Tag Archives: Game

Doe slaps

Text:

AB: “It originated from ‘Give me my dough,’ which may have been more of a universal thing, If someone said something stupid, you’d say ‘Give me my dough’ and then hit them on the head. But then it transformed into, like, the most complex thing ever. It turned into ‘doe slaps,’ so when someone said something stupid you could say ‘doe slaps’ and hit them on the head. But there’s so many different rules. There’s ‘doe slaps extra hardies,’ ‘no returnies.’ But basically, if you don’t say certain things, they can slap you back… it just involved getting whacked in the head for saying something stupid.

I think it started in middle school and it went into the high school. It was big in high school, like if someone said something stupid in class, people would go up and be like ‘doe slaps.’ If it was your friend. It was fun. It was endearing but people slap hard.”

Context:

The informant is a 19-year-old college student from Montclair, New Jersey. She remembers “doe slaps” being pervasive among boys and girls, in middle school but especially in high school. She says that the tradition has died out among her friends from high school, but her younger brother attends the same school and has seen people in his peer group do the ritual.

Analysis:

I think that this game and ritual, like the Circle Game, where one is allowed to hit another person if they make them look at their hand making the “OK” gesture, conveys the competitive, emotionally complex social dynamics between adolescents. Teenagers are very critical of one another and often use the failures or missteps of others to bolster their own self-esteem. While it could be seen as a way to perpetuate power dynamics or convey social status through bullying, it also can be interpreted as egalitarian, since the act demands justification and can technically be carried out by and to anyone. Kids sign a sort of unwritten social contract, allowing them to give people “doe slaps,” but also agreeing that they can receive them.

This ritual involves humiliation and physical pain, however, giving someone “doe slaps” is also a kind of act of endearment carried out between friends. While the act is humbling, the practice conveys someone’s status as an insider or outsider. Being able to give someone “doe slaps” indicates a degree of closeness or a person’s belonging in a social group, since it wasn’t acceptable to do it to people you didn’t know or weren’t friends with. Moreover, the elaborateness and specificity to one school in one town in New Jersey makes the practice a cultural identifier, something which people from Montclair can use to understand and connect with each other. Because there’s no cultural understanding of “doe slaps” outside of the town, and because hitting people under any circumstances is generally not socially acceptable among adults, it makes sense that this practice fizzled out when the kids who practiced it graduated high school and left Montclair.

Swedish Garden Game – Kubb

Text/Context

Interviewer – Tell me about Kubb.
LN – Um, kubb is a Scandinavian game that you generally would play outside on a small field of grass, with, in my experience, friends, at some sort of, like, spring or family get-together when the weather is nice.
Interviewer – Ok, um, how do you set it up, and what are the pieces that you have?
LN – So the players split into two teams, each team has five blocks, which are about a foot tall, and the blocks represent their army. Their army gets lined up on opposite ends of the field, so one army against the other. And in the middle of the playing field there’s a taller block, representing the king, which the players are trying to knock down or kill.
Interviewer – Do you, how do you kill the king, and do you try to kill the king first, or do you kill the armies, or does it matter what order?
LN – Um, so the starting team gets a set of six sticks, which are used to knock down first the blocks of the other team’s army, before they can knock down the king pin.
Interviewer – What happens if you knock down the king pin first?
LN – If a team knocks down the king pin before knocking down all of the other team’s blocks then the team that knocks down the king loses.
Interviewer – Okay. And do you just, or what happens if you run out of sticks and you haven’t knocked down all of the army?
LN – Then the sticks are transferred to the other team, and the second team has to collect the blocks, their blocks that had fallen. Those blocks get thrown on the field between the king and the opposing army.
Interviewer – And what happens then with those?
LN – Those blocks are then stood up and the second team needs to knock down those blocks before they can hit— before they can knock down the opposing team’s blocks.
Interviewer – Okay, So they have to hit, so then the second team has to hit the extra blocks, and then the regular army, and then the king.
LN – Correct.
Interviewer – So they end up just building up more and more things that they have to hit.
LN – Right
Interviewer – And then, if they don’t hit all of the blocks then…
LN – Then it’s just the other team’s turn.
Interviewer – And they, um, do they have to hit the whole army of five all over again? On the other side’s team. Or do they continue with whatever was left of the last round?
LN – They continue with the remaining blocks, so they only have to knock down the ones that they didn’t— that they missed before.
Interviewer – So then, you said, they knock down the armies, and then you go for the king? And that’s game over, you win?
LN – Yes.
Interviewer – Is it something you play once and put it away or do you play multiple times in a row when you take it out? Like is it a long or short game?
LN – The rounds are short so you can play a whole bunch of rounds.
Interviewer – Do you really like this game? Has this stuck in your head since you first learned it?
LN – Ya, it’s a lot of fun. I learned it when I was about thirteen, so 11 years ago. And, um, I learned how to play it when I was—when my family was visiting friends in Sweden, with our family friends at a picnic during the summertime. Um, so, when we came back home, we were actually able to find a set of kubb blocks, and so we have a set at our house that we play with, with friends in the summer.
Interviewer – So is this something that people usually buy, or is it traditionally handmade, do you know?
LN – Um, I would think handmade. They’re just pretty crude, like, blocks. They’re like, what, 3×3 inches by 8-12 inches or whatever? Something like that. And the king pin only has a few extra lines to set it apart.
Interviewer – Is this game usually played by kids? You said you learned it when you were 13, so that’s pretty young. Is it usually just a kids game?
LN – Um… no? I would say it’s a game played by everyone. But it’s—it has simple rules so kids can learn from a pretty young age.
Interviewer – Cool.
LN – It’s not all that complicated, but I don’t have a ton of background knowledge on it.
Interviewer – But your impression is its a really old game that’s been played for a long time? By… Scandinavians…?
LN – Ya. It’s a classic game and it seems to be widespread in Sweden, if not Scandinavia.

Analysis

The game reminds me of other yard games like corn hole, or throwing horse shoes. They are all seasonal because they are played outside and rely on decent weather, and involve tossing objects with as much accuracy as a person can muster. Kubb seems to have more of a history or a narrative attached to it, because there is a king piece and army pieces, and you have to “kill” the other team’s army. I’ve never heard of corn hole or horse shoes having a narrative. The informant has taught other people—mainly their friends—how to play it, even though their friends have never been to Sweden. Kubb does not seem to be very widespread where the informant lives (USA East Coast), because they have never met anyone else outside of their family who was familiar with the game. It’s a competitive game, but also pretty chill, so it is fun to play while having a conversation with friends on both sides of the field, just enjoying a nice day.

License Plate Game

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: May 29, 2022
Primary Language: English

Context: A is a university student living in the United States. One of her friends at school introduced this game to her, and it has now become a tradition among the friend group. It was initially created to mitigate the boredom of long car rides.

A: “There is a license plate game that we play in college where if you see an out-of-state license plate, you can hit your friend if you call it out first. We usually play this game during car rides or just walking around.”

Reflection: This is a great example of how games are often created to add entertainment to certain activities. Games are a fundamental way communities interact with one another. A lot can be learned about a community through the games that they play. This is one reason that is the case. Games that are developed to combat menial activities give insight into the nature of those activities.

Horse

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: May 29, 2022
Primary Language: English

Context: A went to high school in the United States. In high school, A. was on the basketball team. ‘Horse’ is one of the games that people would play to practice shooting the ball.

A: “Horse for basketball. You can play with any number, but mostly with 2. You take turns shooting the ball in the basket, in the same way, the person in front of you did it. If you fail, you get a letter in the horse, if u get all 5 letters, you lose. The goal is the do the weirdest shots possible, so your opponents couldn’t copy it and you win.”

Reflection: This is a good example of how games can be developed and spread within the rule set of an existing game. These games are often played with different rules within different communities, but the general idea of the game stays the same. It is interesting how games can be created with the purpose of practicing skills, and later turn into full games themselves.

Baron Pit Dodge ball

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: May 29, 2022
Primary Language: English

Context: League of Legends is a popular video game in which players are placed into 2 teams of 5 and must fight each other. There is also a wide roster of characters for the players to pick from and use. Due to the free-flowing rule set of League, many community-made mini-games have been created. One such popular one is ‘Baron Pit Dodge ball’. In this game, all the players confine themselves to a small circular part of the arena called the ‘Baron Pit’ and create a line using place-able items. They must also pick characters that have primary abilities that have to be aimed. They then play dodge ball by only using a single aimed ability. There are many adaptations of this game, and every group of friends will have different in-house rules. S. is once such example as she plays this game with her friends quite often.

S: “In a league of legends, my friends and I would play dodge ball in the baron pit, we would put wards in the middle and make a line for the court. We then would only play skill shot champions, if you die, you are out.”

Reflection: ‘Baron Pit Dodge ball’ is an interesting case where the community of a video game has created their own mini-games within the confines of the greater video game without having to change or ‘mod’ the game in any way. It is particularly interesting when these mini-games emerge because that indicates that the rule set of the video game is loose enough to allow for such creativity on the player’s part.