123 Shakespeare

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bay Area, California
Performance Date: May 2nd, 20201
Primary Language: English
Language: N/A

Main Piece: 

Everyone comes early to rehearsal and they play 123 Shakespeare. What that is is there’s one person who starts, and you have to try— its in a field—  and the goal is to run away from the field without getting, I guess, eliminated and once you are, you join the eliminators. So it starts with one person. To eliminate them you have to drag them out of the zone of the field, and then they join your team, and you work together to get more people. And then once you have a couple more people, you have to start lifting people up and shouting “123 SHAKESPEARE!” while no part of them touches the ground. And then you have eliminated them. And you’re allowed to do whatever you’re comfortable with to be the last one standing, and that happened before every show. 

Background: 

My informant is one of my friends from high school,  and was very involved in our school’s theater department. As he told me, 123 Shakespeare is a ritual game that’s done before the opening of every show, and was one of the most anticipated traditions of our theater department. However, it was also kept secret; only the cast and crew of the show knew about it, not the general rest of the school. It was additionally kept secret from anyone who was participating in a show for the first time. What would happen is that people would be told to come to rehearsal early, “not explaining anything, but [we had] the decency to say ‘bring a change of clothes you don’t mind getting dirty.'” Upperclassmen in the theater department would make up ridiculous rules as a prank, like telling newcomers “No tool boxes allowed,” “Guys, make sure you leave your hoverboards at home!”, and then reveal the actual rules of the game once everyone arrived on the day 123 Shakespeare would be played.

Context: 

This came up when my informant and I were trying to remember traditions that happened in our theater department during high school. While I was involved in a few shows, my friend had more experience than I did, so I asked him what events he could remember, and he described 123 Shakespeare for the archives. 

Thoughts: 

I remember participating in 123 Shakespeare when I was in high school right before the spring musical, and it went exactly as my informant described it. Looking back on it now and knowing what I know about peer groups and folklore, I thought it was fascinating that this tradition was both a ritual, and a bit of an initiation for people who are getting involved with the theater department for the first time. The upperclassman keeping the secrecy of what 123 Shakespeare is establishes the social hierarchy of the theater department, and the joke of making up nonsensical rules can be viewed as a display of that status, and simultaneously accepting the new members into the peer group by initiating playful behavior with them. Similar to the wedding tradition of pulling pranks on the groom by the bride’s family, I think this game of 123 Shakespeare demonstrates a liminal space that new cast and crew members must cross before they can be fully accepted into the peer group of the theater department. This game stands between the tireless rehearsals and the opening night of the show, so this is the point in which they are invited to participate in a longtime tradition passed down through the generations of the theater department. 

Tarof

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bay Area, California
Performance Date: May 2nd, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: N/A

Main Piece: 

Tarof is basically a form of etiquette in Persian culture that’s extremely important, especially when you are dealing with older generations of Iran— in the younger generations it’s not as important, but in the older generations especially it’s much more important. [laughs] I never know what the first way to introduce this is. So in Iran, hosting is a very important part of the culture. Having people over and offering them food, and tea, and snacks, and a place to sit outside or do they want [to sit by a] window. It’s a very important part of the culture and Iranians take as many chances as they can to offer that kind of service to people, especially if it’s family or a respected elder, or peer like a boss per se, or a teacher. Its very important but in Iran— and I’m sure other cultures as well— but in Iran it has a very specific name. 

The polite thing to do in that situation when you’re offered something is actually to decline, not to be like “Thank you, this is so wonderful you made these delicious cookies!” Or “This dinner you made is so good!” It’s to be like, “No, no, no thank you, but no,” even if you want that thing. The polite thing to do is be like, “I really don’t want that.” But the thing is in that scenario, the other people who’s offering up whatever it is, the polite thing is not to go, “Okay, I respect your wishes,” it’s “No, no, no, I want you to have this.” So every time that interaction happens it’s kind of like a battle every single time. And it can be over something as small as “I’m passing this bowl of peanuts, would you like some?”

Background: 

My informant is of Iranian heritage, and this is a custom that he grew up experiencing within his household. The reasoning behind this tradition is a demonstration of respect to your elders, peers, and anyone with a higher status. He further explains that even within his own family, the custom is still practiced between them. To him “it’s almost like second nature,” and so ingrained in him that he’ll even practice tarof with his friends. However, he does say that this custom is usually only practiced around other Persians, and not as much with outsiders. 

Context: 

This piece was brought up when I was giving my informant examples of folklore, such as traditions or proverbs. I then listed customs as an example, and asked if he knew of any customs within his own culture, to which he then provided the above piece. 

Thoughts: 

I like how my informant expressed how crucial tarof is to Persian culture, to the point where he realized that he has a tendency to practice it around people outside of his cultural group, and that he was able to provide a thorough explanation of the custom. In this piece it’s very clear that tarof is a demonstration of status between the host and the invited guest, and is especially practiced by the older generations, indicating that the tradition is passed down through families. Additionally, the fact that it’s only practiced around other Persians shows that this is a custom that takes place within a certain peer group, and as such, to be considered part of the group, one has to know that there’s an expected way to conduct oneself. For example, if a non-Persian were somehow to be in this scenario and offered food, they would not know that the correct response is to decline the offer, and would expose themselves as an outsider to the group. Lastly, I think that this piece is a good way to determine the values of the culture, one of which being respect and hospitality. 

How Do You Want To Do This?

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Oregon
Performance Date: 4/24/21
Primary Language: English

Intro

The following is a folk rule that my friend added to the game of Dungeons and Dragons. We both went to school together in Oregon, from middle school through high school so I’ve known him for a while. He had been the DM for a group for around three years. My friend is still at home so I asked him to explain some of the homebrew rules he has while I recorded him. This is a direct transcribed script of what was said in the story, with the various “umm’s” and “uhh’s” omitted.

Rules

“Okay so you just want me to talk about homebrew stuff we use?”

Me: Ya, but things that you took from other places. Like from Critical Role.

“Ohh, okay. I guess one of the bigger things that we use when we play is the phrase ‘how do you want to do this?’ We pretty much stole this directly from Matt Mercer (the DM on the youtube show Critical Role) except lately we put our own twist on it. Instead of saying… “

Me: Wait, hold on, say what it is first, like what you do when that comes up.

“Ya that’s fine, interrupt me. Okay, so when you’re in combat in D&D, and everyone is super hurt from the fight and the monster is about to kill everyone and that player lands that final killing blow that you see as a DM, you don’t want to just say ‘it dies.’ That’s boring. So Matt Mercer, and now we do it and a bunch of other DM’s, we say ‘how do you want to do this?’ Then the player that killed it gets to epically describe how they kill the monster. So what we do, instead of just stealing it from Matt… well I play Mortal Kombat a lot, and they have a thing where when you win you can do a fatality, which is like to embarrass your opponent. And the game has this deep voice go ‘Finish Him’ and then you do the thing which is super gory and stuff and you kill the guy. So we’ve started saying ‘Finish Him’ instead of ‘how do you want to do this’ because for us that’s more epic I guess. And then one of you goes and says your whole spiel on how you behead or whatever the monster.”

Analysis

This explanation was quite interesting to me, even though I already knew about it. As he said, this thing only comes up every so often when a big monster gets killed while we are playing D&D. Homebrew rules like this one should definitely be considered as folklore because of how they get passed along and changed to better fit specific groups. I am not sure if the line ‘how do you want to do this’ originated from Matt Mercer or not, but I know many groups like ours take the idea and build on it. 

The game of D&D is a great base for spreading folklore because of its very loose rules. In the Dungeon Master’s Guide, it even says that what the DM says goes, allowing for the game’s fundamental rules to change along with the groups playstyle. This often appears in D&D as homebrew, which is generally anything used in the game that isn’t explicitly in the rules. DM’s share their homebrew online leading it to be taken and changed in many different games across the world. ‘How do you want to do this’ is just one example of the various folk-rule changes implemented in the game of D&D.

Joke: Asexuality and Garlic Bread

Nationality: American
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: Staunton, VA
Performance Date: April 21st, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

Collector: “I remember a while ago you were talking about the link between garlic bread and ace people, right? Can you explain that?”

Informant: “Well, essentially, the consensus is that garlic bread is better than sex. And thus, slowly, over time, through memes and such, it became part of ace- asexual culture to just be like ‘Sex? Phhht. Garlic bread. That’s pretty good.’ It’s like that with various other foods. Like cake. Lemon bars are one thing- no, wait, lemon bars are bisexual. I don’t know why they’re bisexual, but they are.”

Collector: “What’s like a formula of one of these memes? Like if you had to cite a stock meme to me.”

Informant: “Like here’s the basic thing of how they kind of go. Sex. Then reaction pic of somebody going no, or nuh-uh, or whatever—”

Collector: “Like the Drake meme along the side.”

Informant: “Yeah. Like that and then the good one.”

Collector: “The approving side of the picture. 

Background:

My informant is a member of several online asexual communities designed as spaces of solidarity and safety. The common practices of these communities include sharing struggles unique or semi-unique to ace people, figuring out or helping others figure out whether the sexual identity applies to them, and sharing memes about asexuality. 

Collector: Why do you think this developed?”

Informant: “Primarily firstly because garlic bread is just good. It’s just fantastic. And then garlic bread being better than sex was kind of a meme outside of asexual culture. Just around, I used to occasionally find one just out in the wild.”

To my informant, garlic bread being better than sex was the adopting of a pre-existing, potentially ironic meme by a community that agreed whole-heartedly with the sentiment. Oher potential benefits include bonding over a meme.

Thoughts:

It seems telling that this is a joke told within communities specifically labelled as asexual safe spaces and not frequently elsewhere. It’s likely there’s an element of safety and community to this meme. The meme is proliferated within a safe asexual space to prove that the space is safe- saying that sex is bad is fine here and we’ll do it in a funny way. It’s also likely that catharsis is another element at play. In a culture dominated by people who value sex, it’s likely that the community has latched onto garlic bread as just one example to hold up of the many things they see as more appealing. By participating in the meme, consuming and posting, they reaffirm their feelings and get a release from the tension of being misaligned with a sex-dominated culture.

Joke: Saving it for Later

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: The Woodlands, TX
Performance Date: April 22nd, 2021
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

Informant: “My grandpa, he had this big bushy moustache and so he would always get food stuck in it. And people would like point it out, like if my mom was like ‘Hey, you have something in your moustache’ he’d be like ‘Hm. Saving it for later.’”

Background:

My informant acknowledged that he had heard this as a running joke from other people with thick facial hair. His grandfather was the person that he heard it most consistently from. We agreed that this was predominantly a running joke for older men- a “dad joke” that carried over into grandfatherhood and older. My informant interpreted the joke as a stock response to disarm and make light of the potential embarrassment.

Thoughts:

The prevalence of this joke is what piqued my interest with this entry. It’s not an overly clever joke, a story that you can teach another to tell, or overtly based in identity like many widely proliferated jokes are. The greatest potential for meaning came from its folk group, older men with thick facial hair. This is a group united by its masculinity. This joke could be interpreted as a shrugging off of embarrassment, as my informant and I initially thought, that also celebrates the speaker’s masculinity, messiness, and lack of care.