Title: Meme Ritual
General Information about Item:
- Customary Folklore: Ritual, Tradition
- English
- USA
- Informant Data:
- Tiffany Park ’18
- Age: 21
- Birthplace: Findlay, Ohio
- Grew up in Maryland
- Major/Minors: Geography major and Education and Public Policy minor
- Dance Experience prior to Dartmouth: None
- Joined Street Soul last fall
- Before joining Street Soul, Tiffany was a part of Sheba
Contextual Data:
- Social Context
All members of the group participate in this ritual. It occurs after any performance the group has. The tradition has existed for a few years and the informant first experienced it after her first performance.
- Cultural Context
By making fun of each other’s mistakes in a light-hearted way, the individuals in the group promote the idea that mistakes are perfectly OK in each show and can be used to improve later on. This helps create a friendly and positive culture on the team.
Item:
After a performance, members will look through pictures and videos of the show. They take screenshots or pictures of funny faces, mistakes, and positions, or moves that need to be corrected. These pictures are then sent to the entire group and are used as a way to see what can be improved and what needs to be fixed in a friendly and funny environment.
Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):
“The ritual, the Meme Ritual for like after performance, everyone screenshots mistakes or weird facials. It’s just like a way to make light of our mistakes and just like know that ultimately it’s not a big deal. So this past performance i was uh chewing gum, uh during my piece um so I was just like *nom nom* and it looked really, really, really, really funny um so people were calling me out on that which is but it’s like ok you know it’s like um it’s just like oh don’t do it next time it looks silly like um look at her, kinda thing so it’s like really funny. We also like uh there were a couple like winks in there and we were like ooh use it in a flitz like kinda thing.”
Informant’s Comments:
Informant believes that this is a fun way to analyze each show in a not so critical manner.
Collector’s Comments:
I think this sounds like a really funny and cute ritual to have. It’s always funny to look at these things in retrospect and to have your funny faces and mistakes in meme form is very clever.
Collector’s Name: Marcus Reid
Compiled/Analyzed by: Alex Chan/Sruthi Pasupuleti
Tags/Keywords:
- Dance
- Team
- Tradition
- Ritual
- memes
- mistakes