This reminds me of something Louis Armstrong said: all music is folk music.

There are lots of different types of folk, is all.

Edit: credited the source, thanks to @EricLawton

Yup! #FanFictionIsFolklore

congrats!

As Peter Stampfel says of his own imperfect recall and modifications to folk songs: "I am folk, see me process!"

I guess I’m saying I think our self-imposed need to make money from our creative acts is what u think is holding us back.

I politely disagree. Folklore is and should be non-capitalist. Of course capitalists try to commandeer folklore but that doesn’t change the nature of it. We can and should make any folklore we want and it is pure if we don’t incorporate capitalism. Money mediates non-intimate relationships. The stories and videos I make with and for my kids and neighbors are folklore because there is *no* parasociality. Non-public media is important.

If you think that the best story tellers are the ones that make money from their stories then I disagree. Money is not a healthy yardstick for measure storytelling success.

Stories have the ability to be vast and intimate. We feel that in novels but we lose meaningfulness when the storytelling is no longer embodied.

Writers and performers of ages past were allowed to make money from their work. Even original copyright terms of a decade or two were specifically to allow them the exclusive right to sell for a period of time. But even before that, Shakespeare made money from his shows. Plutarch. Grimm. They all wrote and performed and received compensation in the form of either commissions from wealthy patrons or from selling their work to the public.

The best writers of our era sell their works to publishers and studios to be able to make a living, and the things that have the greatest cultural impact are the stories that they write - because they're really really good at creating stories. That's literally their job. Sure amateurs can and should tell stories of their original creations, but many many people make riffs and adaptations of existing works.

Greek mythology wasn't something one person came up with, it was stories after stories grown and expanded over the centuries. Grimm fairy tales weren't the original work of the brother's Grimm, they were a compilation of folklore stories from all over central Europe. Folklore is stories written and adapted and expanded upon no matter where the original story came from.
@flypaper
@TarkabarkaHolgy

Honestly, I am a performing storyteller, and I do charge for performances because this is how I make a living. I don't think those things are mutually exclusive. And I also don't think being paid makes me better or more important than, say, any storyteller from my village.

that’s lovely ✨

I’m just trying to say while we all need to make money to survive (zero shame in that) I desperately want to revitalize and make normal peer to peer storytelling. I see capitalistic thought trying to replace that function in our lives. I think stories are too important to let that happen.

I hope that your stories are inspiring your audiences to tell stories instead of looking for new story experiences to buy

One of the greater public art folklore celebrations I’ve been part of was the #StarWars Epic Rock Opera Puppet Show which was held in #Olympia #Washington’s Capital Theatre

It was sort of a talent/variety show with absolutely no official approval thrown together in 1997 before the first trilogy was re-issued in theatres

People dug out “folk knowledge” we all shared and it was ridiculous and amazing and there was a Death Star piñata

So much better than CGI

this sounds amazing

I’ve long wished that more people could’ve been at that event or it could’ve been videoed or somehow shared

Because there were parts that could’ve become memes or in-jokes I would gladly share with millions of #StarWars fans, because they were funny as hell

Guess we’ve got our oral tradition

Years later I met another person who was there and they too tell people about that night 🚀

Interesting. It was just a few months ago that I read the Wikipedia article about folklore doing research for a project I am just realizing now was folklore of its own (developing an alien race's culture and wanted to know what was included in their 'folklore'). I was surprised to learn how much folklore is in our own society. Traditions like birthday parties for instance. The cake, candles, blowing out the candles, making a wish blowing out the candles, presents, the Happy Birthday song... all of it is modern folklore. Fascinating stuff!

Watching the movies since then, I keep wanting to call out catch-phrases from that show

But no one will understand because only like 800 people were in the audience

We all agreed for instance, there really should be a Wedge action figure

Everybody took this meaningless corporate detritus we all shared in our heads and reclaimed it for one night

Yeah but how much is now tied up by copyright and trademark claims?

Thinking of "Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play" again.