Freeze Tag

Title: Freeze Tag

General Information about Item:

  • Children’s Lore, Game
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Anonymous
  • Date Collected: 10-28-20
  • Location Collected at: Dartmouth College Hanover, NH

Informant Data:

  • Anonymous, 22, is a female Dartmouth student in the class of 2021. She was born in New Orleans, LA and raised in the suburbs of Las Vegas, NV between ages 6 and 14, when she left for boarding high school at Phillips Exeter Academy. Her hobbies include dance, Dungeons & Dragons, and her gender inclusive Greek house Phi Tau.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Games for enjoyment and elementary school recess often are meant to include multiple children to keep them occupied without the need of adult oversight. Tag-variation games are common throughout American culture.
  • Social Context: Children are socialized by parents, guardians, and peers to enjoy and participate in competitive games against one another throughout childhood. Tag-type games are staple children’s games. Anonymous estimates she learned how to play freeze tag after starting elementary school, possibly in kindergarten or first grade. Her classmates introduced the game and played it with her during recess.

Item:

  • Freeze Tag involves at least three people, with one person being “it.” The person who is “it” chases down the other participants to tag/touch them. When a participant is tagged, they are “frozen” and unable to continue moving. Any people who aren’t frozen can “unfreeze” that person to allow them to run again by tagging them. The game ends when the “it” has frozen all players.

Transcript:

  • “Freeze tag is really fun because it’s all the participants working against the tagger. The person who is ‘it’ has to tag people to freeze them in place. You play with at least three people and the tagger is trying to freeze everyone, so the people who aren’t frozen have to decide how to save the people who are. The more people who are frozen, the harder it is to stay unfrozen because you have less allies. You ‘unfreeze’ people by tagging them, so they can move again. The tagger wins if they freeze everyone.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • You want to try and unfreeze the fast kids and the ones closest to you. Sometimes people intentionally distract the tagger so a rescue group can unfreeze some kids.

Collector’s Comments:

  • The tagger has a hard job if they have to tag all alone.

Collector’s Name: Kyland Narcisse

Dartmouth College

RUSS 13 Slavic Folklore: Vampires, Witches, and Firebirds

Professors Mikhail Gronas and Valentina Apresjan

FALL 2020

Tags/Keywords:

  • Tag game
  • Children’s Folklore