Category Archives: 18F Jokes

Watch the Fire

General Information about Item:

  • Customary, Practical Joke
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Claire Azar
  • Date Collected: This data was collected during a one-on-one interview in the library of Dartmouth College with Claire Azar on October 30th, 2018.

Informant Data:

  • Claire Azar ‘22 is a female student studying Chinese at Dartmouth College. She is originally from Indianapolis, and recently moved to Washington DC. Malcolm participated in a canoeing trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth as part of the First Year Trips DOC program. At Dartmouth, she is part of the Equestrian Team.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
  • Claire encountered this joke, which is specific to the cabin camping section of trips, when she was a tripee during August of 2017.
  • This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first-year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.
  • Cultural Context
  • This joke occurs on first-year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they offer a great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

  • During the cabin camping section each year, Trip leaders will light a fire outside the cabin This is supposed to be used to cook food such as soup and mac-cheese.  The wilderness area where trip sections go is isolated and lacks a kitchen to cook food.  On the last night, her trip was instructed to keep the fire going while the leaders went to collect more wood. Her trippees enjoined bonding over the fire,  while looking after the fire, however, here trippees were getting worried after a few hours. Suddenly, her leaders returned, carrying with them Dominos pizza.

 

Transcript:

  • Gordon: Hi I’m here today with Claire and we’re going to talk about her trip.
  • Claire: Hi ok, so on the third day of our trip we just finished a lot of hiking. And it started to downpour and our trip leaders told us they were going to get more firewood.
  • Gordon: So what happened after that?
  • Claire: We kept ourselves busy for four hours and so to keep ourselves occupied we played we loved playing this game of Mafia.
  • Gordon: Did they give you any tasks to do while they were gone?
  • Claire: Oh, yeah, they wanted us to keep the fire going but like they were gone for a really long time. We started to get really concerned because it was dark out and it was raining and then you guys still kept the fire going we did we did what we were supposed to do and then then we like heard some like banging on the outside of the cabin and we like got really freaked out because we didn’t we had no idea what was going on and then it like stop for a little bit and then it was our trip leaders and they had gotten Domino’s pizza for us.
  • Gordon: So they really got you guys.
  • Claire: They did we were really freaked out. We were worried that they like died or something.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Informant’s Comments:

  • “It was a great experience, even with the rain our group really enjoyed talking and looking after the fire.”

 

Collectors’ Comments:

  • This prank seems like another example of trips leaders making the trippees work together and go through a tough or humiliating experience together. These are great way of integrating them into the wider Dartmouth community.

Collector’s Name: Gordon Robinson

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke. Pranks. Practical Jokes. Trips. Dartmouth.

Face Place

General Information about Item:

  • Customary, Practical Joke
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Jack Kinney
  • Date Collected: This data was collected during a one-on-one interview in the library of Dartmouth College with Jack Kinney on October 28th, 2018.

Informant Data:

  • Jack Kinney ‘19 is a male student studying Environmental Science and Geography at Dartmouth College. He is originally from Seattle Washington. Jack participated in a hiking trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth as part of the First Year Trips DOC program. Since then, he has led trips every year.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
  • Jack Kinney encountered this joke, during this own trip. Later he has made played joke himself on each of his trips.
  • This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first-year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.
  • Cultural Context
  • This joke occurs on first-year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they offer a great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

  • During First Year Trips each year, Trip leaders will talk to their Trippees about Dartmouth traditions and way of life. Since Trips is the first introduction to Dartmouth for many of students, they are eager to learn from them. Trip leaders will share many parts of Dartmouth folklore and slang with their trips to integrate them into the Dartmouth community.

Transcript:

  • Gordon: Hi Jack, could you talk a little bit about yourself and your time with the Dartmouth Trips?
  • Jack: Yeah, so I’m Jack Kinney am a senior at Dartmouth and have been involved with Trips either a trippees or a leader my entire time here.
  • Gordon: What kind of pranks were played on you, and did you do any on your trips?
  • Jack: I thoroughly enjoyed Trips. They were one of the best experiences I had here at Dartmouth, I wanted to share this same experience with future students. One of my favourites jokes was this one about Dartmouth lingo.
  • Gordon: Nice, what was it?
  • Jack: Well, while we told them about all the different slangs we have we told also gave them some wrong ones. For example, we told them that First Floor Berry was called “Faceplace” by Dartmouth students.
  • Gordon: Great, so what happened?
  • Jack: When they got to campus, they were confused about what we meant. It was funny hearing them talk about  Faceplace.
  • Gordon: Thank you sounds, like a great joke.

Informant’s Comments:

  • “I remember when this same joke happened on my trip. It was the I liked the most. Some of our trippees actually still talked about Faceplace as their one inside joke.”

 

Collectors’ Comments:

  • This prank wasn’t played on my trip. However, I heard about it from friends from went on other trips. I think that it’s a great way to introduce students to Dartmouth folklore and slang.

Collector’s Name: Gordon Robinson

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke. Pranks. Practical Jokes. Trips. Dartmouth.

Fake Emergency

General Information about Item:

  • Customary, Practical Joke
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Malcolm Robinson
  • Date Collected: This data was collected during a one-on-one interview in the library of Dartmouth College with Malcolm Robinson on October 28th, 2018.

Informant Data:

  • Malcolm Robinson ‘22 is a male student studying Russian Area Studies and Geography at Dartmouth College. He is originally from London. Malcolm participated in a canoeing trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth as part of the First Year Trips DOC program. He has 2 older brothers (Austin Robinson ‘19 and Gordon Robinson 21′), who attend Dartmouth, but Trips were his first true introduction to life as a Dartmouth student.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
  • Malcolm encountered this joke, which is not specific to the caneoing section of trips and is actually quite common when he was a tripee during August of 2017.
  • This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first-year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.
  • Cultural Context
  • This joke occurs on first-year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they offer a great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

  • During First Year Trips each year, Trip leaders carry a first aid kit for an emergency.  This is because the College Grant, the wilderness area where trip sections go is very isolated area several hours from the College and any serious medical care.  Trip leaders inform their trippees of the importance of helping each other if one has an accident. At a certain point during the Trip, one of the leaders will pretend they are having a medical emergency. They will tell their trippes that they need to find the first aid kit and help the leader. When the trippees find the kit they will open it, where they will see a pie from Lou’s. This local eatery in Hanover, is a student favorite.

 

Transcript:

  • Gordon: Hi Malcolm, great to be with you again, as you mentioned in our last conversation your leaders played multiple pranks on you guys?
  • Malcolm: Yeah, so besides the Robert Frost Ashe’s they also played this other joke on us..
  • Gordon: Great, so could you tell me a little bit about that joke?
  • Malcolm: Yeah so my trip leaders were great and liked playing jokes on us. After Robert Frost’s ashes, they had another joke for us. One day while we unloading the canoe one of our leaders pretended to have an asthma attack. The other one told us to quickly find the emergency kit in their bag, while he called for help on his phone.
  • Gordon: What happened?
  • Malcolm: My friend quickly found and we all opened it. Instead of a medical kit, we saw a box from Lou’s. I looked inside and there was a cherry pie from Lou’s. We realized that it was all a joke.
  • Gordon: What a great joke!

Informant’s Comments:

  • “We were all worried for a little. When we saw the box from Lou’s, we all started to laugh. Eating the pie was great, especially after the bland food we on the trip so far.”

 

Collectors’ Comments:

  • This prank is a great way to reinforce how everybody on the trip must work together. Lou’s is also a favorite of Dartmouth students, and this is a great way to introduce people to this great local institution.

Collector’s Name: Gordon Robinson

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke. Pranks. Practical Jokes. Trips. Dartmouth.

Robert Frost’s Ashes

General Information about Item:

  • Customary, Practical Joke
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Malcolm Robinson
  • Date Collected: This data was collected during a one-on-one interview in the library of Dartmouth College with Malcolm Robinson on October 28th, 2018.

Informant Data:

  • Malcolm Robinson ‘22 is a male student studying Russian Area Studies and Geography at Dartmouth College. He is originally from London. Malcolm participated in a canoeing trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth as part of the First Year Trips DOC program. He has 2 older brothers (Austin Robinson ‘19 and Gordon Robinson 21′), who attend Dartmouth, but Trips were his first true introduction to life as a Dartmouth student.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
  • Malcolm encountered this joke, which is not specific to the canoeing section of trips and is actually quite common, when he was a tripee during August of 2017.
  • This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.
  • Cultural Context
  • This joke occurs on first year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they offer a great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

  • During First Year Trips each year, Trip leaders will carry a bag that they claim is filled with the ashes of Robert Frost. This is supposedly to scatter them in the College Grant, the wilderness area where trip sections go as Frost wrote extensively on the beauty of the rugged New England landscape.  Eventually, they will choose a place that was allegedly meaningful to Frost to scatter these ashes. At this point, they will reveal that the ashes are actually chocolate powder and proceed to make hot chocolate for the group.

 

Transcript:

  • Gordon: Hi Malcolm, hope you’re doing well,  could you talk a little bit about yourself?
  • Malcolm: Yeah, so I’m Malcolm Robinson, I’m a 22 at Dartmouth College and I’m here with my brother Gordon Robinson. He’s gonna ask me some questions.
  • Gordon: Great, so let’s talk a little bit about jokes or pranks they played on your trip. Could you give an example of any jokes from your trip?
  • Malcolm: My first-year trip was awesome, I had a great time and they played a lot of jokes. For example one point during the trip, they told us that it was a Dartmouth tradition because Robert Frost was an alum we had to spread his ashes around the College Grant. It turns out that those were not Frost’s ashes, it was pretty funny.
  • Gordon: How did you figure it out?
  • Malcolm: It was pretty obvious when someone in the group figured it out. At the start, many genuinely believed that those were Robert Frost’s ashes.
  • Gordon: Alright, great! Thanks.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Informant’s Comments:

  • “They [the trip leaders] had some people convinced until we saw the bag. I think that this brought us closer as a group, and made me reflect on the beauty of the wilderness.”

 

Collectors’ Comments:

  • This prank plays off the trippees desire to participate in an experience that they believe is shared by the wider campus. It also shows them how they are part of a wider Dartmouth community of current students and alumni.

Collector’s Name: Gordon Robinson

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke. Pranks. Practical Jokes. Trips. Dartmouth.

The Lost Camper

Title: The Lost Camper

General Information about Item:

  • Customary, Practical Joke
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Noah Schwed
  • Date Collected: This data was collected during a one-on-one interview in the library of Dartmouth College with Noah Schwed on October 29th, 2018.

Informant Data:

  • Noah Schwed ‘21 is a male student studying Economics and Computer Science at Dartmouth College. He is originally from New Jersey. Noah participated in a hiking trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth as part of the First Year Trips DOC program. He has an older brother (Eric Schwed ‘18), who attended Dartmouth, but Trips were his first true introduction to life as a Dartmouth student.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
    • Noah encountered this joke, which is not specific to the hikings section of trips and is actually quite common, when he was a tripee during August of 2017.
    • This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.
  • Cultural Context
    • This joke occurs on first year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they offer a great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

During First Year Trips each year, Trip leaders will have a member of the Trips Crew staff participate in their trip for a period of time, especially during hikes or travel oriented trips. Eventually, this individual will break off from the group, and the trip leaders will attempt to scare their tripees by claiming that the individual is now lost in the wilderness. Once it is clear that the tripees are legitimately concerned and that they have bought into the prank, the Crew member typically returns from hiding with food for the embarrassed tripees.

 

Transcript:

  • Jackson: Hey Noah, I understand that you went on trips and I’m conducting an interview regarding pranks that were played on trips. But, before we get started, could you say a little bit about your background, where you’re from, what you’re studying?
  • Noah: Yeah, so I’m Noah Schwed. I’m a 21. I’m from New Jersey. I’m studying Econ and CS, and, as of now, I haven’t declared an official Major yet.
  • Jackson: Cool. So, when you think back on your time on Trips, were there any like especially notable or like memorable pranks that were played on you or on your trip section?
  • Noah: Yeah. So one memorable one was when one of the trip leaders coordinated with one of the kids on Trips [Crew] to pretend that they got lost. When they disappeared from the group, the trip leaders told the rest of the kids on the trip, trying to get everyone to freak out that we’d lost someone.
  • Jackson: Did people like fall for it? Were people pretty into it?
  • Noah: Some, yeah, but it wasn’t the first prank they [our trip leaders] had pulled.
  • Jackson: Alright, great! Thanks.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Audio file

Informant’s Comments:

  • “They [the trip leaders] had some people on my trip pretty scared for a while. Ironically, I think we actually came together as a group during that moment.”

 

Collectors’ Comments:

  • This prank plays off of a scared fear of having lost someone. As Noah mentioned, the group rallied together when they were under the impression that they had lost someone, bringing them all closer together.

 

Collector’s Name: Jackson Baur

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke. Pranks. Practical Jokes. Trips. Dartmouth.

Deer Droppings

Title: Deer Droppings

General Information about Item:

  • Customary, Practical Joke
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Stanislav “Stas” Van Genderen
  • Date Collected: This data was collected during a one-on-one interview in the library of Dartmouth College with Stas on October 29th, 2018.

Informant Data:

  • Stanislav “Stas” Van Genderen ‘21 is a male student studying Russian Area Studies and Economics at Dartmouth College. He is originally from Cape Coral, Florida. Stas participated in a cabin camping trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth as part of the First Year Trips DOC program.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
    • Stas encountered this joke first when he was a tripee during August of 2017 and mentioned that this is a classic prank that occurs every year on the cabin camping section of First Year Trips.
    • This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.
  • Cultural Context
    • This joke occurs on first year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they offer a great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

During the cabin camping section of trips each year, trip leaders plant small pieces of chocolate outside of their cabins in the morning. The trip leaders bring their tripees outside and draw attention to the chocolate, claiming that the pieces are deer droppings left recently. As they speak to all of their tripees and build up the suspense and hype surrounding the droppings, a trip leader eventually takes a piece of the chocolate and eats it in a repulsing manner. This prank is designed to falsely disgust everyone until they too realize that the droppings are chocolate, at which point they often join in eating with their trip leaders.

 

Transcript:

  • Jackson: Hey Stas, so I understand you went on trips when you were a freshman and experienced some pranks. Could you just tell me first a little bit about your background and where you’re from and what you’re studying?
  • Stanislav: Yeah, so my full name is Stanislav Robert Van Genderen. I’m from Cape Coral, Florida, and I’m currently planning on majoring in Russian Area Studies and Economics. So yeah, I had a prank played on me during trips. I woke up, you know, one day walked out of our camping tent, and then my trip leaders were both there. They were like telling us to “hush-hush” because they said that they found some deer poop recently nearby within the past five minutes and that it still means a deer’s still around. Then, they started to start to sniff the deer poop and then proceeded to pick it up and put it in their mouth and start eating it. I fell for this prank. I started to like, you know, say, “Ew! That’s so disgusting!” And then they handed me, you know, a piece of that quote-unquote deer poop and it was just pieces of chocolate. I fell for that pretty hard.
  • Jackson: Good. Thanks!

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Audio file

Informant’s Comments:

  • “I couldn’t get enough of that deer poop once I realized what it was. Great prank.”

 

Collectors’ Comments:

  • Stas’ experience with this commonly repeated prank from First Year Trips highlights the use of a fake educational moment and the rapt attention of the tripees as the object of humor. The unravelling of the prank into an instance where everyone on the trip eats chocolate together creates a moment of togetherness and bonding.

 

Collector’s Name: Jackson Baur

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke. Pranks. Practical Jokes. Trips. Dartmouth.

Hot Pink Nails for Dartmouth Celebration

Title: Hot Pink Nails for Dartmouth Celebration

General Information about Item:

  • Customary, Practical Joke
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Kyle Civale
  • Date Collected: This data was collected during a one-on-one interview in the library of Dartmouth College with Kyle Civale on October 28th, 2018.

Informant Data:

  • Kyle Civale ‘20 is a male student at Dartmouth College. Originally from Manhattan Beach, California, Kyle is film and media studies major and a Theatre minor. Kyle participated in a nature writing and art trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth during the fall of 2016. He has several older siblings who attended Dartmouth. His older brother was on the same nature walks section as Kyle several years prior to Kyle and had the same prank played on him as well.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
    • Kyle encountered this joke first when he was a tripee during August of 2016 on the nature writing and art trip section and mentioned that this joke is played regularly on students from that section.
    • This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.
  • Cultural Context
    • This joke occurs on first year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they offer a great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

When students from the nature writing and art section embark on their trip each year, trip leaders inform that this is a special year commemorating an anniversary of Dartmouth becoming a coeducational university. Trip leaders have all of the male members of the section paint their finger nails in bright pink, telling them that each other section of trips does the same thing and that there will be a large celebration when all the trips convene at Moosilauke lodge at the end of Trips. However, when the nature writing and art trips section arrives, they are always the only ones to show up with such brightly painted fingernails.

 

Transcript:

  • Jackson: Hey Kyle, I understand you went on trips. Do you think you could tell me a little bit about like your background and what you’re studying here and where you’re from?
  • Kyle: Yeah. Sure. So I’m Kyle Civale. I’m a 20 from outside Los Angeles. I’m a major in film and media studies modified with English and a Theatre minor.
  • Jackson: And when you think back on your time in trips, was there anything or any pranks that stuck out to you that were especially memorable?
  • Kyle: Definitely one that if, I was ever to lead a trip, I’d certainly would do and liked a lot was when our trip leader asked all the men in our group to paint our fingernails pink as a way of showing our support for Dartmouth becoming a coed school. They told us it was the 35-year anniversary of this happening. We were all very excited to do it, and then when we got to the lodge the next day, we were the only trip who had the guy’s in our trip with their nails pink, so yeah interesting.
  • Jackson: Thanks!

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Audio file

Informant’s Comments:

  • “This was one of those things that sticks out in my mind as a highlight of Trips, just a really fun experience overall where I never knew what to expect.”
  • “I’m still best friends with some of these people today.”

 

Collectors’ Comments:

  • By making Kyle’s trip section stand out from the rest when everyone gathered at the Moosilauke Lodge, this prank had an added effect of giving its participants a distinguishing marker that only they shared. Kyle really admired how seriously everyone took this until they got to the Lodge and how the entire focus turned to how silly he and his newfound friends looked afterwards.
  • In collecting folklore, I also heard variants of this prank with made up reasons for the celebration, so there seems to be a lot of continuity in making tripees think that their pink nails are part of some broader celebration.

 

Collector’s Name: Jackson Baur

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke. Pranks. Practical Jokes. Trips. Dartmouth.

Emergency Landing

Title: Emergency Landing

General Information about Item:

  • Customary, Practical Joke
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Jack Kurtz
  • This data was collected during a one-on-one interview in the library of Dartmouth College with Jack Kurtz on October 28th, 2018.

Informant Data:

  • Jack Kurtz ‘21 is a male student studying Economics and Quantitative Social Sciences at Dartmouth College. He is originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Jack participated in a canoeing trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth as part of the First Year Trips DOC program.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
    • Jack encountered this joke first when he was a tripee during August of 2017. Jack described that this practical joke is specific to the canoeing section of trips, where students camp out by an airstrip.
    • This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.
  • Cultural Context
    • This joke occurs on first year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they a offer great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

During canoeing sections of trips each year, trips camp one night next to an old, seemingly unusable airstrip. In the middle of the night, their trip leaders and members of Trips Crew come and wake them up, telling them that they need to move their campsite and provide help with a plane that is attempting to make an emergency landing. When all the tripees get involved and begin waving flashlights to signal the impending arrival of the supposed plane, a bus with wings strapped to its sides arrives, much to the chagrin of all of the tripees.

 

Transcript:

  • Jackson: Could you tell me a little bit about your name and background?
  • Jack: Yeah, my name is Jack Kurtz. I’m from Philadelphia. I’m a 21 here at Dartmouth.
  • Jackson: What are you studying?
  • Jack: I’m studying Economics and Quantitative Social Sciences.
  • Jackson: So, I understand you went on first year trips. Where there any really funny pranks or anything that happened that was of note before you came to Dartmouth?
  • Jack: Yeah, so there was one while I was on canoeing. We were camping by this old landing strip that airplanes used to land on in the middle of New Hampshire, actually it was Maine. They [our trip leaders] woke us up in the middle of the night, when a group of the Grant Crew raided our trip. They told us that there was a plane that was coming in that needed to make an emergency landing because of some mechanical failure. They got everyone like woken up because we were all still kind of tired, and so we believed them and we all ran out. We were supposed to line the runway with flashlights so they knew where to land, so we all had headlamps and flashlights and like waving them and then they pulled out of the woods in like a truck that they had put wings on. At that point, I guess it was pretty obvious that it wasn’t a plane, but they still got everyone pretty good.
  • Jackson: Thanks!

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Audio file

Informant’s Comments:

  • “We were so tired we just were in a total panic when our leaders woke us up. I thought it was really funny after the fact, though”

 

Collectors’ Comments:

  • As Jack mentioned, the brief experience of fear and the need to work together as a team to accomplish a supposed goal both brought his trip together and served as a really funny way to prank everyone. The fact that this prank was taken as seriously and continues to be performed in such an over-the-top manner really underscores its function to bring trip sections together.

 

Collector’s Name: Jackson Baur

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke. Pranks. Practical Jokes. Trips. Dartmouth.

The Lone Pine Greeting

Title: The Lone Pine Greeting

General Information about Item:

  • Customary, Practical Joke, Gesture
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Will Bednarz
  • Date Collected: This data was collected on November 4th, 2018 during a one-on-one interview at the Russell Sage dormitory with Will Bednarz.

Informant Data:

  • Will Bednarz ‘20 is a male student studying Government at Dartmouth College. He is originally from Larkspur, California. Will participated in a hiking trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth as part of the First Year Trips DOC program. Will is of Irish descent and has distant family who attended Dartmouth, but he knew little about Dartmouth before arriving for First Year Trips.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
    • Will encountered this prank/gesture first when he was a tripee during August of 2016. Will noted that his trip leaders played many pranks on them such as this one, but that this was one of the funniest and most treasured amongst Dartmouth students.
    • This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.
  • Cultural Context
    • This joke occurs on first year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they offer a great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

Trip leaders signal back and forth to each other and between trips by raising two fingers on either hand together and crossing their thumb. They refer to this as “Lone Pine Greeting.” Trip leaders prank their tripees by leading them to believe that this is a common way of greeting individuals on Dartmouth’s campus and encourage them to use the signal throughout the duration of trips. In reality, no one actually does this at Dartmouth, and the signal means nothing. 

Transcript:

  • Jackson: Could you state your name and background please?
  • Will: My name is Will Bednarz. I am a ’20, and I’m studying government here at Dartmouth College.
  • Jackson: Where are you from? Did you know anything about Dartmouth trips before going?
  • Will: I’m from Larkspur, California. I have a couple of older cousins who went here, but I didn’t really know anything else about the school or trips aside from my connection to them.
  • Jackson: Were there any pranks that your trip leaders played on you when you were on trips?
  • Will: Yeah, actually there were a lot. I remember one of the funniest pranks was this weird gesture that they made us all do to each other. Our trip leaders would greet each other by putting their hands in the air with both fingers raised and their thumbs like *this*. They made all of us catch on to it as a friendly way to wave and say hello to each other, and it really caught on. At the end of the trip, when we got back to campus finally, they told us the gesture was totally made up, and I felt really stupid.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Image file

 

Informant’s Comments:

·       “I looked so stupid doing this. I can’t believe I ever thought this was a real thing.”

 

Collectors’ Comments:

·        This gesture based prank seems like a hilarious way to develop something within a small group of people that only they share. Looking back, Will seemed to fondly recall the mutual humiliation of realizing that the sign wasn’t a real thing that people do at Dartmouth.

 

Collector’s Name: Jackson Baur

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke. Pranks. Practical Jokes. Trips. Dartmouth. Gesture.

The Fake Talent Show Prank

Title: The Fake Talent Show Prank

General Information about Item:

  • Customary, Practical Joke
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: Dylan Whang
  • Date Collected: This data was collected on October 29th, 2018 during a one-on-one interview in the library of Dartmouth College with Dylan Whang.

Informant Data:

  • Dylan Whang ‘21 is a male student studying Economics at Dartmouth College. He is originally from New York, New York. Dylan participated in a canoeing trip before the start of his Freshman year at Dartmouth as part of the First Year Trips DOC program. He has an older brother (Derek Whang ‘17), who attended Dartmouth and encouraged him to participate in the Trips program. However, he was not informed in advance of what the experience would be like.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context
    • Dylan encountered this joke first when he was a tripee during August of 2017. Dylan described that this practical joke was one of many played on him and his fellow tripees during their time on trips; however, he feels that this joke was the funniest because it was the best executed and was taken most seriously by his fellow tripees.
    • This joke is typically played by upperclassmen or students leading trips on their first year tripees. As the objects of the prank, the new freshmen are supposed to be initiated and bonded together as a new class by going through the embarrassment of this prank together.
  • Cultural Context
    • This joke occurs on first year trips, which close to 95% of every incoming class at Dartmouth College participates in. Trips are used as a way to welcome each new class to Dartmouth and to break down whatever misconceptions they might have. Accordingly, jokes on trips are used often as they offer a great way to subvert expectations and to make everyone have a good time. Typically, the practical joke is played once the members of the trip and the leaders have left Dartmouth’s campus and are together somewhere in the surrounding wilderness of New Hampshire/Vermont. In this way, practical jokes like this one are very common to the Trips setting as they serve to bring everyone closer together through group humiliation/embarrassment.

Item:

Trip leaders informed their tripees that there would be a talent show on the final night of trips and that there would be a special, unknown reward for whichever trip section performed the best. Trip leaders of Dylan Whang ‘21’s section encouraged their section to come up with something that they could perform together to help win the prize. After his trip leaders had their section perform a song and dance routine several times leading up to when the talent show was supposedly going to take place, he was informed by his trip leaders that it was all a prank. In reality, the talent show was just a practical joke played on all of them to get them to come up with a crazy, embarrassing routine.

Transcript:

  • Jackson: Hey Dylan, I’m just curious if you could just tell me a little bit about your background?
  • Dylan: So, I’m Dylan Whang. I’m a ‘21 from New York City. My brother actually is a 17 and went to this school.
  • Jackson: What are you studying?
  • Dylan: Computer science and quantitative social sciences.
  • Jackson: Cool. So, when you went on trips, did you have like any background or understanding of what it would be like?
  • Dylan: So because my brother told me like it’s a really fun time but didn’t really tell me anything other than that. I think he did like he did kayaking, and I did canoeing so we kind of went to the same spot which is kind of cool.
  • Jackson: Do you remember if there were like any pranks or jokes that were played on you during trips or anything that stuck out in particular?
  • Dylan: Yeah. So like one that actually sticks that sticks out to me is when we were canoeing like towards the end, [our trip leaders] were saying that like when we got back to the Mount Moosilauke or wherever we were going but we would have to perform a talent show. So, our group came up with a song. We did a remix of pop songs to make them have to do with Dartmouth and with Trips. The whole time on our trip we were trying to find songs to do and were practicing them across our boats.
  • Jackson: Why do you think it ended up being so funny?
  • Dylan: It was funny because a couple of our tripees got really into it and were really excited to perform in the talent show. We were actually sadder at the end that there wasn’t a talent show than being upset about practicing and having to come up with a song.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Audio file

Informant’s Comments:

  • “I really enjoyed this prank. I was almost sadder that there was not a real talent show at the end because I had so much fun rehearsing songs with the friends I made on my trip.”

 

Collectors’ Comments:

  • Dylan Whang fondly recalled this prank. When I asked him if he recalled any jokes from trips, this was the first thing that came to mind. Thinking about the nature of the prank as a whole, it serves perfectly as a way to develop friendships and to bond as a group.

 

Collector’s Name: Jackson Baur

Tags/Keywords:

  • Joke. Pranks. Practical Jokes. Trips. Dartmouth.