Beez in the Trap

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE ITEM:

INFORMANT DATA:

Max Jones is an active swimmer on the Dartmouth Men’s Swim and Dive Team at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. He is a sophomore of the Class of 2022, and has been swimming since his Freshman Fall in 2018. From Austin, Texas, he began swimming at the age of five years old. He was born on September 9, 2000. His favorite stroke in swimming is breaststroke.

CONTEXTUAL DATA:

Cultural Context: Similar to other rituals collected in this folklore project, this specific folklore ritual is part of the range of rituals that swimmers typically perform before major competitions and swim meets. This superstitious ritual is performed in order to mentally encourage the swimmers before swimming and competing. Since swim competitions can quickly become a source of anxiety and stress for many individuals, some swimmers have been guided to form their own mini rituals as a way to relieve stress. For this ritual, competing after listening to a specific song is related to the notion of magic superstition, since it is a specific behavior that he can do himself that will help him perform better.
Social Context: This folklore data was collected during a car ride from a restaurant in Hanover, New Hampshire. This specific ritual was a piece of advice originally administered by his sports psychologist, who recognized the common stressors that are frequently involved in swimming meets and swim competitions. Therefore, he adopted this specific advice and began listening to one of his favorite musical artists, Nicki Minaj. This version of the folklore, of listening to specific songs before swimming, has been commonly adopted by other teammates on the team.

ITEM:

Before the beginning of every swim meet, during warm-ups, Max Jones will listen to “Beez in the Trap” by Nicki Minaj.

TRANSCRIPT:

INFORMANT’S COMMENTS:

“It’s my favorite song by Nicki Minaj. It’s upbeat, encouraging, and gets me ready to race and perform my best before the competitions.”

COLLECTOR’S COMMENTS:

Similar to other pre-meet warm-up rituals, this is a common ritual to perform. However, listening to a specific song can very well vary from person to person, since Max’s favorite encouraging song may be different than another teammate’s encouraging song. This variance and deviance from just one version of this ritual emphasizes the fact that Dartmouth Swim is highly individualistic, and swimmers must be able to tailor their own rituals to their own individual needs. Swimmers perform specifically different rituals to encourage and bolster confidence, as a team. This ritual was a focused tip given by his sports psychologist, and he has used this advice ever since. Similar to Summer’s ritual, and Paul’s, this ritual is a variance on the magic superstition, escalating Max’s confidence levels to perform well.

COLLECTOR’S NAME: Sarah Sim

Dartmouth Folklore Archive