like, um, in like 2000, so like the 2000, 2001, baseball season, uh, the Los Angeles Angels, who, er, at the time they were the Anaheim Angels, uh, they were losing in a regular season game with the Giants, and, uh, during like the bottom of the 8th inning, uh, one of the, on the Jumbo Tron, one of the graphics people, uh, played a clip from Ace Ventura, the Jim Carrey movie, that had like uh, uh, a foot long monkey running around, and they wrote, uh, “Rally Monkey” on it, and so the crowd that went to the Jumbo Tron, and I guess they kind of laughed about it, and in that inning the Angels came back and won, and so that became a huge phenomenon for like Angels fans and stuff. Even throughout the MLB it was like a iconic thing. It was like the Rally Monkey they would call it. And, uh, it got to the point they would bring, they actually, the Angeles organization actually bought like a monkey, I guess, and they had like a little Angel’s hat, and they’d bring it out, uh, in between innings. And the crowd would go crazy for it, and they started selling, uh, like plush toys of it that people would buy. Like I had one. And, um, so like whenever in the later end, the later innings, when the Angel’s were losing, uh, you’d like swing the monkey around, so you’re in the stadium, there’d be like hundreds—like thousands of people, all just like swinging monkeys around, and yelling, like, “Rally Monkey time!” And in the 2002 season, uh, they ended up winning the World Series, and it was like at the height of like the Rally Monkey era, like they would play it on the Jumbo Tron and it was like there were known for like, “Oh, the Rally Monkey!” stuff. And so they won the World Series and that’s the highest honor you can get, and so that was like a huge part of the season. And, um, after that season the Rally Monkey was around, but they started losing a lot, and now it’s gone forever. And it was kind of like, uh, a 2 season thing that’s gone now.

This is the story of the rise and fall of a sports tradition. The Rally Monkey was a superstitious, homeopathic form of magic, where swinging a plush monkey could bring luck to the players of the Angels. The tradition died after the Angels won the World Series and started losing, and it is now a part of the team’s and the fans’ heritage. Knowing about the Rally Monkey also was a way of creating group identity and community. One had to be initiated into the team fan group to be aware of the superstition, and to understand why Ace Ventura would play at the Angels games. At the time you were not really a fan unless you knew the tradition and participated.

Oprah Gives Out Halloween iPods

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Santa Barbara
Performance Date: May 4, 2013
Primary Language: English

Ever since I was a little kid, trick-or-treating was a big deal to me. Seeing as my parents were very protective of me however, I was never allowed to go very far outside my Santa Barbara neighborhood each Halloween. Every year, kids with more lenient parents would circulate tales of what fantastic goodies they collected from the more affluent neighborhoods I was not allowed to visit. Rumors of “king size” chocolate bars and candy buffets incurred awe and jealousy from the kids with restrictive Halloween guidelines, but what really captured my attention were the iPods Oprah Winfrey allegedly distributed to those lucky enough to make it to her Montecito estate. Nobody I knew ever made it out there to get a piece of this iPod action, it was always their brother’s friend or a friend of a friend who got the goods, but I believed all the same. I could just imagine a group of costumed children arriving at Oprah’s doorstep to be greeted by exclamations of “You get an iPod! You get an iPod! And you get an iPod! Everybody gets an iPod!” as confetti rained down, etc. To this day I’ve never been able to confirm the veracity of this rumor one way or the other, but I guess that’s the case with most urban legends; regardless of truth, the story never dies.

This is a FOAF legend, popular among trick-or-treating children who live in Santa Barbara, or near enough to Oprah’s Montecito estate they could potentially stop at her house on Halloween night. As Oprah has a reputation for giving our lavish gifts on special occasions, the story is not beyond the realm of possibility. However, as the person who told me this folklore never knew anyone directly who received an iPod, there is no guarantee that this story is true.