Background on Informant:

My informant is a 40-year-old student from California. I know him from Discord, where we often play video games. He explained that he first heard about the superstition in high school, especially among his peer group, who used to smoke weed

Text:

Interviewer: Can you tell me about the white lighter superstition?

Informant: Yeah, so growing up, I was a stoner, and my group always had lighters for smoking weed right? Well, I always remember people freaking out about white lighters, BIC lighters to be exact, some wouldn’t even touch one, like they wouldn’t even smoke weed if that was the only lighter.

Interviewer: Why?

Informant: So the story goes that all these great musicians that passed away, like Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, all had white lighters in their pockets when they were found dead.

Interviewer: Have you heard about this anywhere else?

Informant: A few times, usually at bars, someone asks for a lighter to spark a cigg, and a white one comes out, it’s pretty funny some of the reactions.

Interviewer: interesting so it is believed that if you use a white lighter, you die?

Informant: It’s not that cut and dry; it’s more like IF by chance it does have something to do with a white lighter, there are so many other colors, why tempt fate?

Analysis:

This is a great example of a modern superstition. BIC lighters were not introduced until 1973, which shows that superstitions are still being created and spread in modern culture. The belief is tied to celebrity deaths, like musicians like Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, and Elvis Presley. These were iconic musicians that were deeply loved and mourned upon their death, that significance is why I believe the superstition holds any validity. The superstition’s transmission is horizontal through friend groups, specifically stoners and smokers (due to the use of BIC lighters),  as my informant explained, he heard it within his group of marijuana smoking friends. Even though there is no factual evidence linking white lighters to these deaths, the belief continues because of the fear and uncertainty, this shows symbolic thinking because this group believes that the lighter could change outcomes. This superstition also functions as a form of group identity, as well as displaying multiplicity and variation as not just stoners follow the white lighter belief but cigarette smokers sometimes do too.