Tag Archives: luck

Pokemon Catching Superstition (Gotta Catch em’ All!)

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Torrence, CA
Performance Date: 4/6/2014
Primary Language: English

About the Interviewed: Max is a twenty year old college student at Pasadena City College studying Architecture and Fashion Design. His ethnic background is remotely Swedish, though his family has been in America for a couple generations.

I talked to my friend Max about  pop beliefs and superstitions around popular video games he’s played.

Max: “I know this one about Pokemon. It’s actually pretty well known.”

I asked him to elaborate.

Max: “Pokemon is a video game where players have to catch these magical creatures. You wanna catch as many as possible. The actual science behind catching each one is actually kind-of crazy. It depends on the power level of the thing you’re trying to catch, how strong you are, what pokeball you use, etcetera.”

“When I was a little kid, me and all my friends believed that there were secret ways to hack the game, like you could change the results so that you always got your catch. Things like that.”

“The rumor was something like, when you’re in battle with a Pokemon you want to catch, you have to hold down both the “down” button, and the “B” buttons at the same time on the controllers. The funny thing is, it didn’t make a difference at all. It was all in our minds. But everyone I knew did it anyway.”

I asked Max where he felt the beliefs originated from.

Max: “I don’t know. It was just that Pokemon was so popular. My friends were doing the down B thing, so I sort of did it too.”

“It doesn’t help that Pokemon games were really hard.”

Summary:

A popular belief persists among American juvenile players of the video game “Pokemon”, that monsters are easier to catch if you hold down both the “Down” and “B” buttons. There is no evidence of the trick actually working, but the belief is widespread.

The “down-B” trick that Max informed of me seems to be a tradition observed in American children who played the Pokemon games growing up. I’d actually be interested to know if other cultures had similar luck granting gifts when playing games with large luck-based elements such as Pokemon. It seems similar to the tradition of “blowing on your dice” for good luck. 

 

Greek Nightmares

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/30/14
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

In Greek tradition if you have a bad dream and you tell someone before you eat anything your nightmare will come true.  However the same thing is not true if you have a good dream.  If you tell a good dream before eating in an attempt to make it come true, the gods will see through your trickery and it will not happen.

My roommate is half Greek and she learned this tradition from her mother.

This tradition is interesting because it reaffirms the power of spiritual beings as being above us.  This is humbling in a way and reinforces the idea that mere mortals should never try and outsmart the gods cause they will always be one step ahead.  The tradition is also interesting because it speaks to a very negative aspect of the culture, in this situation no matter what you do, it ends up with nothing good happening.

The tradition seems to also be related to the idea that if you have a wish and you tell it to someone it will not come true, like birthday wishes or wishes on a shooting star.

Mattress Tag

Nationality: Asian-American
Age: 27
Occupation: Game designer
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 15th, 2014
Primary Language: English

Information about the Informant

My informant grew up in Hacienda Heights where he went to high school, and received his bachelor’s degree from USC. He is a game designer and is currently working for a social mobile gaming company based in Westwood.

Transcript

“This might be from TV, but, um, if you cut off the tag on your bed, that brings you like seven years bad luck. Have you heard that?”

Collector: “I’ve heard breaking a mirror.”

“Oh yeah, breaking a mirror. [laughs]”

Collector: “I haven’t heard take…”

“Cutting the tag. The mattress–”

Collector: “The price tag?”

“Yeah. Or, or like the…I guess it’s the carer tag. Like how to take care of it.”

Analysis

I did a bit of research and found no real research conducted on this piece of folklore. There were some poorly worded comments on Yahoo! Answers and various similar sites where individual people indicated that they also thought it was bad luck to cut the tag off a mattress. But mostly what I found were sites that addressed the false belief that cutting the tag off a mattress would result in legal prosecution should the owner be found out. These sites addressed the fact that care tags used to be required on mattresses so that the customer could read the tag and know exactly what materials were used to make and stuff the mattresses. For the store owner to cut the tag off then in order to deceive his customers then was an illegal move. The warning that the government placed on the tag warning store owners not to remove the tag was worded poorly however, and left consumers consumed as to whether or not they could remove the tags after purchase. How this translated from possible legal prosecution though to bad luck, I’m not exactly sure, although it’s undeniable that being arrested could certainly be interpreted as bad luck, and the origins of this “bad luck” lost somewhere along the line for some people.

How to Make a Baseball Team Win

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Occupation: Gardener/Substitute Teacher
Residence: Rancho Cucamonga, CA
Performance Date: April 21, 2014
Primary Language: English

The informant (my father) grew up in various areas of California, but spent his high school years in Chino, CA and has lived in the Rancho Cucamonga area for most of his adult life. He has been an avid baseball fan for as long as I can remember and sometimes refers going to Angels games as a child and knows a lot of the history behind how the Angels teams has moved around and changed names(from Los Angeles Angels to the California Angels to the Anaheim Angels to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, etc.) Though we did not go to a lot of games when I was a kid, he listens to most games on the radio or watches them on TV, much to the good-natured annoyance of anyone who wanted to watch or listen to something else.

I asked my father if he had any good luck charms or rituals and he  explained briefly about what he does to make the Angels win, though he noted “it didn’t seem to be helping lately,” as the Angels are not doing very well this season. He said he feels like if he accidentally neglects to listen or watch the games that the Angels will not do as well. It did not seem that watching/listening more was “good luck” but that watching/listening less was “bad luck.” He also drinks out of a special Angels cup gotten from some promotion years ago to help the Angels win. The cup is old, but has a near-permanent place on the kitchen counter in my parents’ house.

Interestingly enough, my dad did not mention any of the things that the Angels fans are known for, like the rally monkey that comes out if they are tied or losing in the 7th inning, or any of the phrases typically associated with the Angels like “bring out the red.” Additionally, there was no special mention of any Angels clothing even though he has multiple Angels t-shirts and baseball caps that he wears regularly throughout the year.  He seems to focus on his attention and specific actions as what is important to helping the Angels succeed. Even though the outcome of the game is not changed by actions and I think he understands this for the most part. The most important part of this idea of good luck is remembering to drink out of his cup and watch/listen to the game. It is more about his attention to them than it is about the action of drinking out of a special cup.

Don’t Break a Leg in Ballet

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Producer
Residence: Seattle
Performance Date: 4.20.2014
Primary Language: English

Item:

Me: “At what age did that start? I feel like it’s a little weird to encourage six year old girls to run around saying ‘shit’ in French.”

Informant: “Hahah no no it started when you were like officially in a show at the company, like as an apprentice.”

The methods for creating good luck for a ballet performance is much different than creating good luck for a theatre performance. Saying “break a leg” is terrible luck in a ballet studio. Instead, you say “merde”. The informant says her instructor rationalizes it by simply stating “Shit happens. So we face it by saying it right off the bat.” The word is said just before a performance. In addition to saying “merde”, the dancers would snap the should strap of their leotard for good luck.

 

Context:

The informant was involved in ballet through most of her life and knows a lot about the secrets and traditions carried with being a part of a ballet company. She takes them all very seriously and indicates that most all of the other dancers did as well. For this particular one, it was important to do this and everyone participated without fail.

 

Analysis:

It’s not surprising that ballet has traditions that revolve around the same concepts as traditions in theatre. It’s also reasonable that, given the rather strict nature of ballet instruction, everyone follows these rules and swears by them in her company. The incorporation of French make complete sense, although the vulgarity being the primary luck-bringing mechanic is unexpected. She participated in this one ballet company for her whole experience, so it’s unclear if the replacement of phrases is exclusive to her or not.