Tag Archives: Internet

Slender Man

Nationality: Korean- American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Language: English

Text: I watched a youtube video in the fourth grade, with some of my friends, that described the lore behind Slender Man. I didn’t really believe in his existence, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid of the possibility of him being real. I used to live in a densely forested area, and walking back from my friend’s home at night, during the peak of the distribution of Slender Man information, I would always run to avoid any possible encounters with this entity. Its not even that I saw him, or a figure resembling it at all, I was just worried at the possibility. When the trend of talking about slender man died down, though, I found myself not being fearful.

Context: Informant first became exposed to the idea of Slender Man in the fourth grade. They describe that it was a sort of “trend” to be knowledgable or discuss the figure at school and amongst friends. The informant believes that The Slender Man’s ability to scare the younger populations is what lead to its prevalence in the community. Informant believes that The Slender Man legend had the ability to create unity within younger populations through a collective fear.

Analysis: I find the contemporary legend of Slender Man to be very critical to understanding the interaction between folklore and the internet. It is undeniable that the propagation of his lore was attributed to social media, and many agree that his origin point was the web. Though he originated on a digital platform, he quickly took on the qualities of traditional folklore. He began to spread by means of oral tradition, and his stable presence proves that, even with technology, folklore continues to prosper.

“Them’s the Breaks”

Age: 24

Participant first heard this phrase in 2024 from a friend who had heard it in a youtube video. They use it as a way to say “it is what it is”, and to move on from smaller problems or hardships. It has also been used as an inside joke, in the situation that something goes wrong when both of them are present.

Analysis: “Them’s the breaks” definitely has an origin from outside the internet, but its internet-origin is important to the meaning for these 2 friends. This is because this phrase has 2 purposes: to remind oneself to accept that mistakes can happen, and also of a shared joke. I think it also goes to show how quickly references can go from one-off jokes to longer-term shared speech.

Herobrine (Minecraft Legend)

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Performance Date: 4/2/23
Primary Language: English

Original Text:

Informant: “In Minecraft, basically…well, Notch created Minecraft. And when he created Minecraft, there was this big thing that there was like a bug in the game and it created Herobrine, who was like an evil default avatar with white eyes. Herobrine would go into peoples Minecraft servers and kill them in Minecraft, and burn their buildings, and put lava everywhere. So then everyone was like have you seen Herobrine in your game? And people would lie and say ‘yeah Herobrine was in my game’, but it wasn’t possible for Herobrine to be in the pocket edition of Minecraft. Pocket edition is just Minecraft on your phone. It was only possible on the computer” [

Collector: Is it real?

Informant: “Probably not real, but…I was playing on pocket edition with my brother one time, we were just hanging out, and then I joined a new world and I randomly just get killed and I was like OMG ITS HEROBRINE! Herobine killed me! Im pretty sure I just accidentally walked back into lava and then burned alive but yeah. We all would tell our Herobrine stories. My brother and his friends said that they actually had a Herobrine war, like they were fighting him, I don’t think it was real, but yeah.”

Context: The informant in 18 years old and grew up in Orinda, California. He says that he was an avid player of Minecraft from 5th to 6th grade and it was cool to be really good at the game among his peers. His brother’s friends were especially good at the game, and he wanted to be able to play with them. The informant watched a lot of YouTube videos about Herobrine that further cemented his belief in the legend.

Analysis: The legend of Herobrine is obviously terminus post quem the invention of Minecraft (2011). The same way children tell ghost stories because they are unfamiliar with the concept of death, children like the informant and his friends would tell stories about Herobrine, who was a white-eyed scary version of the default Minecraft avatar. Just because there is a new digital age, doesn’t mean the typical types of legends from the past don’t resurface online. Little boys like the informant would naturally be intrigued by a scary, other-worldy version of their avatar with the desire to haunt and kill them. To add on, the invention of the internet and games is still very new, and people often make up stories like Herobrine to deal with the unknown factor they find eerie about the internet — like it perhaps having a mind of its own.

2B

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: April 28th, 2022
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

“So like as you know there are like a million ways to call someone a dumbass on the internet. One way I like to is the phrase, ‘you are second in numbers and in letters’ which is Two-B. 

Chinese: 屄

Phonetic: bī

Transliteration: c*nt

Translation: ass, general expletive

has a negative meaning already, but it also sounds, like, phonetically stupid I guess. Then people started adding the word stupid in front of that. But, then, I think it’s because of internet censorship, which doesn’t allow people to insult each other explicitly. So people started saying two-bī to insult each other. And, I think, it might be just a historical reference that two has a negative meaning or it has an insult towards someone’s intelligence level but I think that’s how it comes as the word two-bī and now it frequently used by a lot of people.” 

Context:

Informant (ZZ) is a student aged 19 from Shanghai, China. He attended high school in the U.S. and currently goes to USC. This piece was collected during an interview over dinner in the dining hall. He learned the saying from friends and the internet. He believes, “it express the great intellectual ability of the Chinese people that we use our language so well that we can insult people with anything that we want.”

Interpretation:

Beyond the interpretation offered by ZZ, this story also demonstrates the growing influence of English in China. The insult phrase requires knowledge of the Roman alphabet in order to work. Additionally, it demonstrates a desire to resist internet censorship by the Chinese Government. The government can’t censor everything, and this insult, like the grass mud horse mentioned elsewhere, demonstrates a desire by Chinese netizens to circumvent censorship.

Grass Mud Horse

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: April 28th, 2022
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Text:

“The grass mud horse I think first emerged in like a videogame. They play it very smart. They use words that sound very–like they use the word grass mud horse in Chinese, which is a normal name for like a llama, but it shares the same pronunciation as like f*ck your mom in Chinese so it was kind of in–it was kind of like cursing but kind of not directly kind of way. So if you say it:

Chinese: 草泥马
Phonetic: Cǎonímǎ
Transliteration: grass mud horse
Translation: llama

grass mud horse in Chinese it basically means

Chinese: 操你妈
Phonetic: cào nǐ mā
Transliteration: f*ck you mother
Translation: f*ck your mom

or f*ck your mom.”

Context:

Informant (ZZ) is a student aged 19 from Shanghai, China. He attended high school in the U.S. and currently goes to USC. This piece was collected during an interview over dinner in the dining hall. He first learned this from a videogame, where a llama was a character, and he has also seen it online. To him, it “represents the great creativity in the Chinese language.”

Interpretation:

In addition to the sentiments expressed by (ZZ), this insult/joke also demonstrates a desire to circumvent government censorship. Much like 2B, the Chinese netizens seek to create new folklore as a result of Chinese internet censorship.