Tag Archives: message

Fortune Keeping

Context:

A is a Pre-med biology major at USC, currently a freshman. A is a Vietnamese American who grew up in Vancouver, Washington a short drive from Portland, Oregon. 

Text:

A: Okay, so I’ve learned this at a very young age, but my family has told me that fortunes come true. Like, the fortune in the fortune cookies. I keep the slip of paper in my pocket like, as a way to make it come true. Keeping it with me helps make sure the fortune will come true, but if I don’t want this fortune to come true, I won’t keep it. 

Me: Do you ever lose them?

A: I keep them for as long as I think I need the fortune. Like, if I think it came true, then I’ll throw it away. 

Analysis:

The fortune tellers A is talking about are finely printed words, usually in a vague phrase or arrangement, that come from restaurant complementary cookies. As fortune telling is a way of predicting or controlling the future, I think what A experiences reading a fortune teller is something along the lines of superstition and homeopathic magic. Fortune tellers are usually signs, a specific message from the universe or time or fate telling you something important will happen. A believes this sign and wants this future to be his, so fortune tellers encourage some change in behavior to bring about that important thing. To bring fortune into reality, it is important for A to keep evidence of the future (the fortune paper) with him, as if to constantly be summoning it into his reality. Through this “like produces like,” A believes the paper in his possession (representing good fortune) will eventually produce what is predicted on the paper (actual good fortune). For A, he associates the paper with telling the future and keeps the fortune with him to invite the future to happen. He chooses to indulge in a sense of control or a kind of understanding over the world, where there is usually something wholly unpredictable. 

Coronavirus Warnings

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: April 7
Primary Language: English

“Please be advised, within 48 to 72 Hours the president will evoke what is called the Stafford Act. Just got off the phone with some of my military friends down in DC who just got out of a two hour briefing. The president will order a two week mandatory quarantine for the nation. Stock up on whatever you guys need to make sure you have a two week supply of everything. Please forward to your families”

There is a current phenomenon happening that is based on fear around the coronavirus. The informant has received multiple messages such as the one stated above. Of course, there is no real two-week mandatory quarantine invoked by the Stafford Act, which is not what that is. The informant received this from friends and was unsure of where it originated from. They were not sure how to respond to it and it ended up just being a hoax. The purpose of this was unstated because the person that wrote this clearly knew this wasn’t going to happen. It was quite memorable because it obviously wants to stir up drama and fear in the American public.

This exact verbiage was found all over the country. All sorts of messages like these contain a reference to a third party, “a friend of a friend”, that claims to have inside information on the situation at hand. They could be considered rumors, which is a type of folk information, possibly a legend.