Two years ago, a practice that dates back to the earliest days of civilization got a rebrand, and the Nepo Baby Discourse was born. Everywhere you looked, there they were: Starring on prestige TV shows, walking in fashion week, running for office. Under the magnifying glass of the internet, anyone with rich or famous relations was subject to scrutiny.
But what about the garden-variety nepo babies — the ones who lived or worked in ordinary places? Places like office buildings, universities… and Jewish sleepaway camps.
Looking back, I can say with confidence that I was a nepo camper. But in the tradition of my nepo forebears, it didn’t click right away.
In part, that was because my camp career got off to a cartoonishly rocky start. It was 2008, so I was already sweating through multiple layers of neon clothing when I arrived. After fighting my way through flocks of kids and parents being herded by clipboard-wielding staffers, I finally made it to the health inspection.
The nurse gave me a sympathetic look when she handed down the verdict.: I had a mild case of chickenpox. “Come back in a week,” she said.
As any camper can attest, camp runs on a different space-time continuum. A day might feel like several, but three weeks would come and go in the blink of an eye. In camp time, one week was an eternity. The wet cement of new friendships would be set by the time I returned. In other words: I was cooked.
The following Friday, I pulled up to the outdoor dance pavilion-turned-breakfast hall to find everyone in pajamas. In my jorts, I might as well have been wearing a tuxedo. The next thing I knew, someone was handing me a plastic apron and a paper Krispy Kreme hat. As luck would have it, my bunk was on serving duty.
I remember feeling like Amy Adams’ character in “Enchanted,” stumbling around Manhattan after falling through a portal from another dimension. The controlled chaos of morning toranut (the Hebrew word for chores, which in this case meant breakfast service) all but confirmed my fears: Camp was a land of strange rules and customs that I was too late to learn.
In the coming weeks and years, the first part of that statement proved itself true. What is sleepaway camp if not a social experiment? (The plan: Throw together a bunch of kids ranging from elementary school-aged to late teens, put slightly older kids in charge of them, see what kind of new order they form.)
There was no use for money nor any communication with the outside world, minus snail mail. News revolved around the popsicle flavor of the day and who was in trouble for sneaking out the night before. And while there were plenty of actual nepo babies in our midst, nobody could care less about what anyone’s parents did. Parents existed in the real world, and this wasn’t the real world. This was camp, and all we cared about was what was right in front of us.
How, then, did one get to be a nepo camper?
The answer was almost duplicitously simple: You had to be related to someone at camp who was older than you — and they had to be undeniably, universally regarded as cool.
My first cousin was a counselor-in-training (CIT), and a widely beloved one. Still, I didn’t comprehend that I had hit the social jackpot until halfway through the session. Mis’chakim Shel Alonim — the camp color wars — was the most anticipated event of the summer, designed and facilitated by the CITs, who ruled the land for approximately 48 hours.
It was the perfect time for my grand reveal. With her Zooey Deschanel bangs, white tutu and indefatigable spirit, my cousin had every child on Team Paper screaming bloody murder against Rock and Scissor.
As casually as possible, I told the person standing nearest to me that my cousin was a CIT. Who?? “I don’t know if you’d know her,” I shrugged, then paused. “Her name is… Tators?”
Of course they knew Tators. In the hierarchy of camp celebrity, those known only by nickname were at the top of the pyramid. Nobody outside of Tators’ own group seemed to know where the moniker had come from. More importantly, very few campers knew her real name. I guarded her identity like a state secret. But that didn’t stop me from flaunting that I knew it.
I loved the shock and delight that always followed the disclosure of our cousinhood. I loved explaining exactly how we were related and batting away questions about her birth name.
That first summer, I repeated this party trick ad nauseam. Secrets are the currency of intimacy, and I was a devious little spender.
In the real world, nepo babies are spoon-fed jobs and trust funds. At camp, belonging was the ultimate nourishment. And to a 9-year-old with zero clout (for some reason, I couldn’t shut up about the chickenpox), that meant everything. But being a nepo camper went beyond acceptance, or attention or a place to sit at Shabbat dinner. Tators was my connection to my real life – to the real world.
Camp families were both a dime a dozen, and a totally unique facet of the Jewish sleepaway camp experience. It’s not unlike “Jewish geography,” the game where two Jewish strangers try to figure out if they know anyone in common. When you identify a connection, everyone wins.
In the end, being a nepo camper wasn’t just about bragging rights or social capital. It was a means of building bridges between groups, and appreciating the tiny threads that stitch communities together.
I’d be lying, though, if I said there wasn’t a part of me that also just loved being a cool counselor’s cousin. After all, everyone else only got Tators a few weeks per year; I got Rosie for the rest of it.
Welcome to Hey Alma’s 2024 Camp Week! We’re celebrating the unique experience that is Jewish summer camp. Check back in all week long for personal essays, pop culture moments and great memes that encapsulate Jewish summer camp.
