Tag Archives: Teenagers

“Spodies”: Social Drinking Tradition for Seattle Teenagers

Text:

WD: “Spodies are, in Seattle and maybe other places, but they are social events, generally they happen on Fridays, Saturdays. Basically, a bunch of high schoolers go to public parks—there’s a bunch of spots that each have code names, so one is called ‘The Rock,’ one is called, ‘Woodlands,’ some of them are the names of the park, but some of them are other things. You fill a big container with alcohol and also juices and stuff, so it’s like a punch bowl. You do that, not every weekend, but a lot of weekends, high schoolers just go and get drunk in these parks, but the thing is that the police come literally every time because they know exactly where the spots are. So, the events only last for, like, two hours and then you have to run off into the park.”

Context:

The informant is a 20-year-old college student from Seattle, Washington. He never attended a “spodie,” but described it as a common, well-known tradition among teenagers in the Seattle Metropolitan area. While in some areas, the word “spodie” refers to the actual drink, among his peers it referred only to the event. WD never attended a spodie but knew that people at his high school—generally the “athletic students” and “cool kids”– attended them, so they do indicate social status. The prospect of being chased by the police is part of the event’s appeal, he said, as rebelling against authorities appeals to teenagers. The risk of getting caught and punished is thrilling to young people. 

Analysis:

I think that spodies, like keg parties or more common teenage gatherings centered around drinking, reflect social status. One’s attendance signifies a kind of insider status, as a person must have the social ties to know that the party is occurring and also know the meanings of the locations’ code names. The punchbowl of miscellaneous alcohols and juices is also distinctly teenaged. Since teenagers cannot legally buy alcohol and probably cannot afford to provide it for an entire party, they make a convivial ritual out of individuals mixing whatever they can find. Spodies therefore give young people not only the chance to get drunk, but also provide an opportunity for social bonding.

            I would argue that spodies also appeal to young people because they allow them to participate in a longstanding tradition of rebellion that is unique to Seattle. Spodies allow the consolidation of a community of Seattle teenagers, many of whom likely heard about spodies as children and excitedly anticipate becoming old enough to participate in them. They are appealing in their novelty. The events are therefore a kind of rite of passage as well, indicating one’s ascent into high school or teenage life. The expectation of getting caught also compels young people to participate in spodies, where they can experience the thrill of reckless rule breaking and evading punishment. Spodies being a group activity offers a layer of protection to individuals, a sense of solidarity between the attendees and of being invisible in the crowd. One can interpret running from the police in this group context as a form of group bonding and connecting with a regional tradition.

Doe slaps

Text:

AB: “It originated from ‘Give me my dough,’ which may have been more of a universal thing, If someone said something stupid, you’d say ‘Give me my dough’ and then hit them on the head. But then it transformed into, like, the most complex thing ever. It turned into ‘doe slaps,’ so when someone said something stupid you could say ‘doe slaps’ and hit them on the head. But there’s so many different rules. There’s ‘doe slaps extra hardies,’ ‘no returnies.’ But basically, if you don’t say certain things, they can slap you back… it just involved getting whacked in the head for saying something stupid.

I think it started in middle school and it went into the high school. It was big in high school, like if someone said something stupid in class, people would go up and be like ‘doe slaps.’ If it was your friend. It was fun. It was endearing but people slap hard.”

Context:

The informant is a 19-year-old college student from Montclair, New Jersey. She remembers “doe slaps” being pervasive among boys and girls, in middle school but especially in high school. She says that the tradition has died out among her friends from high school, but her younger brother attends the same school and has seen people in his peer group do the ritual.

Analysis:

I think that this game and ritual, like the Circle Game, where one is allowed to hit another person if they make them look at their hand making the “OK” gesture, conveys the competitive, emotionally complex social dynamics between adolescents. Teenagers are very critical of one another and often use the failures or missteps of others to bolster their own self-esteem. While it could be seen as a way to perpetuate power dynamics or convey social status through bullying, it also can be interpreted as egalitarian, since the act demands justification and can technically be carried out by and to anyone. Kids sign a sort of unwritten social contract, allowing them to give people “doe slaps,” but also agreeing that they can receive them.

This ritual involves humiliation and physical pain, however, giving someone “doe slaps” is also a kind of act of endearment carried out between friends. While the act is humbling, the practice conveys someone’s status as an insider or outsider. Being able to give someone “doe slaps” indicates a degree of closeness or a person’s belonging in a social group, since it wasn’t acceptable to do it to people you didn’t know or weren’t friends with. Moreover, the elaborateness and specificity to one school in one town in New Jersey makes the practice a cultural identifier, something which people from Montclair can use to understand and connect with each other. Because there’s no cultural understanding of “doe slaps” outside of the town, and because hitting people under any circumstances is generally not socially acceptable among adults, it makes sense that this practice fizzled out when the kids who practiced it graduated high school and left Montclair.

High School Senior Pranks

Nationality: Armenian American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Glendale, California
Performance Date: April 18, 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Armenian, Farsi

Main Piece

My informant explains that her old high school has an age-old rival high school in the same city. She remembers that the graduating seniors of every year would perform a prank on the rival school, and the rival school would do the same. These pranks were usually harmless, but sometimes costly to recover from. She remembers that in her senior year of high school, a few seniors from her school dyed the rival school’s pool purple, which was her school’s colors. The rival school, looking for revenge, threw two queen-sized mattresses in her school’s pool, which absorbed a large amount of water, making it impossible to lift them out of the pool without a crane. She laughed as she recounted these memories to me.

Background

My informant is a college student studying Business. She was school spirited in high school and claims to have always participated in senior activities with her classmates. She explains that nobody she asked could remember how the rivalry between the two high schools started. However, according to my informant, it is not hard to draw conclusions. Both schools were located in the same small suburb of Los Angeles, ranked academically high, and held strong sports teams. She concludes that these factors may have caused, in her own words, this “friendly, but not-so-friendly” rivalry between the two high schools. She explains that in addition to the senior pranks, there would be one school day out of the entire academic year dedicated to pep rallies and parties to encourage the football team to beat the rival school later that day. She explains that these schools were rivals in every way, but her favorite part of the rivalry was the senior pranks.

Context

These senior pranks are performed by high school seniors. Faculty members knew about the pranks and were aware of the plans for the pranks, but never interfered with them unless they saw a safety issue or a health hazard that could possibly result from the pranks. Usually, these pranks were performed later in the year, when most seniors suffered from “senioritis” and would rather organize pranks than do any more schoolwork. 

My Thoughts

I attended the same high school as my informant, and can attest to the large-scale rivalry between these two high schools. The pranks that the seniors performed were generally creative and inventive, but the pranks were not as important as the act of organizing these pranks. Students came together after school to meticulously plan their pranks to perfection. This goes to show that the prank itself was not important. The value of this tradition came from the act of coming together. 

High school seniors are in a liminal period. They are transitioning from their identity as a student to their identity as an adult, whether they enter the workforce or go off to college. Senior pranks are a form of rite of passage. According to French ethnographer Arnold van Gennep, practical jokes and pranks such as senior pranks are performed during these liminal times to ease the tensions and anxieties that come with the transition. Thus, we can conclude that senior pranks were a way to smoothen the transition from student to adult for high school seniors. 

Taser Tag at the Exposition Park Rose Garden

Nationality: Guatemalan-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student at USC studying medicine, Hospital Worker
Residence: 2715 Portland St Los Angeles, CA 90007
Performance Date: 2/12/21
Primary Language: English

I heard about this game while many of my housemates were gathered around a table and drinking. The first time the speaker shared this story, he also bragged about other rules he had broken as a child or young adult. This story is an example of ‘forbidden play’ and it took place near the University of Southern California.

*

After the Exposition Park Rose Garden closes for the night, those who enter can be apprehended for trespassing. From 2013 to 2015, the speaker said that the cycling community in Los Angeles was “massive.” After one large race in 2013, the speaker’s friends gathered in the rose garden and someone suggested that the group of 13, 14 and 15-year-olds play taser tag. Cyclists carried tasers, knives or brass knuckled with them and they rode ‘suicide bikes’ or racing bicycles that have the breaks removed. ” A lot of us have very traumatic lives where we just pain sometimes makes us feel alive.” The speaker explained that about 15 of the 50 cyclists gathered owned tasers, and that the game was well received by the group.

In the event that state troopers caught the boys in the rose garden, they would scatter. Those who were caught were given “a slap on the wrist” and sent home.

The speaker never had a taser, so he was a ‘runner.’ There were no rules about where tasers could attack. ” You could taste in the nuts. It’s wherever this person lands the taser. The good thing is it wasn’t high voltage… enough to drop you on the ground. That’s it.” The speaker said he had been tased in the neck. Girls could attack with tasers but the speaker said they seldom outran the boys. Anyone playing Taser Tag in the rose garden was fair game for attack. He admitted that Taser Tag was fun because it was forbidden, as was “using self defense weapons as offensive weapons.”

Taser Tag games with the speaker’s group occurred five times between 2013 and 2015. The last time, one member brought pepper spray and the speaker said “All 10 of us suffocated. And you’re like, Dude, this guy that comes back. We’re going to hurt him.”

The speaker said that “growing in South LA is kind of like a free for all,” and that “whenever a bunch of kids run around with bikes, I rather see them doing that than dealing drugs.” The speaker noted that some of his cyclist friends who played Taser Tag did get involved in gang activity after their group dissolved. When asked what the game meant to him, the speaker said that this “was a day where all of us no matter what ethnicity where we’re from, who we are, it’s just fun. And that fun involves a little bit of pain.”

*

This speaker retold this story in front of friends. I believe that this memory is important for the speaker because many of his friends have left or are no longer living. This memory is also important because the speaker enjoys rough activities, and it is difficult to engage in rough-and-tumble activity as an adult. I believe this time reminds him of an era where he did not have to worry about larger adult problems, and this brings a sort of nostalgia for something one can never do again.

For more information on forbidden play, see Folk Groups & Folklore Genres Chapter 5, Children’s Folklore by Jay Mechling.

Tug of War with a Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Virginia
Performance Date: October 21, 2020
Primary Language: English
Language: Korean

Informant: It was in North Carolina. I just got done playing with a fake Oujia board (like the ones you would find online). I went to bed. I woke up and it was freezing. I had a habit of kicking my blanket off in my sleep. I go to grab it and something was tugging against me. I thought nothing of it because I was half-asleep. I eventually won this tug-of-war and went back to sleep. I woke up the next morning freaked out because I realized I was fighting for a blanket with something in my half-asleep state. I did not think it was sleep paralysis or anything because I got up to get my blanket back. I just really want to know what wanted my blanket and why.

Background/Informant Thoughts: Informant was 15 going on 16 in North Carolina during the summer of 2016. (This is the same informant with the two Virginia apartment ghost stories.) The informant was in disbelief that she fought with something over a blanket. She was not scared or anything, but she was confused as to why it happened. She also stated that after this experience, it never happened again.

My Thoughts: While this story is seemingly more tame compared to the apartment ones, this still freaks me out a lot! In a groggy, sleepy state, I would be scared out of my mind if I was fighting with a ghost over my blanket. I also think this ghost story shows that the person is prone to being haunted in general. With having multiple accounts of being haunted at a Virginia apartment as a kid, I believe the ghosts have simply followed her around just to maybe mess with her.