Tag Archives: Joke

FOGO

Nationality: American

Occupation: Student

Residence: Los Angeles, CA

Text: FOGO

Context: The informant’s family has played lacrosse for generations, and eventually heard the position of face off specialists being referred to as the FOGO (pronounced foe go). FOGO stands for face off get off, referring to how the faceoff specialist does the faceoff and then immediately subs themselves out of the game. Coaches and referees never would refer to the position as a FOGO, only other players would use the term.

Analysis: The name FOGO is used by lacrosse players to tease their face off specialist teammates. Face off specialists are generally the worst on a team at the fundamental skills required for lacrosse, such as passing, shooting, and defending. During a practice, face off specialists are usually off to the side doing their own drills away from the team, furthering the idea that they lack the skills of “real” lacrosse players. With lacrosse being a very physically demanding sport, the limited role of the face off is seen as making the position easy, which leads to other players teasing the position by calling it the FOGO.

Why don’t skeletons fight each other

Age: 19

Date: 02/22/2025

Language: English

Nationality: Chinese American

Occupation: Student

Primary Language: English

Residence: United States

Text:

“Why don’t skeletons fight each other? Because they don’t have the guts!”

Context:

I first heard this joke at a Halloween party when I was a kid. One of my classmates, dressed as a vampire, was going around telling halloween themed jokes to literally anyone who would listen. When he got to me, I remember laughing, partly because I actually found it funny and partly because he delivered it with such confidence, like it was the greatest joke ever told. Later that night, I repeated it to my parents, and they laughed too (probably more at my enthusiasm than the joke itself). From that point on, it became my go-to Halloween joke I’d tell it every year to my friends, and even now, I still think of it whenever October rolls around.

Analysis:

This joke relies on a classic pun, playing with the phrase “having the guts,” which means both possessing courage and literally having internal organs. It’s simple, clever, and lighthearted, qualities that make it a great joke for kids. Puns like this often appear in children’s humor because they introduce wordplay in a way that’s easy to understand and repeat.

Beyond just being a fun Halloween joke, it also reflects the way humor can be tied to specific cultural moments. Skeletons are a common symbol of both horror and comedy, appearing in everything from spooky stories to animated films. The joke takes something that might otherwise be creepy—a skeleton—and makes it silly and harmless, showing how humor can reframe fear. This is a common pattern in folklore and storytelling: turning the eerie into the amusing as a way to make the unknown feel less intimidating. The fact that jokes like this persist over time, especially around Halloween, shows how humor can become part of seasonal traditions, passed down from one generation to the next.

A Long Lost Friend

Nationality: American

Age: 81

Occupation: Retired

Residence: Mill Valley, CA

Performance Date: December 1st, 2024

Primary Language: English

Language: English

MAIN DESCRIPTION: 

“All right, a few years ago, normal morning I just woke up. I was gonna get up and go to to the bathroom. when I felt like I couldn’t get out of the bed. 
I felt like something was like sitting on me right I mean, I could still breathe and all, but I just felt like I couldn’t get up and I was thinking, is this a heart attack or something? And then finally I did get up and I went to the bathroom. I came back, got in bed and there, I felt it again. 
It was just like somebody sitting on me and and when I started with maybe I picked up my phone and looked at the date and it was July 2 and I suddenly remembered that that was the birthday of my best friend Leonore, who had died of breast cancer years before, and I think it was the first time I ever forgot her birthday and I think she was pissed that I forgot it. So after that, I mean after that everything went away and it was just that weird experience of having this presence there who didn’t hurt me, but was making herself known.”

INFORMANT’S OPINION:

JS: What do you think this appearance means spiritually?

MB: “I felt it related to our friendship, which started in sixth grade and we were she was my closest friend through high school and then once I started going with my husband uh and she she she developed an interest in Spanish culture. And she ended up um taking a job in Mexico and marrying a Mexican person there, had children with him and then later divorced him and she got tired of him and Mexico. 
And she came back and met a really wonderful guy who she married and they lived right in the East Bay until she developed breast cancer. She was she died at 49. It was terrible, so anyway, I felt it was just her maybe disappointment and a little annoyance that I had that remembered her birthday. 
But I didn’t feel it was evil. I mean, she wasn’t trying to kill me. Yeah like, “hey, it’s my birthday.””

PERSONAL INTERPRETATION:

Who can say for sure what our human connections to the afterlife or spiritual realm might be? There have been so many examples of people having near death experiences and describing similar sensations of light and hovering. It’s not hard to believe that Lenore paid a visit to MB, if not to just say hello, maybe to nudge MB to not forget her existence or her presence, even if only in spiritual form when she “sat on” her chest on her birthday. 

“Natcho” Cheese

The informant heard this humorous story from his dad. It was his dad’s favorite joke. The story allows him to remember good times with his dad. He now tells it to his kids to get some laughs – and eye-rolls – out of them. He tells it to entertain and be funny when others are telling stories or jokes after dinner or while hanging out.

“All right this guy Shadrack was walking home one day and San Francisco headed home from his business and a couple blocks away he finds this big block of cheese rolling down this big San Francisco Hill and it almost knocks him right over! He says ‘holy cow I just got knocked over by a huge roll of cheese!’ So he picks up this big roll of cheese and it looks pretty delicious so he runs home with his cheese and he runs in the door and he slams the door behind him and locks it and his wife says ‘what’s going on with you?’ And he goes ‘well all the way home when I was running here with this cheese this Mexican was running after me saying, ‘hey! stop! that’s natcho cheese!””

This funny (and not PC) joke is a story that plays on racial stereotypes of Mexicans and White men. The Mexican’s accent is the premise of the joke but the cluelessness of the white man is what makes it funny. This culture enjoys humor by playing on stereotypes, a common joke category for older white males, such as the now 80 year old man whose joke this is. It is a mostly harmless joke, simply a misunderstanding, but it does perpetuate racial stereotypes and thus should perhaps not be told any more.

Easy A

Context: LJ, a former student of a private all-girls school in London revealed to me a unique legend that circulated during her time there. With biennial exams being the center of their curriculum, LJ explained how a legend came about amongst the students to unify themselves during the stress of exams and to make humor out of the extreme pressures that were being put on them as these 2 sets of exams were the sole indicators of their academic achievements within school to show off to higher level learning institutions.

Text: “I went to a private all girls school in London where we would have to take national standardized tests at the end of every 2 years for different classes. At the end of year 11 we would take our GCSE’s which were a bunch of exams on the classes we had been taking for the past 2 years and at the end of year 13 we would take our A levels, which were exams based on the 3 subjects we had been exclusively studying for those past two years.Throughout those 4 years from year 10-13 there was this legend that if someone died in the exam room whilst a GCSE or A-Level took place then everyone in the room would get an A* or a 9(the highest grade depending on if A-Level or GCSE). There was also a similar concept of if someone went into labor during the exam then that person would receive an A* or 9 as well. During exam/ study times there would be lots of jokes made surrounding someone “taking one for the team” implying a student taking the exam should literally sacrifice themselves in the room so that the entire class can get a perfect grade. Similarly, 9 months before those exams girls would make jokes about needing to get pregnant so they could time their birthing to be during an exam. All this being said, this ideology was never confirmed by any teacher or exam board but was commonly known across the London private school kids as the loophole to getting a perfect grade on an exam.”

Analysis: I believe that this legend works as a testimony to the British educational system’s impact on student well-being. It shows how the pursuit of academic excellence can lead to unhealthy levels of competition and that the humor in this legend serves as a rebellion against the system, poking fun at sacrificing the life of a classmate to attain a good grade. This underscores both the rigorous level of academia that students in this system seemed to be struggling with, but also the collective wish for a miraculous escape from the pressures of exam taking. Ultimately I think this legend is a reminder of the need for balance in educational pursuit and the importance of addressing issues involving mental health and general wellbeing of students.