A Brief History Of Cooties
April 19, 2019 7:34 AM Subscribe
A Brief History of Cooties, courtesy of the Smithsonian Why a 100-year-old game is still spreading across our playgrounds.
(Reading this article reminded me I actually had this game when I was a kid. How odd.)
Circle circle dot dot, I got my cooties shot / circle circle square square, I have it everywhere.
*Vaccinate your kids!
posted by Fizz at 8:03 AM on April 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
*Vaccinate your kids!
posted by Fizz at 8:03 AM on April 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
Circle circle knife knife now I have it all my life.
posted by bleep at 8:37 AM on April 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by bleep at 8:37 AM on April 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
We had cooties at my schools, but I must have come from strong anti-vax communities because I didn't even know you could get a shot.
Presumably I'm still contagious now, which could explain a lot.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 8:56 AM on April 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
Presumably I'm still contagious now, which could explain a lot.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 8:56 AM on April 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
Wow! We had that game, as well. Hadn't thought about it in forty years, easily. Thanks for the post.
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 8:58 AM on April 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by ivanthenotsoterrible at 8:58 AM on April 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
When you were a kid did you have "cootie shots" or "cootie spray" as the vaccine/antidote? Asked a bunch of friends at the dining hall table in college, and we found regional differences (like soda vs. pop, or sub vs. grinder)...
posted by PhineasGage at 8:59 AM on April 19, 2019
posted by PhineasGage at 8:59 AM on April 19, 2019
I have memories of this from endless Beetle Drives as fundraising for my parents' church.
posted by scruss at 9:30 AM on April 19, 2019
posted by scruss at 9:30 AM on April 19, 2019
Growing up in the 70s and early 80s cooties were just another form of anti-gay oppression for 8 year old me. Somehow all the other kids knew I was gay, and that meant I had cooties, and I had cooties more than anyone else. Another form of cruel childhood "play" and exclusion.
As the article notes, "Nowadays, cooties also reflect other concerns, particularly physical appearance; an obese child, for instance, might be said to have cooties. There’s a greater emphasis on body shaming".
Sorry to be a bummer, kids are monstrously cruel. But, well, I can't think of cooties as some cute charming ritual about kids figuring out "traditional gender roles" and vaccinations. For me it was reifying the idea that I was different and diseased. What a monstrous preparation for the AIDS crisis.
posted by Nelson at 9:37 AM on April 19, 2019 [18 favorites]
As the article notes, "Nowadays, cooties also reflect other concerns, particularly physical appearance; an obese child, for instance, might be said to have cooties. There’s a greater emphasis on body shaming".
Sorry to be a bummer, kids are monstrously cruel. But, well, I can't think of cooties as some cute charming ritual about kids figuring out "traditional gender roles" and vaccinations. For me it was reifying the idea that I was different and diseased. What a monstrous preparation for the AIDS crisis.
posted by Nelson at 9:37 AM on April 19, 2019 [18 favorites]
Retractable pen? Psh, kids these days. Back in MY day, we used to draw the circle, circle with a sharp (finger)nail or a pencil. The pencil was more permanent because it left a visible mark, but you had to be careful that your vaccinator did not gouge your skin with graphite. It took the skill of a surgeon, and good cootie-vaccinators were highly sought after on the playground.
Joking aside, though, I did have headlice in 3rd grade and the nightly nit-picking with a fine toothed comb through snarly curls was torture, as was the (probably toxic) shampoo my mom doused me with every Sunday. If only the cootie shot truly were 100% effective as Slarty Bartfast claims!
posted by basalganglia at 9:40 AM on April 19, 2019
Joking aside, though, I did have headlice in 3rd grade and the nightly nit-picking with a fine toothed comb through snarly curls was torture, as was the (probably toxic) shampoo my mom doused me with every Sunday. If only the cootie shot truly were 100% effective as Slarty Bartfast claims!
posted by basalganglia at 9:40 AM on April 19, 2019
I was the primary cooties carrier for years in my elementary school. I was smart, nerdy and fat and that made me a serious target. Cooties literally evolved to be called "Jacqui Germs" in my school, and it was an ongoing game of Tag, where the goal was not to end up with my germs.
Occasionally, Jacqui Germs involved actual violence towards me as I alternated being playing along -- because what 9 year-old doesn't want to be liked, even if it means cooperating with the people who are abusing her? -- and fighting back, but the two worst harms were the emotional damage inflicted by the game and the taunting and the emotional damage inflicted by the adults who blamed me for bringing this social torture on myself.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:42 AM on April 19, 2019 [19 favorites]
Occasionally, Jacqui Germs involved actual violence towards me as I alternated being playing along -- because what 9 year-old doesn't want to be liked, even if it means cooperating with the people who are abusing her? -- and fighting back, but the two worst harms were the emotional damage inflicted by the game and the taunting and the emotional damage inflicted by the adults who blamed me for bringing this social torture on myself.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:42 AM on April 19, 2019 [19 favorites]
As the weird kid who would later get an autism diagnosis this is one of my ptsd triggers. I can't read that article- when reading a paper on the phenomenon for my anthropology of childhood class I broke out into shakes and sweats. The kids in first and second grade would sometimes play multi-day cootie "games" with me where they would run away screaming if I tried to talk to them. I had "germs" they said. They would run from me laughing as I wept. What a charming part of childhood.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 9:42 AM on April 19, 2019 [10 favorites]
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 9:42 AM on April 19, 2019 [10 favorites]
When I was thinking about it as boy-girl, it didn't seem harmless, but was not something that I think directly drove bullying as much, because it was a gender line, not about individual people.
Now Nelson, Jacquilynne and Homo neanderthalensis, y'all have reminded me of an incident in Year 1 which has always stuck with me, partially because the teachers were very upset, and since then their reason for being that upset has been quite clear.
For what I remember as a couple of days, but could have been far longer, it was decided that Eddie had cooties, or something very similar, and should be completely shunned. Eddie was the only Indigenous kid in the class, and as I age it's become very apparent that that was no coincidence.
We were like 6, and we basically implemented a colour line, through cooties.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 9:52 AM on April 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
Now Nelson, Jacquilynne and Homo neanderthalensis, y'all have reminded me of an incident in Year 1 which has always stuck with me, partially because the teachers were very upset, and since then their reason for being that upset has been quite clear.
For what I remember as a couple of days, but could have been far longer, it was decided that Eddie had cooties, or something very similar, and should be completely shunned. Eddie was the only Indigenous kid in the class, and as I age it's become very apparent that that was no coincidence.
We were like 6, and we basically implemented a colour line, through cooties.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 9:52 AM on April 19, 2019 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I'm sad this continues, because I was regularly shamed as a cootie carrier in childhood, being a weird nerdy non "girly" girl and somewhat overweight (and still am, for that matter, these many years later).
I did not know about the cootie shot stuff, and really wish I had had that in my defense arsenal at the time. Bravo to parents like Slarty Bartfast for teaching their kids a way to deal with this stuff (one of the reasons I linked the article was because it talks about the "immunization" strategies.)
posted by gudrun at 9:54 AM on April 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
I did not know about the cootie shot stuff, and really wish I had had that in my defense arsenal at the time. Bravo to parents like Slarty Bartfast for teaching their kids a way to deal with this stuff (one of the reasons I linked the article was because it talks about the "immunization" strategies.)
posted by gudrun at 9:54 AM on April 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
Lord, I must be old, because I remember those plastic cooties at the bottom of the article. I remember cootie catchers but they were instruments of divination rather than having anything to do with cooties.
posted by Bee'sWing at 9:57 AM on April 19, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Bee'sWing at 9:57 AM on April 19, 2019 [4 favorites]
Seems to me that your enjoyment of the childhood cooties “game” and is largely a consequence of how much privilege you carry within child society, which is a reflection of grown-up society. In my experience that how it has always played out.
My young kids are very privileged and have rarely (if ever? Maybe only once) been the victim of the game. Even so, we took time to explain to them that cooties are a way to tease other kids and make them feel bad and that is SUPER NOT OK in our family.
I think they get it but it is really difficult raising kids to be inclusive and compassionate when they spend so much time at school where a lot of this stuff goes unchecked, and the vast majority of their peers are already fully indoctrinated in the patriarchy.
posted by Doleful Creature at 10:16 AM on April 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
My young kids are very privileged and have rarely (if ever? Maybe only once) been the victim of the game. Even so, we took time to explain to them that cooties are a way to tease other kids and make them feel bad and that is SUPER NOT OK in our family.
I think they get it but it is really difficult raising kids to be inclusive and compassionate when they spend so much time at school where a lot of this stuff goes unchecked, and the vast majority of their peers are already fully indoctrinated in the patriarchy.
posted by Doleful Creature at 10:16 AM on April 19, 2019 [3 favorites]
This is a really interesting thread. I was always kind of on the outs with everyone all the time, always the only one not in a clique, and not particularly privileged, but the cootie game at my school was as harmless as playing numbers, bo-bo, "light as a feather, stiff as a board", etc. It was mostly just an excuse to say the rhymes.
posted by bleep at 10:48 AM on April 19, 2019
posted by bleep at 10:48 AM on April 19, 2019
As I remember anyway. Maybe I blocked it out, or was the butt of the joke without knowing it. Certainly possible.
posted by bleep at 10:48 AM on April 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by bleep at 10:48 AM on April 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
Sorry to be a bummer, kids are monstrously cruel. But, well, I can't think of cooties as some cute charming ritual about kids figuring out "traditional gender roles" and vaccinations.
I totally hear you and that’s why we absolutely have a zero tolerance about “cooties” or “no girls allowed” or any of that shit. Boy #2 got teased about holding hands with his neighbor Harper on the way home from school and he felt bad and I reminded him that it’s perfectly fine to hold hands with his friends because cooties can’t hurt him. As a parent, it can be very difficult to counter a widely held truth among your kids’ peers but you can add nuance that reinforces other things that are true, such as the fact that he likes Harper and feels safe and comfortable with her and he can enjoy that without having to defend himself against bullies and the prevailing belief system of 6 year olds.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 11:09 AM on April 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
I totally hear you and that’s why we absolutely have a zero tolerance about “cooties” or “no girls allowed” or any of that shit. Boy #2 got teased about holding hands with his neighbor Harper on the way home from school and he felt bad and I reminded him that it’s perfectly fine to hold hands with his friends because cooties can’t hurt him. As a parent, it can be very difficult to counter a widely held truth among your kids’ peers but you can add nuance that reinforces other things that are true, such as the fact that he likes Harper and feels safe and comfortable with her and he can enjoy that without having to defend himself against bullies and the prevailing belief system of 6 year olds.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 11:09 AM on April 19, 2019 [5 favorites]
Maybe I blocked it out, or was the butt of the joke without knowing it.
My (3 years) older brother was complaining about being bullied at school one time during collage days. I asked him what he was talking about, I'd never been bullied at our school. I just thought he got into fights because he was bossy. Then he reminded me that we always wore the same clothes growing up and that I was usually the biggest kid in my class. Sometimes privilege can make you blind to what is really going on. How many things I was unaware of.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:13 PM on April 19, 2019
My (3 years) older brother was complaining about being bullied at school one time during collage days. I asked him what he was talking about, I'd never been bullied at our school. I just thought he got into fights because he was bossy. Then he reminded me that we always wore the same clothes growing up and that I was usually the biggest kid in my class. Sometimes privilege can make you blind to what is really going on. How many things I was unaware of.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:13 PM on April 19, 2019
Yeah, why the heck were those fortune teller things called cootie catchers? No one at my school ever made any connection between them and cooties the game/insult/bullying-ritual. They just... had matching names for some reason?
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:00 PM on April 19, 2019
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:00 PM on April 19, 2019
The version of cootie catchers I'm familiar with told you what boy you were going to end up with, and boys had cooties, so I assume that name was derived along those lines.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:47 PM on April 19, 2019
posted by jacquilynne at 5:47 PM on April 19, 2019
Another echo of World War One.
posted by doctornemo at 7:59 PM on April 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by doctornemo at 7:59 PM on April 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
A Brief History of Cootie Catchers, courtesy of Mental Floss doesn't really address nebulawindphone's question, although I agree -- the two things weren''t connected.
Most sources believe the word “cootie” came from the Malay word kutu, meaning “dog tick,” and was brought back by British soldiers after World War I.posted by Rash at 9:24 PM on April 19, 2019 [1 favorite]
Clearly I was way too literal as a child. I just went and got the damn lice.
posted by srboisvert at 4:44 AM on April 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by srboisvert at 4:44 AM on April 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
and was brought back by British soldiers after World War I.
American soldiers trained hard with British (and French) forces (although didn't always listen). Hence that term crossing the Atlantic into US pop culture.
posted by doctornemo at 8:31 AM on April 20, 2019
American soldiers trained hard with British (and French) forces (although didn't always listen). Hence that term crossing the Atlantic into US pop culture.
posted by doctornemo at 8:31 AM on April 20, 2019
That's fascinating, and kind of incredible that such a nebulous concept has surfed on the standing wave of children moving through playgrounds for over a century.
posted by lucidium at 9:21 AM on April 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by lucidium at 9:21 AM on April 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
Yeah, why the heck were those fortune teller things called cootie catchers? No one at my school ever made any connection between them and cooties the game/insult/bullying-ritual. They just... had matching names for some reason?
As I understand it, there were two variants of that device, made with the same folding pattern but with different decorations, and used for different purposes. The numbers and fortunes went into the variant you knew. The other variant was one where you drew a lot of dots on the inside of one of the orientations of the interior (recall that you could flex the inside to show different faces). Then you opened the cootie catcher to the "clean" orientation of the interior, then closed it around a bit of your friend/victim's hair and ran it along the hair, and then opened it to the dotty orientation, showing all the cooties you "caught".
It's clear why that second thing's called a "cootie catcher". The first one either got its name because it was a later use of the same device, or by some sort of crossover form a group that used it for the cootie-catching game.
posted by jackbishop at 5:45 PM on April 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
As I understand it, there were two variants of that device, made with the same folding pattern but with different decorations, and used for different purposes. The numbers and fortunes went into the variant you knew. The other variant was one where you drew a lot of dots on the inside of one of the orientations of the interior (recall that you could flex the inside to show different faces). Then you opened the cootie catcher to the "clean" orientation of the interior, then closed it around a bit of your friend/victim's hair and ran it along the hair, and then opened it to the dotty orientation, showing all the cooties you "caught".
It's clear why that second thing's called a "cootie catcher". The first one either got its name because it was a later use of the same device, or by some sort of crossover form a group that used it for the cootie-catching game.
posted by jackbishop at 5:45 PM on April 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
We didn't call them cooties in Australia (at least in my experience)- it was 'germs'. Is cooties an American thing or just never made it down south?
posted by daybeforetheday at 4:21 AM on April 22, 2019
posted by daybeforetheday at 4:21 AM on April 22, 2019
I don't think we have "cooties" in Melbourne, Australia, however:
At my daughters' primary school, someone dropped a slice of processed cheese on the asphalt playground, and being summer it transformed into a weird square of molten goo. Some now forgotten child touched its tacky surface and was declared to "have the cheese touch". They then prodded another child with said sticky digit and the cheese touch was miraculously transferred and they were clean once more. This battle raged on into Autumn, with occasional bifurcations caused by forgetfulness or disputed returns. Everyone was now under roughly equal suspicion of having the cheese touch, and the game eventually dissipated much like the oily remains of the original cheese.
posted by nickzoic at 4:28 AM on April 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
At my daughters' primary school, someone dropped a slice of processed cheese on the asphalt playground, and being summer it transformed into a weird square of molten goo. Some now forgotten child touched its tacky surface and was declared to "have the cheese touch". They then prodded another child with said sticky digit and the cheese touch was miraculously transferred and they were clean once more. This battle raged on into Autumn, with occasional bifurcations caused by forgetfulness or disputed returns. Everyone was now under roughly equal suspicion of having the cheese touch, and the game eventually dissipated much like the oily remains of the original cheese.
posted by nickzoic at 4:28 AM on April 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
peter_gabriel_I_have_the_touch.mp3
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:39 AM on April 22, 2019
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:39 AM on April 22, 2019
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Parents, please educate and please vaccinate. You do not want your child to be an outcast, or to go to school afraid of the opposite gender.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:58 AM on April 19, 2019 [28 favorites]