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Informant: You may have heard this from (OTHER PERSON), but in some colleges and universities, there are groups that will do, like, prank things. At MIT its called, like, “Hacking,” but they are sort of just random prank things. U of T engineering has something, like, this… allegedly, it is called the “Brute Force Committee,” BFC. One of the main things, or I guess evidence you see of them on campus is there logo on a sticker in some very absurd places so, you know, in one of the engineering buildings there is like a big open area in the middle of the building and, you know, on the far side from the walkway, up multiple stories, you’ll see one of their stickers. And so clearly, somebody did something dangerous or did something funky to get a sticker. So there are some of those things. But, um, the bigger things are, of course, the actual pranks that they do. And a lot of them are, you know, pretty low-key little pop-up things. At one point one of the buildings in one of the hangout areas they had one of those mini basketball arcade game things, just like fun stuff. I’ll say one more thing and then I’ll tell the story for them. But during Frosh week again, one of the evenings we are out and about, and this is how we are introduced to them. I wish I remembered more of the details but there’s like this whole ceremony where we get walked around and get told some stories about their background and like U of T history and they gave us all candles and we all had to blow them all out. And the thing I remember most distinctly about this was we all had our masks on and we couldn’t blow the candles out.

Me: They did not plan ahead (laughter)

Informant: No. It didn’t work. But it was, like, you know, a very community building, interesting thing. But anyway, they do a bunch of random pranks, but the legendary one that I believe has happened twice in the last like 10 years is with our rivalry with Queen’s University which is with engineering… university in Canada, specifically the engineering people. One of their Frosh traditions is that they have this mud pit and then like a metal pole and they cover it in grease and the freshmen try to climb it…It has like a base obviously so it’s self standing, it’s very messy. But, the story is that we have stolen it a couple of times and basically ransomed it for, what I think the story is, is like some different like tasks, more than, you know, it’s all for fun in the end. But stealing this… pole thing… that is meant to be, like, a freshman event from this rival university. And I believe there are things they’ve stolen from us in the past, just, like, the engineering society people… like we have these little cannons, beer cannons too? It’s, like, a thing, I don’t entirely remember why. And I believe those have been stolen from us before so there’s a little bit of back and forth that I think has gone on with these things.

Context

The informant is from Seattle, Washington and studies engineering at the University of Toronto (called “U of T” by people in Canada). They heard this in 2021 in the week before classes (called “Frosh week”) where freshman are meant to get to know each other and also learn about the school and it’s traditions. This group is limited to just the engineers of U of T, other students at the university don’t have connections to it. The informant said they believe that BFC stole the pole twice but they are less sure about the cannon stealing by Queen’s College. They added that might have these beliefs because they think U of T is better than Queen’s College and therefore more likely to have actually achieved these pranks. The informant does say that the ritual associated with telling the story acted as community building for them.

Analysis

This legendary group and story work to bond new engineering students to both each other and their school. By hearing this story during Frosh week in a very ritualized way, they connect to the rest of the new students as well as students before them in the engineering program. They also feel a deeper connection to their school, first by hearing stories about the history and second by engaging in a rivalry with another school.

The story helps to define the role of the person hearing it. As an engineering student at U of T, the informant is meant to see this prank as a success and a win against another group, their rival university engineering program. By creating this rivalry, it helps to solidify where a new student exists. They are part of the U of T group, not the Queen’s College group. Belief in the story also helps to define the role. As the informant showed, they believe in a the part of the story that showed the superiority of U of T over their rival college. This was at least partially because of their connection to their own university where they feel like they can believe the legends from their group but not the ones from another.

Engaging in humorous but still technically illegal prank like stealing a pole that belongs to another university is a way for young adults to stay playful and childlike while in a rigorous and academic environment. Adding fun to their college experience allows them to relax after studying. Toeing the line of legality allows them to push the boundaries of the law and institutional rules while still being safe given the humorous aspect of the prank.

Other pranks described, such as putting a sticker somewhere that would be impossible to reach normally, act as a way of proving oneself by doing something impressive to others. That sticker is now impossible to reach by anyone and therefore impossible to take down. This makes it a lasting legacy of this person (possibly making them a legend within the committee itself).

BFC and the pranks described are a very modern legend in that there is some evidence for their existence both on Google (articles or descriptions of them) and physical proof of stickers or other active pranks. Despite the evidence for their existence however, it is very likely that these stories are exaggerated through retellings. This is even more likely given that they are about rivalries between colleges meaning that each student has incentive to exaggerate how good their school is.