Pixilated: Digital Folklore and the Folk We’ve Become

Pixies, fairies, werewolves, and witches might be what the word folklore conjures up in many people’s imaginations–and Louisiana certainly has them. But what is folklore? The word “folklore” was coined in 1846 by an Englishman, William J. Thoms, to provide a more accurate term for the traditional practices, beliefs, and stories of regular people.  The term is a compound of the Old English words “folk,” meaning people, and “lore,” meaning knowledge or instruction. Yet the very concept of “folklore” has proven remarkably difficult to translate across linguistic and cultural boundaries. French, for instance, has no equivalent word. It simply borrows the English term “folklore,” although it has acquired less than modern connotations closer to “quaint” “traditional” and “old-fashioned,”  in French usage. German uses “Volkskunde” (literally “people’s knowledge”). Spanish also adopts “folclor” from English and defines it as “saber del pueblo”:  knowledge of the people.

Today in Louisiana, we find ourselves asking: who or what are “the folk?”  Bots, deep fakes, and AI are such accurate facsimiles of humans. What is even authentic?

Digital technologies have reconfigured how communities form, share knowledge, and maintain identity. Internet memes circulate with the same anonymous quality that characterizes traditional fairytales–we sometimes cannot find when and where ideas originate: Is the Internet even a place? Is it even Louisianan if the artifact only exists online?

Digital platforms create communities of practice that exist independent of geographic proximity–consider Zoom’s impact on seeing folks. Who we are, is more accurate than ever with DNA testing delivering ancestry through smartphone apps, complicating notions of heritage, kinship, and belonging in ways that challenge traditional understandings of Louisianans’ identity. But who are we?

Join us for our annual meeting at UL Lafayette on Saturday, January 24, 2026.

There will be a pre-conference reception on Friday, January 23rd at the Center for Louisiana Studies in Lafayette, LA.  

We Invite Proposals That Explore:

• Digital Vernacular Culture in Louisiana
•  Memes, viral videos, and online folklore
•  Digital storytelling practices and online narrative communities
• Internet communities as folk groups in Louisiana

Technology and Identity Formation in Louisiana

• DNA testing and constructed ancestry narratives
• Genealogical surprises
• Virtual communities and sense of place

How Louisiana Folklore adapts to Digital Contexts

• Oral tradition in the age of the  podcast
• Digital archives and the preservation of folk culture
• The role of algorithms in shaping which folk traditions are passed down

Reimagining “Folk” in Louisiana

•  Who constitutes “the folk” in online contexts?
•  Digital ethnography and methodology
• Collaborative knowledge production online

Preservation of Louisiana’s Disappearing Lands and Cultures

• Languages in digital communities and folklore
• Preserving Material Culture
• Regional identity and social media

Submission Guidelines:

250-word abstract for 15-20 minute presentation

Email to Louisianafolklore@gmail.com with subject line LFS 2026 by December 6th 2025.

All presenters are encouraged to submit abstracts for publication in the Louisiana Folklore Miscellany (Call for submissions forthcoming).

Presenters are also encouraged to submit creative/digital projects to be featured on the LFS website.

About:

The Louisiana Folklore Society was founded in 1956 to encourage the study, documentation, and accurate representation of the traditional cultures of Louisiana. Louisiana Folklore Society members include university professors, professional folklorists in the public sector, secondary school teachers, museum workers, graduate students, and other individuals interested in Louisiana’s traditions and cultural groups.

Members of LFS have been active for many years working with libraries, folk festivals, small museums, and community documentation projects across the state. Our annual conference is more akin to a gathering.

We welcome students, academics, public folklorists, and community members who discuss current issues facing our state. We are interested in anything else pertaining to the folk and knowledge here in Louisiana. . . If you’re not feeling the digital age, we welcome you to present all the same.  

More info here