Call Me Butter cause Im on a Roll: Why Digital Folklorists are the Best People to Know

I just got an email back from Trevor Blank who is pretty much THE leading scholar in the field of Digital Folklore (he wrote the book). He said he'd be happy to mentor me as I continue my research. He is really funny and enthusiastic too - he wrote four postscripts to his email (two in separate emails. Lol).

I'm going to send him my annotated bibliography of articles and books I think I should research and see if he has anything to add (or take away) and he has promised to hook me up with Jorgensen who he went to school with at IU.

Unfortunately I missed the boat on collaborating with them on their Digital Folklore panel for AFS2012 cause he already submitted it, but he says he's always happy to work with students.

He also let me know of work that is upcoming about Digital Folklore which I'm now excited to read in the coming years: "another edited volume, Tradition in the Twenty-First Century (which hits on some of your interests in Digital Age stuff impacting tradition) will be out in Spring/ Summer 2013, and my first solo-authored book, The Last Laugh: Folk Humor, Celebrity Culture, and Mass-Mediated Disasters in the Digital Age will be out in Fall 2013".

Anyways, I'm excited to have his support. Thanks Trevor!

---------

Update:

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention this for you Dr. Burton:

"We have several grad students at Penn State Harrisburg who also went to BYU, and when I asked, they remembered your professor, Gideon Burton. I wonder if you know any of them! "

Twitter List of Digital Humanists/ Folklorists

I've started building a twitter list of people I could contact or learn from about Digital Humanities/ Folklore. Check it out. :)

Nothing Makes My Day like Success with Social Proof

I wrote Lynne McNeill, the folklore professor at USU that Dr. Eliason suggested to me as a good person to contact about Digital Folklore, last night and she responded this morning! She was amazingly helpful! It has totally renewed my interest in and excitement for my subject, which was flagging after my muse and inspiration left me to myself last night while trying to rewrite my submission.

I told her the direction I am heading in (to advocate the remix culture of the internet being the perfect venue for both the dissemination of existing traditions/lore and the creation of new genres of folklore and thus requiring more attention from folkloristics) and she confirmed that I'm heading in the right directions, saying: "Right now, your question of remixing is a good one--not only are traditional forms of folklore being revived on the Internet, but new forms, like image macros and memes, and coming to prevalence.  There's not much general writing about it all yet--lots of conference papers and lots of individual case studies as articles and book chapters, but no prevailing work on it other that Trevor's book."

I asked her to point me in the right direction as far as sources for my research of folklore on the internet and methodology for studying Internet folklore, and told her what sources I had already found. She confirmed that I had "found many of the main resources out there" and gave me additional direction. She not only recommended a book and certain articles, but also attached PDF copies of those articles to the email! Talk about helpful! (and of course, I sent her a huge thank you email right back).

AFA2012 Submission In Process (heaven help me)

Here's the link to my rough draft submission for the conference. I welcome comments and feedback. It needs a lot of work before the deadline tomorrow.

----

Update: Oh heavens! I feel slightly better. The deadline is Saturday, not tomorrow (Friday).

Repurposing Outline / Ideas

This is how I write ideas. It's messy; I know. But here you have it... a paper in process. I have to rearrange my current content to fit this basic outline.

The idea of remixing the works of another is incredibly present on the internet. People are constantly remixing content they did not originate. (youtube examples, memes with photo stills from movies, etc).

The idea is not foreign to folklorists either. Folklore is creative traditions, beliefs, art, and stories that are shared person-to-person by the people. It’s difficult (if not impossible) to find the originator of content. But there are all kinds of people who pass it on and many of them remix it in their own style - adding details or just keeping the main theme and recreating a whole new story. (Eleanor Long’s storyteller types).

Folklore is not just remixed as it is passed on in the traditional sense. Artists, authors, playwrights and other creative geniuses borrow folklore and remix it in their work as well. Use examples of authors and artist who have done this. Possibly the world’s most famous author did this constantly - Shakespeare! (specifically use proverb from LLL play example but show other - borrowing stories from folklore origins, etc).

So why is the folkloric community ignoring the presence of folklore on the internet? People are remixing old stories and even old forms of folklore and sharing them with their online audience. Only a small number of folklorists have followed folklore to the internet - most are studying traditional folklore. Such a rich treasury of culture that is being ignored.

"Folklore theory holds that folkloric expression is reflective and serves as a 'mirror' of societal and cultural values; folklorists should therefore use this mirror to analyze society and culture. This ought to encourage a scholarly examination of the Internet, due to this format's status as a major agent of communication. Still, folklorists of the late twentieth century have not budged." (Blank, 4).

This folklore has the capability of keeping the discipline of folklore alive and also enabling us to understand our culture better. the unique lense of the folklore discipline is important in understanding what is happening culturally online.

Talk about how folklore online both preserves and challenges the “continuity of traditions”

also, include that these are emerging traditions and forms of folklore... amazingly creative as they preserve culture and relational ties. The description of the conference's theme states: "One of our field’s key concepts, tradition involves both conservation and change; the creativity that exists within tradition and shapes change invites closer examination." I want to somehow talk about the importance of change and adaptation in tradition, this creativity aspect, especially in a world, the majority of which moves at a very fast pace.

Perhaps quote and mention Jorgensen's post and her dissertation subject/ defense experience:

Folkloristics is a discipline obsessed with tradition; we tend to use traditionality as the measure of whether we want to study something in the first place. If you can’t prove that something is traditional, even if it’s an emergent tradition or something that is traditional to a tiny group of people, then folklorists would question why we’d want to study it. Somehow related is the fact that a lot of folklorists tend to be luddites; this is very chicken-or-egg in my mind. Is someone drawn to the study of tradition since they want to live a more traditional/old-school lifestyle, or is someone who studies tradition going to be more and more into the idea of incorporating what they study into their lifestyle? I doubt it’s as simplistic as either A or B, but it’s a trend I’ve noticed.

Social Proof Contact List

Get this... My post from last week where I just took notes on the introduction to a book I read as I was repurposing my content got a ridiculously amazing comment... unsolicited attention from the author of the article! How cool is that?!

So you better believe he is on my contact list for THIS week! He's going to "hook me up" with other folkloristic articles which of course will lead me to even more contacts. 

I'm working on repurposing my content first (at least writing the two required abstracts), because my submission is due this Friday (no pressure). But I've found ways that the following individuals will be helpful within my repurposed content (which I'm going to write a post about next):

Jaquie Thursby here at BYU could tell me more about the use of folklore in literature/Shakespeare. This is important because part of my argument is that people remix folklore in literature all the time, as did Shakespeare, so who's to invalidate the remixing of folklore online? 

Greg Kelly of Guelph University in Canada studies folklore online. I thought I'd look up articles by him and then contact him as I'm rewriting and lengthening my article. 

Lynne McNneal is up at Utah State. She is all over the eFolklore idea. She will also be useful as I rewrite. 

Dr. Burton suggested I take a look at Jeana Jorgensen who has been tweeting about digital humanities and folklore today:

Anyways, lots of options! Can't wait to write Mr. Blank back!

Trailer Content Plans

Problems with previous video content:
- too academic sounding
- too rehearsed
- nothing to look at except my face (break up the monotony a bit)
- tad too long
- ties to only one student paper (and that tie won't work for repurposed content)

Ideas for 2nd draft:
- less formal*
- 90 seconds*
- rehearse but make it casual
- strips of paper with words/ ideas (fast and easy)
- use a Shakespeare quote*
- possibly do quick screen shot of presentation/ visual to enhance point (I really like this idea)
- tie to both Ashley and Ariel (talk about folklore's ability to reflect culture, how essential it is to study our present folklore to understand our present culture, and how identity is tied to culture)*

*designates a requirement