Category Archives: Digital

Cuca – The Brazilian Folklore Character (and the Internet’s New Gay Icon)

Nationality: American/Brazilian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Woodinville
Performance Date: 4/30/20
Primary Language: English
Language: Portuguese

Informant: Okay. So. This one definitely spooked me when I was… a child? Because there was a – there used to be a – well, there is a popular Brazillian writer who wrote a bunch of stories, and – I don’t remember when or what year, it was a long time ago – but he wrote stories that were really popular like… a Brazilian classic child story, similar with what you guys have here like… Secret Garden or something like that. People were super attached to the characters, and a lot of his characters were based on folklore. I didn’t read these books but everyone knew them, and there was a Brazilian TV show based off them that was really bad. But! For a small child who knew nothing of the world, it was, like, amazing. One of the villains was based off the myth of this, uh… Alligator lady, who was literally an alligator, but stands up, and has hair. And the story behind it, her name was – I can also, when you go back to type this up, tell you how to spell these, because they’re all Brazilian – but her name is Cuca, and she’s literally just an alligator with a wig, essentially. And her thing is – I think she was created to scare children into not being bad with their parents? And it’s basically because – the myth with her is that she would – if you were bad, bad to your parents, disobeyed your parents, went to bed late, something like that – she would get you, straight up snatch you. And she supposedly never slept, so kids who didn’t go to bed at night, she’d still get you. And there was a song that went with it.

Me: What was the song?

Informant: Well, it wasn’t really a song, it was more like a chant thingy. A few phrases that basically translate to “She’ll get you from one side, she’ll get you from the other.” Repeated in Portuguese over and over again. Just to scare kids. And… it worked. I went to bed. It scared me. I have anxiety now. (She laughs)

Background:
My informant is a 19-year-old college student at a small liberal arts college in Washington state. She was born in Brazil, and grew up there, moving to Florida in late elementary school, back to Brazil for a few years, then finally settling outside of Seattle in our last two years of high school. Her father’s American, and her mom’s Brazilian. Portuguese was her first language, and she still speaks Portuguese at home with her mom. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this piece was collected via an interview that took place over FaceTime. 

Thoughts: 
I’m very unfamiliar with Brazilian folklore, which is why I was so interested in hearing her stories from her childhood. I was still curious after this interview, so I went to look up more information about the character, and found out that the internet has adapted Cuca as a gay icon, along the lines of the Babadook. She has become the subject of many memes, most of which are screenshots from the portrayal of Cuca on a Brazilian children’s show, an adaptation of the children’s books Sítio do Pica-Pau Amarelo, which translates roughly to “Yellow Woodpecker Ranch.” She’s portrayed with an alligator suit in the style of Barney or the Disney characters, with a blonde wig and a cocktail-esque dress with a fake bust added on top. Many have made the connection that in this getup, Cuca looks like a drag queen, and thus the memes began. My informant was not aware of this, and after I forwarded her a few articles (this was after the interview), I believe she is rethinking her entire childhood, as a character that she grew up thinking would literally eat her alive is now a symbol of gay pride. 

Slenderman

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 16
Occupation: Student
Residence: Kansas City, MO
Performance Date: 4/23/20
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“The idea is that there is a man that lives in the woods, he is very tall and lanky, he wears a suit and has tentacles on his back but the biggest thing is that he doesn’t have a face, when you look at him it’s just a white head, a flat nothing. I honestly don’t remember how I first heard about- it was probably just through talking to other kids because it became such a big deal because Slenderman started as a creepy pasta where someone wrote a story and it just spread through the Internet. There’s a whole bunch of scary photos with a child next to him and the whole idea is that he would lure kids into the woods and kill them. One of the things that was scary about him was that the more you research the Slenderman, the more likely he is to get you. So like as you look stuff up, he’s like gonna put you on his list like this person looking too much into it. I don’t fully know how that started and it made it scarier because we can’t find anything about him.”

Background:

My informant is a 16-year old from Kansas City, Missouri. She is active on the Internet and has been on YouTube since early 2010. In the early days of the Internet, people invented short stories that would be spread throughout the Internet via copy and pasting, earning the name copy pastas. Eventually, this act of sharing stories transformed to fit the horror genre and this subculture was known as creepy pastas. These stories are shared in Internet circles as short and creepy stories and are subject to reinterpretation with each telling. My informant, being invested with the Internet, learned of several of these throughout the years and remembered this one in particular. 

Context:

My informant brought up this story during a walk around her neighborhood when I asked her about scary stories from her childhood. 

Thoughts:

This story is interesting as it represents several fears for a generation that is heavily present on the Internet. Firstly, the Slenderman takes from similar urban legends of the past featuring a man in the woods who seeks to hurt others. It should be noted though, that this specific story states he only seeks to hurt children, which is done to emphasize his cruelty and evil nature. Furthermore, it is tailored to fit those who would stumble upon the story, most of which would be younger children using the Internet. Being entirely on the Internet also changes how people could discuss the story, which features prominently in this telling of the story. The informant told me that she heard you could not look anything up about the creature, as it would make you his target. This is fascinating, as it plays into the fears of a generation with seemingly unlimited access to technology, which is a restriction of said content. If nothing else, the Slenderman also represents an entire shift in the methods by which stories are told. Whereas other classic horror stories are primarily told orally, the Slenderman’s origins are entirely on the Internet. This pushed the content of the piece to better fit this audience, and it adapted to address fears of this generation of kids on the Internet.

For an in-depth look at the history of this legend, see: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/15/movies/slender-man-timeline.html

Bottle Flipping – Find out if girls like you

Nationality: United States
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: El cerrito, CA
Performance Date: 4/29/20
Primary Language: English

Main text:

BR: At my old high school, we’d do this thing called bottle flipping…

MW: Oh yeah! We did that too. Was that just like a NorCal thing or…?

BR: I mean I don’t know, but we’d do it and kids would be flipping these dumb bottles everywhere and the goal was to flick a plastic bottle upwards and have it land on its bottom again. And they boys would be like, oh, if I flip it and it lands right it means she likes me…

MW: Oh, that’s interesting. I’ve never heard that version before…in my school we just did it to do it, you know? There’d be bottles, like, stuck in weird places because of it…

BR: haha. Yeah, all the band kids did it. It’s actually kinda funny because it’s actually kinda hard to get the bottle to land right, so it means, or like was implying, that girls weren’t liking guys back. Especially the band kids.

Background:

The informant, BR, was born and raised in the Bay Area, specifically El Cerrito (the East Bay). He remembers this tradition specifically because it was a fun bonding activity, and also a meme at the time. He looks back on this memory fondly. 

Context

This story was brought up in a FaceTime call. I asked the informant what traditions he remembered in high school, to see if we could cross compare since I went to high school not too far from where he did (San mateo).

Thoughts:

Upon further research, I believe that bottle flipping was done across America, maybe even more globally. It was perpetuated by the internet and made into one of the most popular memes of 2016. I think that BR’s school’s addition of having a girl like you back is really funny because it is so reminiscent of other children’s superstitious games. As we talked about in class, a lot of childrens’ superstition (especially girls’) revolves around who you will marry or relationships, etc. I think it’s just so fascinating that something as seemingly dumb as bottle flipping was able to work its way into that same pattern, probably just because it’s something the youth was doing. It’s also interesting to note that this phenomenon applied mostly to boys getting girls to like them back, as usually it’s a “girl’s game” that involves relationship fortune telling, as we talked about in class. 

(For an example of bottle flipping, please see this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp5QMSbf-a0) 

Bill Clinton Music Meme

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4.15.20
Primary Language: English

Background: The informant here is explaining a Bill Clinton themed meme that has been exploding on social media during the Covid-19 pandemic. As a college Junior on all social media platforms, the informant also explores the nature of these collaborative quarantine meme challenges. She also explains her own rendition of the meme that she shared on her social media. Said photo is included below. 

The Main Piece:

So yeah this meme started going around on the ‘gram. Um like twoish weeks ago now probably. Um, this is one of many viral repost interactive things that you can do with your friends type of meme that has popped on social media since quarantine began. I think it’s just a way that people stay connected during this, and even if it’s not fully reaching out to your friend even just a little nudge to be like ‘hey, I remember you— you exist and I care to hear what your answer is to this type of stuff,’ I think is a cool way of interacting with people during these time. Um, but ya you chose like your four albums and people were kinda putting different twists on them, like I did mine on my top albums of 2019. Uh, some people were doing like their quarantine jams, some people were doing like their favorite 70s albums. So like there were a lot of different takes on it and people were able to make it their own. Yeah, it was interesting, they’re all pretty short- lived  because like the new one comes around and everyone starts doing that one instead because everyone’s bored as hell. So. 

Context: This conversation took place on a late night in quarantine. The informant and I are quarantining together. This conversation arose from a seemingly nightly tradition of talking about how Covid-19 has affected the world, including its influence on pop culture and social norms. 

Analysis: This meme is a great example of the sort of ‘collaborative’ memes that have become so popular during quarantine and social distancing. I agree with the informant that these memes stem from using social media as one of the only tools to connect during this pandemic. A feeling that is reminiscent of the fascination of opening an account and getting connected in the first place. I also agree with the informant that it is a nice sentiment and a way to stay connected creatively. For this reason the new wave of content feels less of showing off and more of finding ways to creatively pass time with each other while not actually physically being with each other.

“Spaghetti Code” as Computer Science Lingo

Nationality: Jewish
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/21/2020
Primary Language: English

Main Piece

Informant: Spaghetti Code is exactly what it sounds like, usually, I’ll use Spaghetti Code when I need to get something working, and I don’t give a shit what it looks like. It usually works, but it breaks pretty easily It is completely unreadable but it gets the job done. 

Interviewer: In what context would you use this? 

Informant: Say I have a lab due tonight, and I have an hour to do it and I just need something to pass the cases so I just code something really half-assed and someone asked me if I did the assignment, I would tell them “yeah, I did it but it is all spaghetti.” 

Interviewer: Where did you learn it? 

Informant: Sophomore year through word of mouth, friends just kinda started using it around me so I picked it up. 

Background

The informant is a good friend and housemate of mine, and is a junior at USC studying Computer Science and Computer Engineering. He is originally from Manhattan Beach, CA and has been coding ever since highschool. He has had several internships with different computer science companies such as Microsoft and is very involved with different coding clubs on campus. 

Context

When I asked my informant how his assignment went, he described it using this term. Being something I have never heard before, I brought it up during our interview and asked him to describe it and provide some more context as to when he would use it. 

Analysis

I think this example of folk speech is a very colloquial and humorous way for computer science students to describe their work and relate to one another. It is a great indicator of the quality of their code, and provides imagery that is usually not present within the lingo and world of computer science. Especially for a subject and major that can harbor a lot of stress, it is also an indicator that could have arised when students did not have the time or effort to put in quality work into their coding assignments but still needed a way to get it done.