Tag Archives: Funny

Team Bonding Winterim Video Compilation

General Information about Item:

  • Tradition 
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: USA
  • Informant: LL
  • Date Collected: 11/12/19

Informant Data:

  • LL is a ‘21 on the Dartmouth Track & Field team from Delta, Colorado. She has been on the team for five years, she is a graduate student, and participates in the throwing events, specifically hammer, shot put, discus, and weight throw. She began competing in track and field in the seventh grade.  

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Most athletic teams have team specific traditions and activities that occur annually to help build cohesiveness, comradery, and teamwork. Team spirit is crucial and shared traditions and experience help promote the relationships between teammates. Traditions that are held specifically for the athletes by the athletes when coaches are not present are especially impactful in increasing team bonding and feeling comfortable with one another. 
  • Social Context: This tradition is a fun one that brings the throwing squad (the members of the track team that compete in throwing events) together. Both the men and women in the throwing squad are a part of this tradition. It is done during Winterim (the time between terms when mainly winter athletes are on campus) and is a fun way to tease your teammates while also becoming much closer. It is fun and humorous and a lighthearted way to make fun of one another and become more vulnerable and closer before the indoor season begins. 

Item:

  • LL says that during Winterim before the season begins the throws squad puts a video compilation together using a few funny viral videos and memes to describe each member of the team. It can be embarrassing but it is incredibly fun and lighthearted and makes the team much closer. It creates a better understanding of your teammates and their quirks as well as creates another form of folklore, inside jokes, between the team. 

Associated File: 

*Informant did not feel comfortable being recorded or sharing any past videos. 

Informant’s Comments:

  • LL said that in her five years here this ritual has been done within the throws squad. It has become much easier to do over time with the increase of social media activity but it’s impact on the team has remained the same. It allows for a good laugh and is a fun experience for the team to share.  

Collector’s Comments:

  • My volleyball team in high school had a similar tradition where every year we would make a video which shows each member of the team acting out a funny scene from a movie that the rest of the team would pick as they felt it represented that person. I think these kinds of traditions are really fun and helpful in creating an environment for team building and where people can feel comfortable being vulnerable and a little bit embarrassed in front of their teammates. It also creates a better understanding between teammates. 
  • This would fall into the categories of customary folklore, as it is an annual tradition that has unknown origin and has been passed down through its practice over many years. 
  • This is Dartmouth throwing team specific tradition/superstition, but other event groups have their own similar traditions like puppet shows and lip sync battles that occur annually during Winterim before the season kicks off as a way to build team relationships. 

Collector’s Name:

  • Madyson Buchalski 

Slenderman Meme

Title: Slenderman Meme

General information about item:

  • Slenderman 
  • Meme
  • Informant: memeshappen.com
  • Date collected: 5/25/20

Informant Data: memeshappen.com is a social platform for easily generating and sharing memes. It is a very easy way for memes to go viral throughout social media. These memes are posted anonymously so there is no way to discover the exact informant.

Social context: I discovered this meme on May 25, 2020. Memes of Slenderman have become a very common occurrence. Although the majority of the memes tend to reference Slenderman a lack of facial features.

Cultural context: Slenderman is known to get inside the head of his victims causing them to do things that they are not truly in control of. That’s why when this meme suggests that Slenderman told me to eat the last cookie from the cookie jar, it is deferring the blame to Slenderman cause they claim to not have been in control of their actions.

Item: (Pictured Above)

Collector’s Name: David Gallagher

Tags/keywords:

  • Slenderman 
  • Cookie jar
  • Meme 
  • Funny