digital folklore research
The following research aims to address what constitutes folklore (in this case, what makes it digital), the specific ethnographic methods used to approach digital folklore, how it differentiates from traditional methods of research, and how the instantaneous creation, dissemination, and consumption of online content is condusive to cultural growth. Ultimately, the purpose is to promote the significance of digital folklore and the complexities that come with it.
traditional vs. digital
Folklore is an expressive body of culture encompassing traditions, beliefs, customs, and stories shared by a community (Sims & Stephens, 2011), it is the culture of everyday people. Digital folklore is exactly that...just through a new media. Folklore is most often associated with rustic, old-timey myths, stories, legends, Grimms and Aesop, the Boogeyman and Santa. Somehow, folklore evolved into the belief that it was something to be found, not created (but this is not the truth).
​
When folklore is created, it is done with the intent to preserve a culture or to provide historical information regarding the origins of a people, place, or thing.
So why do we not automatically consider the social evolution brought on by technology as a vessel of folklore? Society often discredits the Internet and technology, claiming that it is the death of all creativty and destruction of our culture. However, what most of us do not realize is how today's digital age is a significant well of content about our lives (Cocq, 2019). Through the Internet and technology, we have created subcultures and developed new ways of interacting or identifying with one another especially with the increased accessibility of the world wide web! Understanding the nature of folklore helps us identify the positive elements of digital culture and celebrate contemporary folklores.
INNOVATION & CULTURAL GROWTH
It is a common thought that innovation and tradition are conflicting beliefs, however, there is a distinct dynamic between tradition and innovation which can be explored through digital folklore ethnography.
​
Because of the ease of accessibility and ability to edit content, the creation, dissemination, and consumption of online content surely adds to cultural growth in the sense of collection of information, however, it does not necessarily always improve the ethical goodness of a community.
The internet has the ability to create folk groups just as easily as destroying them. For example, the internet has increased the fan base of cats, online gaming communities, and niche dating (farmersonly.com) but it also has consequences of “cancel culture”. To the left of this paragraph, we have an example of how folk groups are created and how humanity chooses to use these bonds.
​
The digital folklore accumulated in the past year alone shows a good representation of how humanity lived through a pandemic- sharing banana bread recipes, recording zoom calls, learning viral dances, and finding ways to occupy our time.
ETHNOGRAPHIC METHODS
We can approach digital folklore through the examination of the cultural politics of digital media, the vernacular cultures or the linguistic and expressive creativity within, and as the folk art of new media. A focus on the where, how, and who of digital ethnography helps to highlight the contribution, need, and value of ethnography in the study of digital folklore. Study the routes and places, the value of documentation, and the key role of the subjects. (Blank, 2013)
online jargon
Vernacular creativity in the digital age has created ways for people to communicate from different parts of the world. Online jargon extends beyond the use of "LOL" and "TTYL" and has developed into rich and complex methods of exchanging textual information to each other.
Think Reddit form (>be me), doge speak (much wow), internet slang (brb), abbreviations (totes), hashtags (#tbt), and viral phrases (don't @ me)
digital folk art
Digital content created and shared on the internet is tied to developing the knowledge of how the web works and not just an outcome of using the Internet. As often as social media gets a bad rep, it is a method that connects many through the shared experience of witnessing history. Content creation through memes, art, vlogging, photography, video, song, and more paves a new way to track events, places, and people.
communities
Online users are a folk group in itself but within the world wide web lies a vast selection of subcultures to join, discover, create, and identify with. From BTS international fan clubs to finding another farmer to date, crowdsourcing to help pay for a surgery, mommy blogs dedicated to quick crock pot dinners, online gaming forums, facebook pages just for sharing pictures of disapproving corgis- online communities help to bring people together.
cataloging
Unlike traditional folklore, finding the roots of online traditions, myths, and expressions are generally easier to recover. With algorithms like Facebook's Memories or the IPhone's On This Day feature, we are able to reference historical data at our fingertips. Digital folklore is a catalogue of our generation's history thoroughly entangled with the uptake of new forms of mediated communication that continues to grow each day!
CONSTRAINTS & BENEFITS
Folklorists may have struggled with maintaining stable definitions of culture to start of with.
Folklore has been demoted to a category that includes myths, legends, and proverbs which, to the untrained eye, may mock the realities established by the culture creating it or those that witness the folklore (Tangherlini, 2013).
Because folklore is traditionally studied as ideas from the past and current traditions or beliefs that came from them, it is difficult to shake the thought that something digital or “new age” could be considered folklore. The internet is an excellent and convenient archive of folklore and expressive culture that provides dated evidence of how these online communities speak, talk, think, and exchange knowledge within a certain time!
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
The purpose of this website is to encourage folklorists of the validity of digital folklore and done in an effort to enhance society's preconceived notions of what it takes to consider something as folklore. Think of the associations you may have when somebody mentions a viral meme or video.
Think of the associations you may have when someone mentions a viral meme, song, or video.
How old were you at the time? Who were you with? What effect did it have on you? Where did you first discover it? Why do/don't you identify with it? These are all questions we should be asking when evaluating the folklore and folk groups we are associated with. Just as our grandparents can name the year and month that a song came out in the 60's because it was the song that played the first time they bought a car with their partner, the generation that was brought up in the digital age (mid-twentieth century and on) can tell you about the connection of Bernie Sanders' mittens in 2021 when President Biden got elected.
​
Digital folklore might also prove not be a lasting analytical concept, but it testifies to the widely recognized necessity for a descriptor combining the ideas of the folk, the vernacular, and the lore with the most central characteristic of contemporary media: the digital. (de Seta, 2020).