Category Archives: Game

“X Marks the Spot”

Text Transcribed from Informant

“X marks the spot (He draws an x on his partner’s back), a circle and a dot (he draws a circle on back of his partner and then pokes his finger where he drew the circle), up the river (he runs his fingers up his partner’s back), down the river (and then he runs his fingers down his partner’s back), cootie shot! (he then gently tickles his partner’s back) Cold breeze (he gently blows on his partner’s neck), Tight squeeze (he squeezes partner’s shoulders), egg….(he puts his fist on his partner’s head) Smashing…down your head (he pulls his hands down around his partner’s head)”

Context

Just like the “giving one the shivers” game, my informant learned of this custom/game in his elementary school years. Generally a student will say the text above outloud, while using their fingers to act out the actions being described in the text. When asked for his interpretation, my informant replied that this motion and speech based game, and other games like it, are called “giving one the shivers,” even though this specific one is titled “X Marks the Spot.” He often played this game as a child, either reciting the words to other students and pretending to have nefarious creatures crawl up their backs, or having the game recited to him and motions done upon him. However, when comparing this specific “shivers” game to the three others documented in the archive, my informant says he partook in this one “the least.”

My Analysis

Like the three other shiver games my informant told me off, I believe this game to be a sort of “proto-ASMR” type of experience. While I remember certain shivers games in my own childhood, this particular one was new to me. I find it surprising personally how many of these “shivers” game my informant was aware of, as I only remembered one or three from my own past. I found all of these “shivers” games to be particularly unique forms of folklore, and am genuinely curious about the future of them.

Childhood Jump Rope Song –

Text

“Cinderella dressed in yellow, went upstairs to kiss a fellow, made a mistake, and kissed a snake, how many doctors will it take? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…”

Context

This is a song one sings while jump-roping. According to my informant, you’re supposed to keep counting for as many jumps as the participant is able to go for before getting caught up in the rope or stopping. My informant heard of this particular jump rope song from her neighbor at a young age, and would sing it both with her as well as with other friends at school. She says it’s just a silly rhyming song, and that she’s unsure of how to analyze it any further. My informant says she remembers other jump rope songs she chanted as a child, but this is the only one she can remember in full due to its relative brevity.

My Analysis

When I heard my informant start talking about this particular jump-roping song, I immediately remembered also learning it in my childhood. However interesting enough, I only learned the song as a stand-alone song, and didn’t realize that it was associated with jump roping. Since the number “eight” rhymes with the previous lines of “take” and “snake,” I thought the counting was just a part of the song itself. But upon learning that my informant used it as a jump-roping song, the song itself immediately made a lot more sense.

Freeze Tag

Informant: The informant is my sibling. A Mexican American boy who is 14 years old and currently an 8th grader at a charter school in Los Angeles California. 

Context: The following excerpt is a conversation that happened when both of us were discussing some of our favorite school recess games. One of them froze tag and the following transcript describes how he remembered playing freeze tag in elementary school. In the excerpt I refer my sibling as J.

Transcript:

J: “When my class or group of friends played, I remember specifically that it was always a girl vs boys tag. It was really fun because it was always a competition to prove who was the best. The tagger is chosen at random, and they have to try to run around as quickly as possible to catch or freeze the runners. When someone was tagged what happened next, is that they are frozen there on the spot and they have to be unfreezed by their teammates. If you see your teammate being freezed, then you have to make the decision of either risking yourself.”

Analysis: Having played this version when I myself in the past brought a lot of nostalgia. My sibling and I have an age difference of 6 years old. Therefore, seeing how much this game has kept the same demonstrates just how much this game has become almost like given tradition. Freeze tag is something that every child should or at least all of them experience. Because there is a lot of running: the child who is the “it” is able to develop critical thinking skills to “touch” the runner. In addition, there is a lot of social skills that are developed as there has to be communication between the runners in order to save themselves from the “it.” When it come to the competition of both sexes, I think it just demonstrates how both are being able to explore their identities.

Video Game Taunting – Online Insults

Main Perfromance:

In the online game series called “Halo,” CS was exposed to the start of a long running insult to one’s opponent called “tea bagging.” The movement, crouching up and down over a dead enemy, was so infamous that it got its very own name.

Background:

This action of crouch spamming over an opponent that the player killed, has since expanded to pretty much all online shooters, but is less often called by the name. Instead, the action is by far the most recognizable part of the gesture.

Context:

When playing the online game “Overwatch” with CS, he got killed and “tea bagged” by the enemy team.

Thoughts:

Disrespect and crude humor is a common occurrence in online video games, especially when it gets very competitive. The same way that basketball players might taunt each other before and after making shots, online gamers treat the sport with a similar attitude. With more and more humor coming from the internet, on occasion, this emote/crouch spam taunting makes its way even into the material world.

Reference:

I found one other post about this online taunt/humor in our archive:

http://uscfolklorearc.wpenginepowered.com/video-game-celebration-american/

Mary Mack

Context:

AS grew up in Ontario, Canada, and remembers playing this clapping game on the playground growing up. This piece was performed as a form of play between two children in coordination with a clapping game. The game consisted of both participants clapping their two hands together, then clapping on of their hands to the other person’s (right hand to right hand) and then repeating, alternating the hand that they clapped against the other participant’s.

Main Piece:

“Oh Mary Mack, Mack, Mack,
All dressed in black, black black,
She asked her mother, mother, mother
For fifty cents, cents, cents, 
She climbed a fence, fence, fence,
She went so high, high, high,
She didn’t come back, back, back,
Till the Fourth of July, -ly, -ly”

Additional Commentary:

“I don’t know why we said fourth of July because that meant nothing to us as kids. But, the point was, is it kept going and going and going and going, and it got slowly faster and faster and faster until one of you messed up. Then you probably slapped ‘em or something, I don’t know. So there were lots of variations on that.”

Analysis:

Both the rhythm of the clapping game itself and the song are relatively simple, so once the game and song are learned, the challenge consists in the ability to maintain coordination of singing and clapping in the correct rhythm while continuously increasing the speed. The song rhymes and repeats in sections, which makes it easier to remember.

AS has no idea what the song was about, but still remembers the lyrics and hand movements decades later. Though, with the general trend of folkloric children’s songs being about taboo topics like sex and death, there are some lines that could point in that direction. The lines “She climbed a fence… she went so high… she didn’t come back… till the Fourth of July” seem like they could hint at something darker, especially since they do not clarify how she came down (climbing or falling). The final line also points the origin of the song in the United States, as the Fourth of July is Independence Day in the US. AS grew up in Canada, so, as she mentioned, the date “meant nothing to us as kids.”

When trying to discern the meaning of the song, it’s important to mention that there are other recorded versions of this song that include different variations on the lyrics. In another version, it is not Mary Mack that climbs the fence and doesn’t come down till the Fourth of July, but instead an elephant that jumps the fence, touches the sky, and doesn’t come back till the Fourth of July. For a recording of that version, refer here: “Miss Mary Mack,” Ian Cabeen, USC Digital Folklore Archives, May 17, 2021. http://uscfolklorearc.wpenginepowered.com/miss-mary-mack-2/