Tag Archives: college

Greek Life Shotgun Pinning

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago, IL
Performance Date: 4-10-19
Primary Language: English

Text

The following piece was collected from a twenty-two year-old girl who is also a student at USC in the Greek community. We were discussing a “shotgun pinning” that was to occur later that day. She will hereafter be referred to as the “Informant”, and I the “Collector”.

Collector: “So, what is it exactly?”

Informant: “Basically, it’s the people who are more wacky or untraditional in the way that they don’t want a normal pinning. So their friends set it up for them. It’s so much more fun than the normal pinnings. It’s funny.”

Collector: “What do they do?”

Informant: “First, the guy’s friends get him really drunk and the girls do the same thing. Then all the friends tie the couple to a mattress. They have to sit on the mattress in front of the house while all their friends give embarrassing speeches and everybody cheers.”

Context

The Informant learned of this custom within the Greek community at USC by first hearing it from other members, both in her sorority and friends in fraternities. The Informant then witnessed it herself. She believes it to be a non-serious, fun way to show off your partner but stress-free because that how the couple acts anyway. She remembers them because they occur at least once every year before the seniors graduate.

Interpretation

            Upon first hearing about the untraditional tradition, I laughed at the strangeness of it. But after witnessing one myself, I believe it to have a slightly different meaning. I think the couples that participate in the shotgun pinnings are, like my informant said, a non-typical sorority or fraternity member. By allowing their friends to handle it and force them to go through with it, the stress is removed from the situation. I also believe that everyone finds them to be more fun because no one is taking themselves seriously. If a couple were to participate in a shotgun pinning ceremony, I would immediately think, ‘Oh yeah, so they’re not that into the normal pinning.’ Then I begin to think about all the possibilities of that couple to dislike the Greek community and so they act in unconventional ways in order to make that point clear.

West Virginia Blue People

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: 3-18-19
Primary Language: English

Text

The following piece was collected at a dinner table with a group of girls out celebrating a friend’s birthday. One of the girls, the “Informant”, was discussing an upcoming trip to visit her brother at West Virginia University. Laughing, the Informant launched into a story of the “West Virginia Blue People”, a story about a genetic condition the resulted from intermarriage.

Informant: “So, what my brother told me is that there’s a story that there are people in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, near the campus I guess, and there is skin is blue. It’s blue, and their people have always had blue skin because of all the intermarrying and incest. So you can tell if someone is a product of incest if their skin is blue! Sometimes, it can be really faint though, so you have to look closely at their lips or fingernails. Apparently, it shows more easily when they’re cold!”

Context:

            The Informant learned this information from her brother, when he returned home after his first semester at school. From California herself, the informant was very curious to hear about what the people of West Virginia were like. She remembers the story very easily, most often humorously, because she remembers the manner in which her brother told her. He recounted how, after hearing the story for the first time, he and his roommates would make a show of continuously checking to see if their other friends’ lips or skin ever looked blue. Finding it ridiculous herself, the Informant told me that she still enjoys being a part of the joke.

Interpretation

            My first reaction to this story was wondering whether there was a scientific reason, or condition perhaps, that acted as a precursor to this belief of a skin condition that was a result of incest. Upon further research, I saw that the original story was based on a specific family that was said to be suffering from blue-tinted skin. Researchers believe this to truly be the case, a result of the family suffering from a genetic condition called methemoglobinemia, which is an excess of methemoglobin in the red blood cells of the body. This condition does, in fact, cause blue-tinted. Hearing this story and conducting some research of my own led me to believe that people love to come up with their explanation for things they cannot explain, no matter how perplex.

White Lighters: A Smoker’s Superstition

Nationality: American/Israeli
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: 635 USC McCarthy Way
Performance Date: 4/20/19
Primary Language: English
Language: Hebrew

E: So you won’t use a white lighter?

J: Never, it’s horrible luck. I won’t use one, keep one on my person, or be in the room when someone uses one.

E: Why do you say so?

J: All of the members of the “27 Club” were found to have white lighters on or around them at the time of their death.

E: Could you tell me what this club is and who its members are?

J: The “27 Club” is the name associated with young  legendary musicians who all died at the age of 27. The likes of which include: Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, and Fredo Santana.

E: Have you ever experienced any sort of change in luck with a white lighter?

J: Personally I had glassware break the same week that I used one. It’s an unfortunate coincidence but not one I want to take a chance at again.

E: When did you first hear about white lighters being bad luck?

J: It actually wasn’t till well into high school when a friend told me a story about them and a white lighter that I found out it was a cursed object.

E: What happened in their case?

J: This is one of a few stories that I’ve heard from people and misfortunes with the lighter but this story starts at the beach. Two of my friends went to the beach one day and while they were enjoying their fun in the sun one of them found a white lighter. Thinking “oh cool free lighter!” they went back to my buddy’s house and used it. Later that same night a person was murdered on the beach.

Analysis:

After doing some research I found out none of the members of the 27 club died with white lighters on them and it’s really just a common misconception. For many deaths the iconic white Bic lighter had not even been invented yet. Although I am a very superstitious individual and when I hear a new superstition they stick. I find it interesting that feeding the belief has both proved some strange coincidences as well as created an association with musical legends. This is likely due to a high frequency of addictions in musical history.

College/Education Proverb

Nationality: American
Age: 72
Occupation: Lawyer / Executive
Residence: San Diego, CA / Wilmington, OH
Performance Date: 3/17/19
Primary Language: English

Piece:

Informant: “I went to college to get a diploma, it would have been just as easy to get an education.”

Background:

The informant learned this saying from his grandfather upon graduating from high school in Ohio. He found it highly impactful, not only in the context of college, but as a general life lesson as well, and took care to heed this advice going forwards.

Context:

This expression and the conversation leading up to it were recorded during a scheduled meeting that took place at my home in San Diego, CA.

Thoughts:

Although on the surface this saying may seem very specific, I think the lessons it implies can be applied to all walks of life. It stresses the importance of finding value in all aspects of an experience, as opposed to seeing something simply as a means to an end. It is certainly an expression I will remember and perhaps help spread in the future.

College Studying Murder Story

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: Barista
Residence: Boise, ID
Performance Date: March 11, 2019
Primary Language: English
Language: N/A

Informant:

J, a 22-year-old, Caucasian male who grew up in San Francisco, California until he turned 16. He now lives in Boise, Idaho. He spent his summers at summer camp with his friends.

Background info:

During summer camps, counselors and children would sit around a firepit at night and tell stories. While some of these were positive, most of them would be told with the aim of scaring people. This is one of the stories told to J during one of these sessions.

Context:

This was told amongst a group of friends sitting in a circle around a firepit late at night, slightly intoxicated, telling each other their favorite scary stories they heard as children.

Main piece:

“This story was told to me by a counselor who was actually in his freshman year of college. It goes something like this… There are two college roommates, Briona and Ellee, who are in the same math class and have a bit midterm in the morning… Briona decides to stay in and study, while Ellee goes out to party with a guy in the same class. *pause for childish laughing*… After a while, Ellee returns to find the lights out and Briona in bed asleep. To be courteous, Ellee does her nighttime routine in the dark before going to bed… *beep beep beep, beep beep beep, beep beep beep*… Sleepily, Ellee climbs out of bed and walks over to wake Briona… She rubs the sleep out of her eyes and notices the blood-soaked bed and stiff body of Ellee. On the wall above her, the words ‘Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?’ are scribbled in blood…”

Thoughts:

As I read back through this transcript, I wish it could better capture the feeling of this piece. The ambiance of the environment in which it was told played into it with the cold, quiet, dark night with the flames casting shadows around us, making us feel as if we were not alone. I think the story was interesting coming from J, as he never went to traditional college. However, it was still an effective ‘scary’ story for us since we all knew what it was like to share a room with a person you haven’t known for very long. Things are often represented in sets of three, and this one used the alarm beeping in threes to give the listeners something familiar before the big reveal. The writing in blood is a common element in scary stories, but it implies so much more in this story that it played a larger part than it normally does. J was unsure of which names were meant to be used in the story but didn’t think they were terribly important.