Title: S&S Imposter
Genre: Verbal and Customary Folklore
Informant: Emma Margaret Roberts. Dartmouth ’19. From Boston, Mass. Age 19. Lives in Russell Sage Dorm.
Type of Lore: Verbal Folklore, Customary Folklore, Joke.
Language: English.
Country of Origin: United States of America.
Social Context: Students drinking in a dorm room can be faced with a lot of trouble if caught by S&S.One measure that S&S takes to stop students from partaking in this activity is walking through dorms at various points in the night. If S&S feels as though there is something bad happening in a dorm room, they will knock on the door and demand to be let in. The joke described by the student in the interview plays off of the fear of S&S knocking on the door. Students have adapted this S&S practice into a joke where they will knock on their friends door and pretend to be S&S, inciting fear in all of the people in the dorm room. This joke is widely practiced and understood by the students on campus.
Video: https://youtu.be/3WbYbGJnJj0
In this video the informant tells about how the joke would be performed and of her personal experience with the process. She gives an example of how S&S has knocked on her door during a party and speaks about the fear of this being universal on campus. She then goes into detail about how she would perform this joke on one of her friends and how the joke would be performed on her.
Informant Comments: The informant said that she has partaken in this Joke numerous times and that is is widely practiced by the students on campus.
Collector Comments: I have also experienced this Joke. Both as the performer and as the victim. This joke is born out of superstition and fear of S&S, and really plays on that. It is another piece of folklore that has gone unnoticed by many on campus because they are part of the folk and take part in the joke without a second guess.
Collected by Carter Copeland and Luke Hudspeth, Class of 2019.