1. Title: Phil the Foco Mug

2. Informant Information:

Claire Votava was born on May 21, 1996, and grew up in Los Angeles, California. Her father is from Haiti and her mother is from Syria. She is studying History as a sophomore at Dartmouth College, and hopes to one day work in a museum. On campus, she is a tour guide, and her favorite spot to eat on campus is KAF, which she frequents at least twice a day.

3. Type of Lore (Genre and Sub-genre): Material Lore, tools/utensils

4. Language: English

5. Country of Origin: Hanover, New Hampshire, United States

6. Social/Cultural Context:

YikYak is a social media site where people within a certain radius can post anonymously to a constantly updated feed, and it is very popular on college campuses. Recently, it has added a feature where users can post pictures with captions.

7. Associated File: N/A

8. Transcript:

“Phil the Foco mug is just like it sounds. Someone stole one of those tiny blue mugs from Foco and decided to name it after our president, Phil Hanlon. Who it is carries it Phil around and takes pictures of him in weird or funny places. I remember seeing a photo of Phil the Foco mug next to a Christmas tree over Winterim! The post got really popular on YikYak, so that’s probably why everyone knows about it.”

9. Informant’s Comments:

YikYak is really good at creating shared jokes on this campus, because it’s a quick way to spread news and funny jokes!

10. Collector’s Comments: 

Like many pieces of folklore in this collection, the idea of Phil the Foco mug unifies the Dartmouth Community, especially since stealing utensils from Foco is such a phenomenon on campus.

11. Tags/Keywords: Phil, foco, mug