Bella Estrada, a senior studying History at the University of Southern California, who hails from Los Angeles, California, provided four pieces of folklore for this collection.

The interview was run, amidst dinner and drinks, at the University of Southern California located Greenleaf, a popular post-class bar for many students at the prestigious institution.

Folk Performance: The Legend of Emma Rose.

Folk Type: Legend.

“There’s got to be school-wide folklore, right? I mean we’re a community” – Stanley Kalu

Story: ohhh, I have one! um, so when I was a freshman, there was this one girl who became notorious for adding every single person that was on the class of 2018 Facebook group and she ended up rushing Delta Gamma and she got a bid. But, her little social faux-pas of adding everyone made her the target of such social reprimand that she dropped out. She will go down in history as one of our classes’ craziest figures.

Background Information: Bella remembers this piece of folklore because she was actively against the reprimand of a girl just trying to make friends. She learned of this through the aforementioned Facebook group.

Context Performance: This piece of folklore actually stems from the digital realm and was largely performed over the Internet.

The context of Bella’s rehashing of the tale was done after our “Forms of Folklore” class taught by Tok Thompson because the both of us had a folklore collection project due.

Thoughts: This situation is an act of cyber-bullying, which showcases the darker side of folklore. Folk-Persons, historically, have been paragons of strength and awe—take the Legend of Davy Crockett or the Tales of Tom Sawyer for example—it is interesting then to see it function in an opposite manner.