Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
(Cell phone ringing)
(Laughter)
Hey. Sorry about that, folks.
My friend sent me the most adorable cat video,
and I had to get it posted to Facebook.
I mean, you guys know how it is, right?
It's like you're in the middle of doing something important,
like work or spending time with your children
or giving a TEDTalk.
All of a sudden, there's that ding that says, "You have a new message."
Someone's posted something to Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest
or tagged you on Twitter,
and you have to drop whatever it is you're doing
and go check it out, right?
I mean, it's a common problem these days.
And the internet has gotten a pretty bad rap for it, hasn't it?
I mean, it's considered the ultimate time waster.
It's a collection of banality,
a scourge on our society that makes everyone less interesting,
less intelligent, less creative,
less social, less active.
You've heard these complaints, right?
That children don't know how to make eye contact,
and teenagers can't hold a conversation,
and none of us can spell anymore.
This is what the internet has done to us, right?
Well, check this out.
Maybe this is a familiar idea to some of you guys:
the theory that if you took an infinite number of monkeys
and gave them an infinite number of typewriters,
they would eventually come up with the collected works of Shakespeare.
Is this a familiar idea?
That even monkeys would come up with something good
if given enough time banging away at a keyboard?
Well, my fellow monkeys, now we have this belief:
the internet has finally proven that one false.
(Laughter)
Yeah.
But here's the thing:
I don't necessarily believe that.
You see, I'm a folklorist,
and folklorists,
unlike literature scholars or art historians or music scholars,
we don't look to the productions of the rare geniuses of humankind
as the only cultural products worth paying attention to.
We look to other kinds of cultural productions,
productions that I think make the state of our digital lives
seem a little less dire.
You see, the problem here
isn't with the connection of all of us to monkeys.
The problem is with the assumption
that the collected works of Shakespeare is the only valid cultural output
that a bunch of monkeys might come up with.
That's the influence of institutions on our cultural thinking,
the idea that the stuff worth paying attention to
is the stuff produced by the rare talents,
the unique minds,
the great geniuses among us.
What folklore studies is all about is what all the rest of us can do,
the stuff that everybody is capable of producing.
So, you know, sure, we can't all paint like Van Gogh or Monet,
but we can all manage a pretty decent stick figure
or come up with some good bathroom graffiti, right?
And we may not be able to sing like Barbara Streisand
or engineer a structurally sound bridge
or something like that,
but you know, we can manage a jump-rope rhyme
or make a mean paper airplane, right?
That's the folk culture side of things,
the types of artistic, expressive, cultural production
that everyone is capable of engaging in.
Now, this isn't what most people think of when they think of folklore.
Most people think of things like quilting or old wives' tales
or apocryphal stories, stories of Johnny Appleseed or Paul Bunyan,
things like that, right?
In fact, when you think of folklore, you probably think of these guys,
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm,
who gave us one of the most famous and beloved collections of folklore
that we have today: "Grimms' Fairy Tales."
And all of these things -
quilting and Johnny Appleseed and Grimms' Fairy Tales -
are absolutely folklore,
but they're not folklore because they're old or provincial or false.
They're folklore because they're the culture of everyday people.
You see, the Grimms were unique
because they recognized the value of stories
that other scholars didn't even find worth considering,
much less documenting.
The Grimms knew that in order to truly understand a group of people,
you need to look at the cultural productions
that everyone is engaging in, not just a select few.
But let's take it to the next level.
Imagine, for a moment, all the folklore that the Grimm brothers didn't collect:
all the dumb jokes
that everyone in Germany in the early 1800s absolutely knew;
all the legends and rumors shared over beer and bratwurst;
all the incomprehensible slang terms and swear words
that every German teenager knew and could use to perfection.
How much better would we understand German culture at that time
if we had all that documented as well?
Which brings us back to the internet.
The internet has been described
as "the world's largest, unintentional folklore archive."
All of our lame jokes;
all of our rumors and legends
about politicians and celebrities and corporations;
all of our incomprehensible slang
is now being shared in a venue
where just the act of sharing it turns it into documented cultural data.
This is unprecedented.
For the first time in history,
we are preserving our folk culture in all its artistry,
its wisdom,
its insight,
its offline manifestations as well as its on;
its social commentary
as we create and share it.
(Laughter)
Are you capable of taking a picture of Boromir,
slapping some text on him and posting it to Facebook?
That matters.
That is a valid cultural performance.
Making an internet meme or even just sharing one on social media
is participating
in the documentation and preservation of contemporary folk culture.
If we want to know how people,
not the media, not political leaders, not famous authors or filmmakers,
but just people feel about something,
we can look at our shared cultural creations
to understand how we feel about it.
Anyone remember this guy?
His name is Lieutenant John Pike,
and he made the news in 2011 when he was caught on camera
pepper-spraying a bunch of peacefully protesting UC Davis students.
He's better known online as "Casually Pepper Spray [Everything] Cop."
And he's the subject of a lot of contemporary folk art.
Some of it funny;
some of it serious;
all of it poignant.
Now, if we wanted to better understand this particular moment in history,
we could absolutely go back
and read the newspapers and magazines that were published at that time;
we could go and watch past episodes of the nightly news or the daily show,
but we could also look to each other to see what we were saying,
what we thought was important,
what we found worthy of passing on to others.
Now, of course not all culture on the internet is serious.
Right?
There's a lot of silly and trivial and unimportant stuff
on the internet these days.
But we need to remember that one, that's not new,
and two, that's not unique to the internet.
There has always been silly, trivial, unimportant, fun culture in the world,
and we have always stood to gain a better understanding of ourselves
if we pay attention to it.
You see, folklore doesn't get passed on for no reason.
If a joke or a story or an internet meme isn't saying something,
if it isn't poignant or illustrative or relevant
or at least funny,
it's not going to stay in circulation.
So if something is staying in circulation, then it's saying something.
So the next time you lose an hour to browsing the internet,
don't feel so bad.
Would you feel bad if you lost that hour browsing in a museum?
Probably not.
And I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't also spend time in museums,
but don't let yourself fall into the trap
of thinking that the only worthwhile culture is high culture.
If we look at the internet for what it's documenting,
what it's preserving, what it's telling us about ourselves,
then it's time well spent.
So before I go, we should probably document this moment as well, right?
Are you guys up for a group selfie?
(Laughter)
Alright.
Say cheese.
(Audience) Cheese.
(Laughter)
Thanks.
(Applause)