Numerous factors define the shape of folklore and popular culture in the digital age, the most important factor coming from the storytellers themselves. Storytellers of course owe success & relevance to luck and their audience, but a good story defines cultural moments & shared folklore. We’ve discussed good stories and their protagonists already; so let’s discuss how a good story is shared in a folklore-forward way. (I really liked Folklore-Forward, so wanted to share a fun logo I made before we move on. WAIT scratch that, let's move Forward! haha... get it? ... let's move on).
Modern storytellers have more mediums to choose from the humble beginnings of oral traditions & public performances we have learned about throughout our course. Radio, Television, Film, Animation, Video Games, and many more have a global reach. Even written mediums have a wider reach in the modern thanks to social media discourse and a near-infinite stream of self-publishers. There is now much more to read and more opportunities to become a storyteller for niche communities.
More on self-publishing, communities can create their own stories and folklore thanks to social media and other online services thanks to fan fiction. The fan-fiction phenomenon is still in its infancy, often from younger writers using characters for self-insert fantasies… but fan-fiction has a chance to grow and evolve to help the next generation of storytellers in the digital age (Coppa, 2017).
More traditional storytellers are supportive of this type of creative appreciation of their work. And with Bill Willingham's intention to put the franchise of FABLES public domain (https://natlawreview.com/article/creator-dedicates-award-winning-comics-series-to-public-domain-or-does-he), stories will continue to be adapted and be able to evolve just like folklore throughout history.
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