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“When I was in like middle and high school, there was always a game where anybody could make like an OK sign with their hand and hold it below their hip, like it had to be below your hip or it didn’t count. And if you looked at it and they saw you looking then they got to neck you (slap you on the neck). This could just happen like any time so you would always have to be careful, and I remember my friends would try to like bait me into looking down so they could neck me. But if I got them they would always say they didn’t look. Looking back, it was like so stupid. But it was just a way to get to hit your friends I think.”
Context
VH explains the circle game as a long running game throughout middle and high school among his friend group. He says that no one ever explicitly taught him the rules of the game, and he feels that it just became a part of his life. VH also points out that the results were very up to personal interpretation and often disputed. This game was always playing, so at any time you could get caught looking. VH also says that he has seen this game on social media and other friends in college knew about it too.
Analysis
The circle game is definitely an example of customary folklore as it is a repeated game that VH learned through experience and participation rather than in any explicit or formal way, which shows how folklore is disseminated unofficially. It’s also a great example of how folklore is constantly evolving and not always clearly defined, as everybody would have their own take on the rules of the game. This game was a manifestation of childhood humor, and also utilizes play frames to slap your friends in an “acceptable” way. The circle game is a great example of the young boy folk group, as it exists in multiplicity and variations outside of just one school/friend group, as VH notes that he has seen it on social media and this was a game that was often played in my school as well (in a totally different state).
Tag Archives: middle school
“B Card”
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“There was a thing when I was in middle school where if someone said they were gonna do something anybody could say B Card right after and if you didn’t do the thing that you said then your friends would neck you (slap you on the neck). I remember I thought it was just a thing like with me and my friends at my school in 6th grade but I remember when I went to a new school in 7th grade, one of my friends said it one day and everybody like knew what it was in our friend group like it was a common thing which was kinda surprising. I think it stood for bitch card, like you’re a bitch if you back out of doing the thing you said. And anything was fair game too so you had to just like watch what you were saying around your friends.”
Context
BS explains that this was a long running verbal game among his multiple friend groups in middle school. Essentially, if BS’s friend were to say an action (ie. “I’m gonna get an A on this test”), BS could then immediately say “B Card”. If the action then wasn’t completed, then BS could slap his friend on the neck. No matter how outlandish the action, anything could be B carded at any time. BS also says that this was a game that existed in 2 different friend groups at different schools.
Analysis
“B Card” is an example of folk speech among young boys, and also a game that utilizes play frames as a way to hurt your friends under “acceptable” rules. It also marked your acceptance or standing of certain friend groups, as not every group understood or valued the saying, and “B Card” was never explicitly taught nor have I ever seen it on social media. BS and I went to the same school, but I also had a similar experience where the school/friend group I came from before also played the “B Card” game with slightly different rules like punching instead of necking, showing that “B Card” existed in multiplicity and variations among us middle school boys. In my opinion, “B Card” could have been a way to hold each other accountable to the things we would say, an example of Mechling’s point that jokes can be used as social tools, but it was definitely a game that gave us an excuse to hit each other due to the mostly outlandish/impossible things that middle school boys would say they were going to do throughout the day.
OCSA Symphony Hall Ghost
Text:
CS: Miss Brown, who was my history teacher in 8th grade, she said that, like, the ghost of “Santa Ana,” one of the conquistadors who came through and, like claimed Santa Ana… She said that he lost his leg in battle and that it was buried under Symphony Hall. And that it’ll hop itself across the stage, um, when people aren’t looking.
Context: CS is a college student in Southern California who attended an arts high school in the city of Santa Ana. Symphony Hall was a remodeled church that had been turned into a school building & theatre on campus. Some classes were occasionally held in the basement library.
CS: I never had anything, like, weird happen, per se, at Symphony Hall. I think she just said that to scare the shit out of 13 year olds, but like… I don’t know why it’s specifically a leg, too, I don’t know how that works, exactly. “They’re going to build a church here, eventually, we need to bury your leg right here!”
Analysis: This is a hilarious legend. I attended this school & never heard this story, but I’m kind of endeared by the idea of a ghost story about a leg. I think an arts school is bound to breed creative myths and urban legends among its students and faculty–especially in a building that is possibly the oldest on campus, with something of a mystical air due to it formerly being a church. The idea of the “santa ana” conquistador with a missing leg, as far as I can find, is not based in any fact, but it makes sense that this would be a unifying, silly ghost story in a school full of storytellers and performers.
Frog in a Blender
Joke: “What’s green and red and green and red and green and red?” Answer: “A frog in a blender”
“So back around middle school age, when children are most obnoxious, there was a series of jokes going around. The one I remember is ‘What’s green and red and green and red and green and red?”
“ A frog in a blender”
There was also other ones where I do not remember what the colors were, but it was the same format, you know, red and some other color. One of them was a dead baby in a blender, um, and some other things in a blender. But the frog’s the one I remember.
Analysis: An example of gross humor, this joke follows the format of a question that could be a riddle and searching for a sincere answer. It subverts that by the next line as the teller reveals the answer is a frog in a blender, and that the red is of its blood. Interestingly, this joke uses some common tools- namely repetition and the rule of threes- to make its point. In the script, the informant remembers three repetitions of “green and red”, both mimicking the bits of frog circling around a blender and creating more interest for the joke. Not only is it green and red, it repeats in a seemingly alternating pattern. The informant also recognizes that this would often be told in a series of similar jokes with varying punchlines, likely meant to trip the individual up on the first few repetitions but then quickly becoming formulaic. In this, it would likely lose its shock or humor to the individual. This may explain why, as the informant says, this joke ‘went around’ in a wave; people started hearing it, telling it, and stopped telling it among their age group as their peers already knew the answers.
Bloody Mary
“Okay so when I was younger, in like elementary school or something probably around third or fourth grade I would be scared to go into a certain girls bathroom because the older girls, like the girls in fifth grade, would tell all the younger girls that this girl named bloody Mary lived in the front bathroom of the school. One time I went in there, and to mess with me, they turned the lights off when I was using the bathroom and made ghost sounds so that I would think bloody Mary was coming to get me, and I avoided that bathroom for like the entire rest of the year because I was afraid that I would get sucked into the mirror because that’s what they said would happen if she caught you looking at her. They also would try to get girls to stand in the bathroom and say bloody Mary three times in front of the mirror as a dare which became a big thing throughout the school and if you would do it, it was like you were super cool and not afraid of anything.”
Context: This was an over the phone interview with another classmate of mine who told me about her personal experience in elementary school. All text was transcribed from audio.
Interpretation:
This legend (as told through personal significance) speaks to the significance of evoking fear through the supernatural, and how middle schoolers are often gullible or easily manipulated into fearing certain things. It can also be a cautionary tale/dare that is often enacted during gatherings to see who “chickens out,” acting as a litmus test for social standing.