Tag Archives: USC

Wombo Combo

Nationality: Asian American
Age: 20
Occupation: USC Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 1/14/19
Primary Language: English

Context:
Playing Super Smash Bros with some friends at my house and one of my friends, S, keeps shouting “Wombo combo” while beating us all. S is a 20-year-old male from California who plays Super Smash Bros a lot.

Piece:
S: *hits me and another person in the game rapidly* “WOMBO COMBO BABY”
Me: “Did you come up with that or did you hear that somewhere?”
S: “Aw nah man, LumpyCPU said it in an old YouTube video but it’s hilarious.”

Discussion:
The video is only 49 seconds and it is clear why S appreciated its value; it’s hilarious. It sounds like two young men getting over excited about their victory in an older version of the game and screaming at the top of their lungs “WOMBO COMBO”. It is clear in the video that other people appreciated the new slang and it created a sense of unity amongst players of this game. It also is a good way to get people around you to laugh by screaming a nonsense phrase that clearly demonstrates excitement.

Reference:
The original video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD_imYhNoQ4

Ghost in McCarthy Honors Dorm 3107

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Charlottesville, VA
Performance Date: 4/21/19
Primary Language: English

Abstract:

This piece is about a ghost sighting in USC McCarthy Honors Dorm Room 3107. A white figure sleeping with the informant in bed was spotted by her roommate and told to her later.

Main Piece:

“L: Last year I was in the dining hall and one of my friends that wasn’t one of my roommates was making some joke about my room being haunted. And I was like “what? No. Don’t tell me this.” And my friend was like “Oh did your roommate not tell you this?” So it was my direct roommate. So one night we were all hanging out and watching movies or something and the next morning my roommate asked that friend, “why did you sleep in my roommate’s bed last night?” And she was like “I didn’t sleep in her bed last night.” And my roommate said “No I definitely saw a really pale bed laying next to her at night.” So it was laying with me.

C: That’s the creepiest thing I’ve heard.

L: So I think it’s because I have all white blankets and maybe it’s because I had all my blankets pushed to one side and maybe looked like a person. It happened in May of last year, so I only had a few more weeks left in that room.

C: And you lived in the village so they were new?

L: Yeah they were new. So no rumor of them being haunted. But we were watching Buzzfeed Unsolved, so maybe she was super paranoid or something.

C: What room were you in?

L: 3107. In the lofted double. So we were high up. Like you can barely see each other from the beds because we are so high up. She thought it was my friend who was really pale, but then we thought it was a ghost.”

Context:

The informant is a 19 year old sophomore who lived her freshman year in Room 3107 in McCarthy Honors Dorm at the USC Village. She was the first year of students to live in the newly built dorms, so there was no rumor that there could be ghosts from past students or people.

Analysis:

Unlike the informant, I had heard rumors about ghosts being at the USC Village before. Though these ghosts were not trying to haunt students, it was more of the idea that they were haunting the school for taking over the neighborhood due to gentrification. I had heard from people in the community the continuing dislike of the expansion of USC, especially the USC Village. I have heard of ghosts from Denny’s that couldn’t afford to get a place in the Village due to this type of sentiment as well.

The Basement Nazi Flag

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/1/2019
Primary Language: English

Main Text

Subject: USC has like, a Nazi Germany flag in the basement somewhere. Of like, Mudd Hall or somewhere, st…stashed away. Cuz’ like…it was hanging up during World War II or whatever? In this very building…I guess?

Background Information

The interview was conducted in the Von KleinSmid Center library basement, which is the “very building” referred to by the subject in the interview. The subject is a fourth-year anthropology student at the University of Southern California. During the year of this interview, they heard this legend from an acquaintance, who heard it through word of mouth.

Context

The subject has spread the legend “once or twice […] within the same group circle” in the context of “shitting on USC.” Given the university’s recent admissions scandals, they consider sharing the legend timely, as yet another example of “all the shit that USC has been doing, and that people have been frustrated about.” They have even experienced the urge to share this legend and other similar anti-USC rumors when campus tour groups are passing by, as an “exposé” of the university to otherwise blissfully ignorant potential and incoming students. The subject considers “shitting on USC” a personally significant activity in their life, because it annoys them that people laud USC for being a great school with great resources, when people ought to be more critical of the university’s blatantly unethical actions. They don’t want USC to “get away” with its corruption, and even though sharing the legend does little to bring tangible justice, it still challenges general perceptions of the school.

However, they mention they are “a little hesitant” to present it as a confirmed fact in their pursuit of encouraging others to “shit on USC.” They juxtapose the legend with other anti-USC legends that have had more factual verification, such as Traveler being a Confederate horse and Von KleinSmid being a eugenicist.

The Basement Nazi Flag legend is also not the first Nazi-related USC legend that the subject has heard. They draw parallels between this legend, and the legend of the Nazis having donated a tree to the university. They discuss how the Nazi Tree legend is similar to the Basement Nazi Flag legend, because the truth of both legends are difficult to confirm. On the other hand, they mention that the two legends are generally shared with different intentions: the Nazi Tree legend is sensational and often restyled as a tree that was donated by Hitler, whereas the Basement Nazi Flag is symbolic and meant to directly criticize the hidden corruption at USC.

Despite the questionable factuality of these legends, the subject argues that most people do take legends such as the Basement Nazi Flag seriously, given the political gravity of the subject matter. They mention that, even among those who share similarly critical opinions of USC, the reaction to hearing these legends is usually aghastness.

Interviewer’s Analysis

This legend is an example of folklore as counter-hegemony. Briefly, hegemony is defined as the total control over the terms of a narrative. In this case, USC maintains hegemony over its public image as a prestigious, top-tier university that is desirable to attend. The Basement Nazi Flag legend subverts this hegemony by presenting a visceral example of USC’s politically damnable history. What makes this legend such a powerful attack on USC’s character, is that it not only implies that USC is condemnable for having been affiliated with Nazis in the past, but that it ought to be doubly condemned for concealing that history from present company, essentially pretending like the affiliation never happened. The fact that there are several other similar, much more factually grounded legends such as the USC mascot Traveler being a Confederate horse, and former USC President Von KleinSmid being a eugenicist, suggests that even if the Basement Nazi Flag legend is not factually true, the anti-USC sentiments motivating its spread are rooted in historical reality.

For Further Reading

Two collections of the Nazi Tree legend reference by the subject appear in the Digital Folklore Archives. They are linked below here:

The SoCal Spell Out

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Jose, CA
Performance Date: 4/22/18
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Context & Analysis

The subject and I were eating lunch together and I asked him to tell me about some of his experiences at USC; particularly, I asked him if he knew of any strong traditions at USC (aside from the obvious ‘Fight On’). The subject is a member of the USC Triathlon team and is very active and involved on the team. He proceeded to tell me about this particular tradition he enjoys on the Tri team, which is also a tradition shared by many other USC sports teams.

Main Piece

“My favorite tradition is, like, the SoCal spell out, and it’s basically a lot of things that I think, like, USC athletic teams do here. It just consists of basically spelling out “Southern California”, like, really quickly and really loudly and then just, like, erupting in cheer at the very end. That actually is, like, really really fun to do and a good tradition to have, plus it also fills you up with adrenaline. So that’s a tradition that we have.”

“Dark in Here!”

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/23/18
Primary Language: English

Context & Analysis

The subject is a BFA in USC’s School of Dramatic Arts Acting program, which is extremely competitive. I asked him if he knew of any theater traditions or sayings specific to USC’s theater program. I included the full dialogue of our conversation below for clarity.

Main Piece

Subject: ‘Dark in here’ is a big one for the BFA’s. Any time the lights turn off someone just has to go ‘Dark in here!”

Me: What’s the context of that?
Subject: It was a line in a scene and we—Mary Jo probably made them do that line for an hour straight.

Me: Who’s Mary Jo?

Subject: Mary Jo Negro is the head of undergraduate acting at USC, she’s our acting professor, she’s the one that cuts us [laughs]

Me: So what play was it taken from?

Subject: It’s a 10-minute play called ‘Tape’. It’s very bad. [laughs]

Me: So why did it become a saying within the BFA’s?

Subject: Uh, because we’re the ones that had to run through it for an hour—it was just that line. And so then every time the lights turn off we’d have to go ‘Dark in here!’—so the lights turn off and he [the main character] goes ‘Dark in here” and so now any time any professor ever turns the lights off somebody goes “Dark in here” and I hate it [laughs].