Category Archives: Game

Drinking Game – United States

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Nationality: Caucasian
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 15, 2008
Primary Language: English

Drinking Game- United States

“This drinking game is called Beer pong. The main equipments needed are 22 16oz plastic Dixie cups, 2 ping pong balls, beer, water, and a table, usually around 8 feet long. The basic rules are: you set up a triangle at both ends of the table using 10 cups at each end. With the remaining 2 cups you fill them up with water. The 10 cups are evenly filled up with 2 cans of any beer of your choice. There are 2 teams (of usually 2 but sometimes 1) at each game. The overall goal is to throw the ping pong ball into the other team’s cups. Every time the ball falls into a cup, that team has to drink that cup. The first team to eliminate all of the other team’s cups wins. The losing team has to drink the remaining cups of the winning team.”

Eric said he learned this game when he first came to college. It was a random night in his dorm room and some of the older kids wanted to play beer pong. This was when he first learned how to play. He said that at the beginning it was harder than he thought. However after playing for awhile, he got the hang of it and got pretty good. He said that there are a lot more specific rules to the game; such as if you bounce it in then it is 2 cups, you can’t lean forward, and etc. He said the rules really depend on your preference and the preference of the people you are playing with.

I actually really enjoy playing this game. I first learned how to play in my freshmen year. It was during spring break when I went back home. One of my high school friends was have a party at his house. It was there where I first learned how to play this game. A lot of the rules I learned there are similar to the rules I play now with my friends at the University of Southern California. Some of the rules were that “only bitches blow” meaning if you are girl you can blow into the cup to get the ball out; if you bounce it in, that’s 2 cups; if you make it in to the same cup, that’s 3 cups you have to drink, etc. I realized after playing many games of beer pong, that the rules are very similar and slightly vary. Each person has there own little ideas what the rules should be. Also, sometimes my friends and I would like to add new rules to the games such if you throw it off the wall or throw from really far and make it in then it’s 2 or 3 cups. So sometimes I like to change the rules around to make it more exciting.

Prank – American

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Nationality: African American
Age: 22
Occupation: Criminal Justice Student
Residence: Cincinnati, Ohio
Performance Date: March 7, 2009
Primary Language: English

When you are drinking you should never fall asleep with your shoes on. If you do then you are fair game for anything.

Corey told me that this tradition is common all across the campus of University of Findlay. Anytime there are parties and people have a little too much to drink and fall asleep with their shoes on they get messed with. He tells me that nothing is off-limits when it comes to dishing out a punishment to the offender. A common punishment is drawing on the person’s face with a magic marker. Usually this is done with an erasable marker but permanent markers are often used. Another common punishment is to spray shaving cream all over the person’s body. If the person is fully clothed when they fall asleep they may be stripped down to their underwear. Another, more interesting, punishment involves multiple individuals who have fallen asleep in shoes. These individuals are often positioned in compromising positions. All of these pranks can involve photography as a means of recording whatever sort of punishment gets dished out.

One of the more extreme examples Corey told me of involved a guy who had drank too much and passed out underneath a table with his shoes on. A partygoer happened to have a taser in her possession and was more than happy to lend it to one of Corey’s friends who proceeded to tase the sleeping individual in the leg multiple times. The offender was so intoxicated that he never actually woke up. He only moved his leg a little each time he was tased, other than that he remained sleeping and motionless. The incident was filmed and shown to the individual the next day. He was angry at first but upon learning that he neglected to remove his shoes he became more understanding and even appeared to be more angry at himself than the guy that tased him in the leg.

Corey says that this practice is continued in order to teach people not to drink more than they can responsibly handle. If someone plans on going to sleep they will have the wherewithal to remove their shoes first to avoid being disturbed. If, on the other hand, that person is too drunk to function and simply passes out anything can happen. Getting screwed with, while sleeping with shoes on, usually causes a person to drink more responsibly next time. Corey told me the first time he heard of this rule was at the very first college party he ever went to. The first time he witnessed someone getting messed with while sleeping with shoes was the very same night. The offender in this instance was given a shaving cream beard, mustache, and eyebrows. I also believe it is a way of warning college students against drinking too heavily. It is a way for them to experience a direct consequence of heavy drinking that is not nearly as severe as other possible consequences that can arise from drinking too heavily. This is a way to prevent that.

Folk Game – American

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Nationality: African American
Age: 25
Occupation: Computer Science Student
Residence: Cleveland, Ohio
Performance Date: February 21, 2009
Primary Language: English

The game Flips is played with any kind of coin. Typically it is played with quarters. The matches usually take place during lunchtime and matches are quick so that the winner can go buy snacks with his winnings and still have time to eat them. To play the game you and your opponent must have identical coins. If you have a quarter your opponent must also have a quarter, for example. One person flips their coin. The other person has to flip their coin and get it to land on the same side as the coin that their opponent previously flipped. If I flip a quarter and it comes up heads then you have to flip your quarter and have it come up heads to win. If the opponent matches the side the coin lands on then he gets both quarters. If they do not match the person that flipped first gets both quarters. If you match it you win. If you don’t match it you lose.

Ira says that this game was first introduced to him during his freshman year of high school. It was very easy for him to learn and he played it almost every day. It was a good way for him to make snack money. He told me that his strategy was to play with quarters first and if he started losing he would switch to smaller currency, such as nickels or dimes, until he became profitable again, at which point he would switch back to quarters.

Part of the appeal of this game came from the fact that it was not expensive to play and when you lose it is only pocket change that you are losing. This game was convenient for high school kids since most of them did not make much money at the time. They were able to accumulate change from simply looking around there houses or saving up change from small purchases. Ira told me that he thought the game was a great way to kill time during the lunch break. It was a fun way to spend time with friends and meet new people at very little expense.

I think the game is a good way to create and strengthen friendships but as a consequence it seems that it could eventually lead to a gambling habit. Ira told me he played every day. It might not have affected him, but I think gambling daily can contribute significantly to a future gambling habit.

Folk Game – American

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Nationality: African American
Age: 25
Occupation: Computer Science Student
Residence: Cleveland, Ohio
Performance Date: February 21, 2009
Primary Language: English

In grade school there is one thing that all students usually have on their person: a pencil. These pencils come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and densities. Ira used to play a game called Pencil Breaks in grade school. The goal of the game was to break the pencil of your opponent completely in half using your own pencil. The pencil had to be broken completely in half. If it was simply splintered and not broken all the way in half the game continued.

The players take turns striking each other’s pencils until a victor is crowned or they call it quits, usually in order to make it to the next class. If a player misses the opposing pencil completely the opponent gets two strikes instead of one. If a player hits the opponent’s hands or fingers instead of the pencil, the opponent gets two strikes instead of one. Ira says there are a variety of techniques but the most important thing is not to snap your own pencil in half while attempting to torque it back far enough to do sufficient damage to your opponent’s pencil.

The best players are the ones that were patient as opposed to rash. Ira said that new players tended to think they needed tremendously powerful strikes and usually snapped their own pencils in half. He also noticed that the strongest pencils were those that were made in China. The pencils made in America were more flexible and ready to break. The Chinese pencils were more solid tended to break less frequently. Ira recalls how he would inspect a challenger’s pencil and when he saw it was made in China he knew he was in for a challenge. When he noticed they were made in America he would be much more extravagant in his strikes and generally less technical.

Some players had the same pencil that they had one multiple battles with. These pencils were dented up combat veterans that were ready to face and defeat any challenger. When one of these veteran pencils finally suffered a killing blow they would later be ritually retired and sometimes even buried.

Ira said the first time he played Pencil Breaks was in 6th grade. He remembers that it quickly became popular and eventually it was outlawed by the school administration, which quickly led to a rise in popularity for the game during that time. Some kids were so good that they would use regular pencils to battle mechanical pencils and still win. Ira says the game is a way to facilitate friendly competition between and amongst groups. It gives the kids a quick way to have fun under the watchful eyes of their teacher. By using an item as common as a pencil they were able to remain undetected for quite some time.

I think the use of pencils was a brilliant idea because it would be hard for someone to be suspicious of children with pencils, considering how common it was for student to have pencils. It can also be seen as a way of exerting power as well as gain stature among other peers. If the game is viewed from a Freudian perspective the pencils then become phallic symbols. By destroying your opponent’s pencil with your own you are saying that your manhood is superior to his.