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Once upon a time,1 when people needed to offer up some time-tested, widely accepted wisdom to their friends or family members, they would break out a proverb: A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush - take that decent job offer, even if you were hoping a better one will materialize soon. " "The early bird gets the worm - register for that conference now, before all the cheap hotel rooms are taken!" "You know what they say - a rolling stone gathers no moss. Better get a move on!"
As a form of folklore, proverbs have all the power of the omniscient, invisible (but surely wise!) them behind their messages. We could easily rephrase the exact same advice or warning in our own words, but the minute we use a traditional form like a proverb, we're tapping into something bigger, the "wisdom of many,"2 to use a proverbial definition of the proverb.
These days, when we want to advise, encourage, or warn our peers, we're just as likely to share a meme to their social media feeds.
The connection between Internet memes and proverbs may seem tenuous, but ask any folklorist and they'll let you know that these two forms share one major thing: they're folklore.
Thinking of memes as folklore isn't intuitive for most people. We tend to think of folklore as old, rustic, quaint, or at least traditional. The thing is, while a lot of folklore may indeed be old, rustic, quaint, and traditional, the only one of those qualities that's actually a defining characteristic of folklore is traditional, and perhaps surprisingly, memes are traditional, too.
Many people understand the concept of traditional as standing in contrast to innovative or modern, but...