Category Archives: Humor

The Sioux Falls Bikini Lady

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Construction Materials Specialist
Residence: Sioux Falls, SD
Performance Date: April 23rd, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Deutsch

Background: My informant was a young adult who was born in the Watertown and raised in the nearby city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, one of the larger metropolitan areas of the Midwest and the largest city in South Dakota. He continued to live there for the last 20 years and is very much a Sioux Falls resident.

Main Piece: My informant told me about a well-known urban legend in the Sioux Falls area known as the Sioux Falls Bikini Lady. She is this mysterious woman that frequents the downtown area and runs up and down the streets doing exercise while in a bikini. It is somewhat of a landmark of the city and its culture, because despite the common cold weather, she continues to do this. It is of such fame that many people engage with this local legend by creating websites, twitter accounts and taking photographs. No one really knows why she does it as she doesn’t explain it herself publicly, but it is something that has spread throughout the town, to the point of becoming common hearsay and rumor.

Performance Context: According to my informant, he learned about the story from someone on the bus. He said he could be mistaken, but he isn’t sure. The story seems to be one that comes around the community through rumor and speculation.

My Thoughts: I think it is interesting because it talks a lot about how we look for interesting stories not only in old tales, but in the people around us. We often talk about how our communities build and how they are constructed, and a large part of that is the stories that connect us with one another. We look for not only the strange and the potentially dangerous through the unknown or the creepy, like the house on the hill. We also look for it in our everyday lives and in everyday objects. When we see something that is just a bit off, but yet so normal, we like to imagine what gives it that quirk. When we can’t find out, we begin to discuss it with others, forming conspiracy and theory. This kind of thing can cross generations. What will happen when she passes? Will someone take on the mantle of SF Bikini Lady? It remains to be seen, but these types of things are the precedents for traditions. What if one day there was a SF Bikini Lady 4K run with everyone dressing in bikinis? That would be amazing to see happen.

BMW Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Residence: San Francisco/Bay Area, CA
Primary Language: English

Type: Joke

  1. “What is the difference between a BMW and a porcupine? Porcupines have pricks on the outside.”
  2. I obtained this piece of folklore from my older brother, Noah. Noah is three years older than me, and he is incredibly passionate about cars. His collective knowledge of cars is immense, and he spends a significant amount of time devoted to his interest in cars. Noah told me he heard this joke from his friends, who also care deeply about cars, none of whom own BMWs (which is important to note). To him, the joke is accurate, honest, and quite funny.
  3. The joke’s humor lies in the fact that BMW owners are notoriously known for being rude, jerks, and wild drivers (at least where we are both from, being California). The joke is usually told to people who do not drive BMWs, and even more so people who have a distain for BMW drivers.
  4. I love this joke, I think it is accurate and it is honest. Unlike many of the other folklore I collected, this joke is modern; if it was told 200 years ago, it would not make any sense. It would not have meaning if it were told anytime other than in the present. I also don’t know how long the common belief that “BMW drivers are jerks” has been circulating through American culture (at least). I’m wondering if in other countries people would laugh at this joke, or if they would not understand it at all. I am not sure if this is a Californian joke only or if it can even be applied to other states.

9/11: The TRUTH

Nationality: African-American (Ivory Coast/Scottish/Welsh)
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Shoreline, WA
Performance Date: 4/15/17
Primary Language: English

Context: I was chatting with my roommate about his time in marching band in high school, and the following is one of the encounters he had during one of his festival trips.

Background: My roommate is a psychology minor, and one of the aspects of the subject he’s always been interested in is the part of the human brain that induces paranoia. Because of this, he’s been invested in conspiracy theories for a long time.

Dialogue: (Note: C denotes myself, B denotes my roommate)

C: So what about the van?

B: Oh, 9/11!

C: 9/11, tell me about 9/11!

B: OK! First of all, inside job. Second of all, I was in Victoria, British Columbia on a band trip, and, um, we were getting ready to march in this parade, and we saw this van driving around the– the– I guess the Parliament building? Um, and it said on the side of it, “9/11 was an inside job.” It was like a 9/11 truther van. And I thought, “Why… do you care? You’re in Canada… 9/11 did not happen in Canada.” I just thought that was interesting. I had a lot of questions, first of all… “What?” Second of all, um, like like like are these Americans doing this? Uh, if so, why are they in Canada, why are they in Victoria, British Columbia? Um… you know you’re not even near New York at this point!

Analysis: I actually debated with myself over what to categorize this piece as. The central bit of folklore revolves around a conspiracy theory regarding what “really” happened on 9/11, which is a tragic day in American history. However, the countless people who insist that 9/11 was an “inside job” (AKA a disaster orchestrated by the US government itself) have put such ridiculous and unreal theories out there, that it’s nearly impossible not to laugh at something like a “9/11 truther van” driving around. Because of this, and because of the fact that this theory is a belief shared in online communities without consideration for reality, I decided to categorize it as both Humor and as a Folk Belief.

Annotation: My roommate’s encounter is not nearly the first instance where the “9/11 was an inside job” belief popped up. In fact, in the same conversation, my roommate mentioned the documentary Loose Change as a good place to go deeper into the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11.

Difficult Difficult Lemon Difficult

Nationality: African-American (Ivory Coast/Scottish/Welsh)
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Shoreline, WA
Performance Date: 4/5/17
Primary Language: English

Context: My roommate discovered this meme one day, and it prompted a discussion about the various levels of depth it reached.

Background: My roommate is a self-described “conveyor of fine memes” and has a hobby of collecting, creating, and sharing Internet memes.

The Meme: The meme (attached to this post) is a play on the phrase “easy peasy lemon squeezy.” The phrased is reworked in a text explanation that laments the fact that things are not “easy peasy lemon squeezy” as once believed, but are in fact “difficult difficult lemon difficult.” This explanation is accompanied by the image of a middle-aged woman furiously gripping a laptop in both hands and biting into it.

Analysis: This became a folklore discussion as a surprise, as the further my roommate and I discussed it, the more it seemed to work as a piece of folk speech. “Difficult difficult lemon difficult” is definitely an evolution of the saying “easy peasy lemon squeezy,” which itself has an origin that feels meaningless in the context the phrase has since gained. The specific discovery of the newly-changed saying also has the context of being in meme form, memes being one of the more common areas of unauthored expression in the 21st century.

The Family Car Story

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Portland, OR
Performance Date: 3/13/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese (Mandarin)

Context: I collected this from a friend on a trip over Spring Break, after he’d heard me talking about folklore with another friend I was collecting from.

Background: This is a story my friend’s father like to recount at family gatherings or parties they host.

Dialogue: A large part of my family comes from this one place in Wisconsin called Steven’s Point, um, and, for a while they were… uh, I think, one side of my family was a— uh, was pretty wealthy and lived there for a while, and so, I think, when cars started rolling in across the country, um… So in the 1930s, I think, or, uh, the 1940s, my… great-grandmother, uh, she, moved to Steven’s Point, Wisconsin, uh, and, I think she was, she was starting to get kind of old, and she had to go renew her driver’s license. Now… there were only two cars in Steven’s Point at that time: the one she was driving, and the one she crashed into.

Analysis: The fact that my friend’s father likes to regularly tell this story at gatherings/parties convinced me to mark this in the Customs category, since it’s a familial custom for him to tell it. And while it’s not the most universal story in the world to tell, it feels very important in the legacy of this particular family. So it works as a more personal piece of folklore that way.