Tag Archives: prank

Streaking through School Assembly

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chatham, New Jersey
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

Streaking

Unofficial tradition/Practical Joke

 

My informant described a unofficial tradition in a school when talking about pranks. The following is a transcript of our interview:

“During the assembly before Christmas – the SAC  (student activities committee, which is basically an amateur SNL) Christmas assembly, there is always a streaker. We do the assembly, unlike the others, in the main common area for the school because it’s a big area, and the area we use for a stage is where the Senior couches are, and there is basically a huge window out to the backside of the school where there is a field. So people while we do the assembly, people  — because this is always in the dead of winter and there is snow on the ground – so people go streaking and wear masks of some variety, doing something funny. People don’t always get totally naked. No one last year got naked, but when you’re in a speedo in freezing weather its really cold and still funny.

 

To my informant, “it’s a tradition, and every year the administration says NO ONE CAN STREAK THIS YEAR, but every year people do it. It is a demonstration of student power versus the administration.”

 

Not only are students demonstrating their own power by disregarding the administrations threats, they also interrupt a mandatory event planned by the school. Thus, the students are demonstrating that they are also not under the control of the administration by ignoring the “mandatory” nature of the gathering, and they insult the administration by making a mockery of their gathering. Moreover, the streakers break school rules by disregarding the dresscode. The masks students wear protect them from getting into trouble, but also provide an extra element of comedy to the scene. Though breaking school rules is a key component to the tradition, the other part is comedy: the daring acts of defiance are also aimed to entertain fellow students.

Senior Ditch Day

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Chicago, Illinois
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

Reminiscing about high school, my informant told me of a tradition/practical joke that Seniors in his high school would orchestrate.

The following is an transcript from our interview:

 

“Informant: Every year, for as long as I’ve known, the Seniors would have a Senior Ditch Day. After the Prarie State Achievement Exam, which all students in Illinois had to take, the Senior Class would skip school for a day. They would all go out to party or just do whatever they wanted. Many would go out somewhere the night before, and celebrate by drinking or smoking, and would use the next day as a skip day to sleep away the hangover.

My year, I spent the day with a couple friends, celebrating like those before me, but we didn’t get together as a group like other grades. Usually they go out to a campsite or someone’s house that’s really far away so they can’t get in trouble, but we just went to my friends house and were sneaky.”

 

My informant said he looked forward to this day for many years, excited by the idea of breaking rules, feeling free, and skipping work for a day. He said that even though the whole grade wasn’t together, he had a great time hanging out with his friends anyway.

 

The first thing to note is when this tradition takes place: because the examination has passed and these are Seniors in high school, they likely will not be punished. Even if they are punished, they won’t have to deal with the consequences for too long since this happens towards the end of their career. Celebrating the end of work (the examination done) the students skip school.  This helps the Seniors through a liminal period, since the administrations rules don’t have as much of an effect on them any more. Almost at the end of their careers as students, the Seniors illustrate that they are no longer children by escaping the confines of school and breaking laws (doing activities reserved for adults).

Simultaneously, this is a practical joke and an act of rebellion. These students break laws and disregard school rules. A show of power, the students, skipping school, demonstrate they cannot be controlled by the school’s authority.

Hand to face prank

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/13/12
Primary Language: English
Language: French

Something she learned as a kid, my informant remembers this piece of folklore from middle school. The way it works is someone says that if your hand is bigger than your face, you have cancer. Then, when you put your hand up to your face to check, they push your hand into your face. It’s painful and annoying and it makes my informant remember why she hated things like that when she was younger, tricks kids would make up to hurt others. Because the kid the prank is pulled on fails to realize they’re being tricked, it becomes almost acceptable to hurt them. The pain comes as a result of the person’s failure to realize it’s a trick. This is why many people accept it when they get hurt from a prank like this, versus if someone randomly just hit you in the face, in which case you might less readily let it go. My informant remembered being a kid and not differentiating between the two cases, though. When a peer did this to her, her response was to kick him in the leg. The prank is something she hasn’t forgotten because it serves as a reminder of that human desire to hurt others and be in positions of power over them, where it becomes acceptable to hurt them. My informant dislikes that quality of humanity but finds it interesting that it exists and that things children do often reflect it.

The prank also acts as a kind of initiation into the group of people who know it. Once it’s been done to you, like a college hazing ritual for example, you want to do it to the person who doesn’t know about to get revenge upon whoever did it to you. And once the prank’s been done to you once, it can’t be repeated unless you forget how it works. This makes it not seem as bad, since even if it hurts you, it also teaches you what it is so you feel like you gained some knowledge from the experience. Humans learn from pain, and this is an example of that. The prank’s existence also shows how children like to push limits to see what’s socially acceptable. Mature adults would be less likely to perform this prank because it is against social codes to malevolently trick someone like that.

Paper Stretcher

Nationality: Caucasion
Age: 40s
Occupation: Handyman (Formerly Printer)
Residence: Altadena, CA
Performance Date: Apr 14
Primary Language: English

The informant worked as a professional printer for over twenty years at several different shops in the Los Angeles area.

The Story:

Well, used to be, when I was printing, they, ya know, we’d get the new guys, and obviously, you know, we’d need to, to go get something or, ya know, we’d send them on errands here and there. And, uh, every once and a while, we’d we’d tell a guy to go get a paper stretcher. Ya know, and uh we’d tell ’em “Oh, ya know, go check the sheet-fed department for a paper stretcher.” And they’d take off and twenty minutes later, they come back. “Ah I can’t find it. I’m looking for it ya know, all over the place.” And ya know, sometimes the other department would send them to another department to go get it and, usually we’d see how long they would go with it. But uh, obviously, ya know, he got the clue after a while, after he, ya know, couldn’t find it that uh, there was no such thing. [chuckles] And uh, paper does a lot of stuff but it doesn’t stretch.

The prank was fairly common at all of the shops the informant worked at.
They pulled the prank on new workers because “The older guys, they knew what was up.”

This is a perfect example of occupational folklore, and a liminal phase prank. It is assumed that once you can’t be fooled by the prank, you know what paper is capable of, therefore making you an experienced printer.

Cornell Halloween Legend

Nationality: American, Polish, Russian, a little bit of French
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Ithaca, New York
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“So, um, there’s a legend that, and I’m pretty sure it’s true, that one time on Halloween, the Engineers, it might not actually be the Engineers, I don’t know who did it, but I think it’s the Engineers because they’re the only ones smart enough to actually do something like this… one Halloween, they got a huge pumpkin on the top of the clock tower and no one really knows how they did it because the clock tower is pointy and really tall and has one hundred and sixty-one stairs. And so now, every year for Halloween, as tribute to that, Cornell lights the face of the clock tower orange and makes it look like a jack o’lantern… like makes a jack o’lantern face in it. I’ve heard the story from Orientation Leaders. I don’t remember if they said it was Engineers, but I think it is.”

 

The informant was very adamant that the group of students who supposedly pulled off this prank consisted of Engineers. Her tone was very insistent. This makes sense because she is an Engineering student. Her version of the legend reflects how highly she thinks of her own major at Cornell. It’s interesting how the school has turned this prank (or legend of a prank) into a folk tradition by lighting up the clock tower every year to look like a jack o’lantern. The school seems to greatly value the prank or (legend of the prank) and thus feels the need to keep this story alive through this annual, symbolic practice.