Media Assignment

I applied for a job at a mental hospital today, but they said that I need 24 hours of experience with a retard. So, I was wondering, do you wanna hang out?!?

This common statement which has been circulating around among friends and family via text messaging displays different types of oral folklore. I never really thought of this as being folklore until this class and now I see how the components of both a riddle and a joke are imbedded within the simple text message that I received from friends not too long ago.

I receive silly texts like this all the time from numerous friends and never think about how fast they circulate from person to person and how common it is for us to transfer these types of messages to other people in our phonebook just to get a good laugh.

The text starts out as a riddle in a way and almost builds suspense because you are really happy for your friend thinking that they have gotten a new job, but then the punch line comes and you realize that it’s not just a simple little riddle informing you of their new position in a mental hospital, instead it is a joke to make you laugh and almost feel silly for falling for it. I have gotten this same message from different friends about three or four times and every time I seem to fall for it and then I come to the punch line and laugh and feel stupid all at the same time because someone “got me” once again.

Oral folklore in all forms plays a big role in our life and discussions that we have with friends and family, but we never perceive our jokes and laughs as a translation of oral folklore from one person to the next. In all actuality, however, text messaging has become one of the most popular things with teens and young adults, therefore, the things that we forward in text messages are contemporary folklore that travels rapidly from one person to the next. I guarantee that everyone who texts on a regular basis has