Category Archives: general

Santa Claus

Age: 22

Text:
“I started to really believe in Santa Claus, and I was very adamant about finding him when he came down my chimney. So I brought out my sleeping bag and put it under the tree and tried sleeping the night under my Christmas tree. My parents got really mad at me and told me that he wouldn’t come if I did that. So I reluctantly went back into my room, and just before I fell asleep, I heard a clomping on the shingles of my roof. To this day, I will never forget the sound of the hoofs, and knowing that Santa was about to come down my chimney. I had so many butterflies.”

Context:
A girl from Phoenix discussing a core childhood Christmas memory that she knows is fake but swears is real.

Analysis:
This is a demonstration of myths serving to keep children well behaved. She believed in Santa and wanted to see him so badly in real life, so she brought her sleeping bag under the tree. Since this is a naughty act, what Santa Claus monitors, her parents were able to use that as a ploy to get her to sleep in her bedroom, saying that he would not come at all if she did not sleep in her room. This served to keep the Christmas magic alive and also to maintain good behavior. I wonder what caused the “hooves on the roof” noise.

Little Jonny Jokes

My informant is a 30-something-year-old Marine Corps vet who lives in the Inland Empire and owns an HVAC business. I called him on the phone because I know that in the Marine Corps little Johnny jokes are very popular. I asked the marine vet to tell me about his favorite little Johnny Joke. There is no exact location for this joke because Marines move all over the country/world for duty stations; but he said he heard this joke at Camp Pendleton, Ca.

Informant: This is a joke I heard in the Marine Corps,

Little Johnny and his grandpa are going on a fishing trip, and as they’re driving down the road, Little Johnny’s grandpa pulls out a cigarette. Little Johnny sees his grandpa smoking a cigarette, leans over and says, Hey, hey, Gramps, you think I could get one of them cigarettes? His grandpa looks over at Little Johnny, thinks about it, and says, well, I don’t know, Little Johnny, can your dick touch your butthole? Little Johnny looks at him a bit confused and says, no.  So Gramps says, I guess you’re not old enough. So, they get to the lake and they start fishing. A little while out there on the lake and Johnny’s grandpa gets a little thirsty, so he opens up a beer, starts drinking a beer. Little Johnny leans in and says, Hey Gramps, you think I could have one of those beers? Gramps says, Well, I don’t know, Little Johnny. Can your dick touch your butthole? Little Johnny says, no, it can’t. Grandpa says, well, I guess you’re not old enough. Little while later goes on and Little Johnny gets hungry, so he pulls out the lunch that his mom made him, pulls out his cookies and starts eating some cookies. His grandpa leans in and says, Hey, Little Johnny, do you think I could get one of those cookies? Johnny says, well, I don’t know, Grandpa. Can your dick touch your butthole? His grandpa sits up very proud and says, Why, yes, it can. So Johnny says, good, go fuck yourself. These are my cookies.

Interviewer: That is a good one. Why do you think marines like little Jonny Jokes?

Informant: I dont know, they tend to be like inappropriate jokes kinda vulgar seems like a good fit with marines i guess.

Analysis: Little Johnny jokes are about a mischievous and clever child character who loves to challenge authority with intelligence and humor. The recurring theme of a child character outsmarting an authority is fits well in military environments like the Marine Corps, where daily life is heavily structured around rank and authority. Marines are constantly moving between different duty stations where these stories and jokes are shared orally around the ashtray or “smoke pit” helping Little Johnny spread quickly all across the world. The humor also reflects a cultural pattern common in military settings where irreverent or shocking jokes help build camaraderie. Marines operate within strict hierarchies, jokes that symbolically flip authority figures or make them look foolish become a way to release stress and hostility between the ranks.

Splitting the Pole

Text: The excerpt below is a folk performance describing superstitions over splitting the pole.

Interviewer: Do you have any folk beliefs of what brings good or bad luck?

Interviewee: Ok, yes. So one of them is, if you split the pole, so if you’re walking with someone, but you split a pole, or like, as long as it’s above your waist, it counts for me. That means that you, in the future, will split apart of that person and never see them again, so like, for me, like, I feel like it brings bad luck to relationships. So either I’ll walk along the other side of the pole, or if you split it, you go back and hit it, it’s fine. So that brings bad luck, but there is like a way to undo it, I guess, as well.

Context:

This excerpt is from a conversation with a fellow Forms of Folklore student. The conversation started by specifically talking about their Romanian heritage, and the folklore that came with that identity. After talking for a while about that topic, the conversation shifted to general superstitious beliefs, as recorded above. The interviewee engages with this folk belief whenever they are walking with someone, and separated by a pole.

Analysis:

This belief is an example of sympathetic magic, as the physical separation by the pole reflects the separation of a relationship. This belief likely exists because when walking and splitting from someone for a short time, that feeling of separation is felt by a person, and that feeling, through this folk belief, is enlarged to the feeling of separating from a whole relationship. There is a way to remove the bad luck through conversion magic, by hitting the pole, allowing people to feel at ease, even after committing this offense.

Eye Twitches

Text: The excerpt below is a folk performance describing a student’s superstitious beliefs about eye twitches.

Interviewer: Do you have any folk beliefs of what brings good or bad luck?

Interviewee: This isn’t good or bad luck, but like, if your eye’s twitching it means that someone is thinking about you, so my mom would always come in my room and be like: “ok, name everyone that you think would be thinking about you, and when it stops, that’s the person that is thinking about you.”

Context:

This conversation came from a discussion with a Forms of Folklore USC student. I inquired about different folk traditions that were related to her Romanian heritage, and she responded with the above excerpt. Her Mom is fully Romanian, and she associated the tradition with Romanian folk beliefs. She engaged with the folk belief when young, with her mother initiating a folk ritual, to use the eye twitches to see who was thinking about the ritual participant.

Analysis:

There exists the folk belief about eye twitches, and also the folk ritual performed by the interviewee and her mother. The sign exists as it gives a sense of control over the insecurity of who is thinking about you. This ritual with the interviewee and her Mother allows the folk participant to gain some control over their insecurity, by being able to see if others think of them. It is interesting how muted the knowledge granted from the ritual is. The behavior gives minimal information, only telling if others are thinking about them, not more useful details, like what that person thinks about the folk participant. This outcome is likely because if the folk belief was believed to portray more details, then someone could verify more accurately whether the sign was true. The ritual has to strike a balance between calming the folk participant, and not being too much more detailed, where it might be proven false.

Bigfoot

Text: Below is a student’s performance of the Bigfoot legend.

Interviewer: When did you first hear about Bigfoot?

Interviewee: Well, first I heard about Bigfoot probably in second or third grade because I had to do a group project for elementary school, and it was very intriguing to me at first because, you know, at that age. I was very fascinated by animals, especially large animals, you know, that’s why I chose Bigfoot. I could have chosen between Loch Ness monster and other conspiracies. But, so that’s when I first heard about Bigfoot.

Interviewer: Did you believe it? What did you think about it?

Interviewee: Well, honestly, I did believe in that moment, because I researched a bit and saw, you know, many people had seen it, but no one had ever photographed it, and because of that, I did believe it, but slowly as I grew up, I began not to believe it much, and viewed it as a tale. I mean, it’s like, there’s animals we haven’t seen, but something like that, with actual human characteristics, is difficult.

Context:

This interview arose from a conversation with another Forms of Folklore student, reflecting on childhood beliefs. I shared my memory and history of belief of the Bermuda Triangle, and after that, he recalled learning about Bigfoot. He first learned about Bigfoot in elementary school, when given a project to chose to study different legendary creatures.

Analysis:

This example showcases a unique mode of dissemination for folklore. The top-down institute, this interviewee’s school, facilitated children exploring and researching different “conspiracy theories”. This method is unusual as typically folkloric legends are pictured as not credible by official institutes, while certain folk groups hold the legends to hold some chance of credibility. My belief is that the assignment to explore different conspiracies was created expressly because conspiracy theories are typically not discussed in classrooms, and thus the students are more excited about learning about them than more official topics. The interviewee also said something interesting, in how he views Bigfoot to be less plausible, because, compared to other folk creatures, Bigfoot is more human. This assertion illustrates how people view humanity to be more unique, compared to other animals in the animal kingdom.