Tag Archives: Superstition

Wordless Bloody Mary

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 13, 2018
Primary Language: English

“I learned this from my mom, it’s like a superstition, I think. If you’re ever in the dark, don’t look at the mirror, and I have no clue why, because she never said what would happen, just that i should “never, ever look in the mirror in the dark, because something bad will happen.” I guess it’s a ghost superstition similar to Bloody Mary, but you don’t have to say anything. Ever since then—even though I don’t believe in it—I still don’t look into the mirror when it’s dark, just in case.”

 

Analysis:

This belief is incredibly similar to the “Bloody Mary” superstition, as the informant noted. Despite not believing in the superstition, the informant still tries to not look into mirrors, which shows how deeply the belief has pervaded culture, especially within her own family.

The Guardian covers a few of the variations on the Bloody Mary beliefs in the article below.
https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/jul/06/top-10-urban-legends-myths-james-dawson

Walking Under a Ladder

Nationality: Irish American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC
Performance Date: 4/20/18
Primary Language: English

This is a superstition that is known universally. My friend Kaitlin was explaining the story to me and she told me that all of her friends told her not to walk under a ladder. She still does it, to test the world because she thinks it’s funny. It probably came from the notion that walking under a ladder is dumb because if the latter falls and somebody’s on it they will get hurt and or the person who was walking under the water could get hurt.Kaitlyn is a Christian, and in the Christian religion, there is a belief that the Holy Trinity parentheses the father the son and the Holy Ghost parentheses mean that it makes a triangle. A ladder is in the shape of a triangle, and therefore walking through it is seen as breaking Trinity. It is seen as a crime in the religion and a potential attraction and summoning of the devil. To avoid the superstitions of walking under a ladder, some people use remedies. One that Kaitlin knows was to Make-A-Wish while walking under the latter. Another is to walk back through the ladder. This sounds kind of funny however you might not know what kind of ill fortune you brought a pot among yourselves because of walking under the ladder if you use one of these remedies, or even if you do walk under a ladder you may experience some kind of bad luck. It is not proven anywhere, however it widely questions and known as a superstition globally.

 

One Way to Scratch an Itch

Nationality: American
Age: 61
Occupation: Homemaker
Residence: Southern California
Performance Date: March 24, 2018
Primary Language: English

My maternal grandpa was from the poorest part of Birmingham, Alabama. His birth father died in a dynamite factory explosion when he was two years old, and his mother remarried a few years after that. Even with a new man, their family was poorer than poor. Some winters, they’d resort to eating shoe leather out of desperate hunger. He had one pair of overalls, and later became an expert marksman out of necessity (he could hit a squirrel between the eyes from 30 yards out). He climbed out of poverty via the GI Bill which he used to get an education here at USC, and then a job as a salesman of medicinal gasses to airline companies and hospitals. He didn’t much like talking about when he was poor – it was not his proudest moment. The one thing he did enjoy talking about from back then was family. Even when you have no money, you have family. As his sister June put it, “it never felt like we were poor. We had so much love in the household.”

 

My mom imbued this same sense of family on me through different stories she’d heard as a small girl from her dad, my grandpa. I’d heard this story before, but it had slipped to the back of my mind. Driving home from lunch one sunny afternoon, I ask her and my dad if they have any stories about the inexplicable that I could use for my folklore project. My mom starts:

 

“When your great uncle – great, great uncle – had… his leg amputated, it was itching itching itching, the stump was itching.  So his family said, ‘go dig up the stump and see if there’s anything wrong with it.  And he did and it was covered with ants.  And so he properly buried it and the itching stopped.  And that was a common belief of the time, in Alabama among Christians a couple generations ago.”

 

I love this story because it plays on so many different levels. On the one hand, it’s a story of a very strange folk belief that has found its way into mainstream medicine.  Phantom pains are a common phenomenon in the paraplegic world. To stop it, many doctors put a mirror up to the intact limb, making it look like their missing limb is still there. Almost immediately, the pains stop, and even when the mirror is removed, the pains are not felt. On the other hand, this story works through the familial lens, as it provides a rather sincere snapshot into life in rural Alabama so many years ago.  In a strange way, it makes perfect sense to dig up the withered limb and clean it off to stop the itching. It’s not like there was any other information out there, they just did what they thought would work and it worked.

 

The Toaster Era

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: May 3 2017
Primary Language: English

This entry was given to the interviewer through digital means. The interviewer asked the informant, Sahit, about any superstitions in the NBA he knows because of Sahit’s die-hard obsession to the sport. He replied with a comment about the “winningness” of the Golden State Warriors.

 

 

“I can’t think of any pregame superstitions or anything like that, but there is this thing that recently came up about a toaster that Klay [Thompson] signed. Some guy on Reddit went to a Klay autograph signing but instead of a shirt or a basketball, he had Klay sign his official Warriors-branded toaster. This kinda became a meme in itself because Klay was just so dumbfounded about signing the toaster that there are pictures of the awkward pause right before he signed it. But, since then, the Warriors are undefeated. This is now known as the Toaster Era and the Warriors are 20-0 in the Toaster Era.”

 

The interviewer had heard about the “Toaster Era” but didn’t know what it was attributed to in the first place. More than anything, this whole thing seems like a passing meme about the Warriors’ insane ability to win against any team in the NBA. I really doubt that the Warriors are undefeated solely due to the toaster, but it is nevertheless entertaining to think of this superstition as a reason for their repeated victories.

 

Lil B NBA Curse

Nationality: Indian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: 4/30/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Gujarati

The informant DP is a 19-year-old male studying Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California. He has recently become a huge fan of the NBA and he describes something that the casual NBA fan would not know much about. In this piece, he talks about the “The BasedGod’s” curse to me (AK) which was popularized over five years ago by a rapper by the name of Lil B.

For some context, Lil B became a viral sensation with many provocative rap videos and tweets. He refers to himself as the “Based God” and he has drawn a very loyal fan following due to the hilarity of his tweets and rap videos. He is also known for the “Based God” curse which he has given to star athletes who have disrespected his rapping ability.

DP: So I don’t know the entire story, but I do know that Lil B and Kevin Durant (famous basketball player) had beef a few years ago.

AK: What exactly caused the beef?

DP: Well … KD basically said that Lil B is a wack rapper and that his music sucks. Lil B responded to this by dropping a video titled F*** KD and giving him the “Based God” curse.

AK: What does this curse entail? Is there any way to become uncursed?

DP: In this context, he meant that KD would never win a championship. Also, KD was recently lifted of the curse because he decided to sign with the Golden State Warriors and Lil B is a huge Warriors fan.

I found this entire piece to be hilarious. After some further research, I found Lil B to be very outspoken on twitter and most of his fans simply quote him out of the absurdity and comedy of some of his proclamations. Most of his songs have a comedic element to them and in his F*** KD song he states that he could beat Kevin Durant in a one on one game of basketball. For some NBA fans, however, the curse does hold some merit as Kevin Durant is perennially one of the best players in the league, yet he has never won a championship. While most rational fans scoff at the claim that the curse is the reason why, a small but significant subset of fans contend that the curse is the sole reason why. I’m not sure which side of the argument I’m on, but I do find humor in the fact that Lil B has gained so much fame over a simple tweet and video.