Category Archives: Game

Senior Prank

Age: 21

Informant:

“The year before us did a senior prank and it was great because it wasn’t actually a prank. So I guess somebody in that class had a 3D printer so they 3D printed a ton of these tiny 3D printed articulated slugs and they would just leave them everywhere. You’d constantly be finding these articulated slugs and snails and they were all over campus and it was so great. I was like, this is the best kind of prank because you didn’t have to harm anyone. It was just like, “Oh my god, a slug!”

Context:

A tradition for graduating seniors in America is to pull a senior prank on their school. In the days leading up to the last day of school, the graduating senior class will come together and act out their plan to prank the school. This particular high school pulled a harmless prank with 3d slugs.

Analysis:

Senior pranks can vary in execution. Sometimes the prank is to jump in the fountain, post post-it notes all over the principal’s office, or decorate a hallway with balloons and streamers. It’s one of the last hurrah’s for the graduates before leaving the school. Senior pranks act as a rite of passage for high school seniors. They’re done during the liminal space, or a waiting period, leading up to graduation. The students are close to becoming an alumni but not quite there yet. It’s a bridge between adolescence and early adulthood.

Children’s Game (Down by the banks)

Age: 21

Text:
“Down by the banks of the hanky-panky where the bullfrogs jump from bank to banky with a heap, off, over the top, land on a lily pad with the curplop.”

Context:
A girl from Denver, Colorado describing a game she used to play with her friends as a child where they sat in a circle with their palms facing up. Each person goes one by one, singing and clapping their neighbors hand at the rhythm of the song, typically increasing speed as the game progresses. If you are the last person to be slapped, you’re out of the game. The last man standing is the winner.

Analysis:
It was interesting to hear this rendition of the song because mine was slightly different in the second half from what I can remember. The beginning was the same, but the end of mine was slightly different, going, “heap, hop, soda pop, he missed the lily pad, he went curplop.” However, the heart and content was still the same, with the general storyline of the song and clapping hands while seated in a circle motion, trying to not get eliminated. This demonstrates the multiplicity and variation when passing along games.

How to Turn a Common weed Into a Weapon

Ribwort Plantain Gun

context:

This is a techniques of turning a common Ribwort Plantain into a catapult. This technique was collected form my grandfather who grew up in Georgia and how to do this when he was very young.

Text:

This is the ribwort plantain, and it is very common in Georgia, where I grew up. My grandfather taught me how to turn one of these into a gun by folding the stem over itself and pulling hard to launch the bulb at the very top. My sister and I had full-on wars where our only artillery was this common weed. My grandpa told me that he himself learned it from his grandfather, so I assume this simple trick is very old. The origin of this practice is unknown, but I assume it exists in most places where this plant grow

Beer Pong

Main Text:
Folk Game: Beer Pong

Background on Informant:

My informant is my younger brother, who graduated from UC Davis. While in college, he was part of a fraternity where he regularly participated in social events that included different drinking games. I asked him about beer pong, since it is one of the most common games played in those settings. He explained that he learned it from other members and continued to play it throughout college, often with slight variations in rules depending on the group.

Text:

Interviewer: Can you explain how beer pong works?

Informant: Yeah, it’s a game where you set up 10 cups filled halfway with beer in a triangle on both sides of a table. Each team  made up of two players takes turns throwing  2 ping pong balls, (1 for each player) trying to land it in the other team’s cups.

Interviewer: What happens if the ball goes in a cup?

Informant: If it goes in, that cup gets taken away, and the other team has to drink it. The goal is to make the other team drink all their cups first if you can do that you win.

Interviewer: Are the rules always the same?

Informant: Not really. Different houses play with different rules. Some have an airball rule where if you miss the table completely you got to drink a cup, some have same-cup equals 3 cups and you get balls back.

Informant: you mean if both players on one team make each of their balls into the same cup?

Informant: Yeah, and they get balls back and can re shoot, actually anytime they both make it they get balls back, but if its same cup its three cups not two. Also, if you bounce it into a cup, the other guy has to drink two cups so if you both bounce it into the same cup its 5 cups balls back.

Interviewer: So I take it bouncing it in a cup is hard?

Informant: Yeah, because they can block bounces.

Interviewer: Where do people usually play it?

Informant: Mostly at parties, especially in college, sometimes you will see it at bars.

Interviewer: Where did you first play it?

Informant: Davis.

Analysis:
This is a folk game because although there is a structure, there are no set rules it is learned informally, through social interaction and passed between groups through horizontal transmission, and can change from place to place displaying multiplicity and variation among different social demographics. The game also functions as a way to create social cohesion when people are agreeing on specific rules across different groups, especially in party settings. It also reflects the shared practices of a specific folk group, such as college students, but still remain different enough to create its own niche within the folk community, where different colleges have different stories rules and legends devoted to the game.

Birthday Spanking

AZ: In my family we do birthday spanks. You get one swat for every year you’ve been alive, plus one to grow. My dad usually does it while we’re all standing around the cake before we blow out the candles.

“Interviewer: I know this is a common folk ritual, however is there anything your family specifically does to modify this practice?

AZ: Now that you mention It we make sure to do the spankings at the exact hour the person was born, in order to “spank” them into the next chapter of their life”

Context: This is a multi generational family tradition passed down from her paternal grandfather. To AZ, this is a nostalgic and grounding ritual. While the act is playful, the family takes the timing seriously. The added later of the timing transforms a general game into a practice of family law. She views the physical sensation as a necessary “spank” into her new age.

Analysis: This ritual is another example of how folklore can be localized through variation and a secular rite of passage. However, the specific modification AZ describes, performing the ritual at the exact hour of birth, elevates the practice from a general custom to a sacred domestic event. Anthropologically, this emphasizes the importance of liminality. This is also connected to sympathetic magic, and the physicality of the action in the present propels the individuals journey into the future.