Koolielu kajastamine opilaste omaloodud meemilehtedel kolmes Tartu piirkonna koolis

• Authors: Kalda Mare , Tuisk Astrid

Title variants

EN

REFLECTING SCHOOL LIFE IN THE SELF-MADE MEMES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN THE TARTU REGION

• Languages of publication: ET

Abstracts

EN

Internet memes represent a new vernacular genre, items of which are created and also distributed digitally. Every day, ever new information keeps flowing through the feeds of social media sites. Internet memes, unlike traditional folklore, are not meant to be conveyed from generation to generation, and rarely would one expect a recurrence of a meme that has already been seen and passed forward. New memes are being created constantly, representing every conceivable aspect of physical as well as virtual reality. The external world is represented through a seemingly anything-goes game of combining shapes and forms. Already in the current stage of development of the genre, we can notice that memes correspond to their users’ subcultural and other group-related preferences. Age-group specific meme use is also discernible. This paper focuses on the meme repertoire of schoolchildren in the Tartu region, which is published on special Facebook or Instagram pages. The empirical work consisted in observing the meme sites and interviewing those generating the memes. School memes are presented as depiction of the life in a particular school and used for generating a feeling of belonging within that school. By memeing, schoolchildren apply a certain kind of cultural knowledge, a memetic code, which is not necessarily accessible to adults – indeed, they might not even have encountered it. William Corsaro characterises peer group culture with keywords such as autonomy, control, conflict, and differentiation; the challenge is to make fun of the authority of adults. In school memes, we are witnessing not only a peer group counterculture, but also an endeavour by the group to create a certain distinct world of its own. The novel and youthful memetic form suits well for this project.

Keywords

EN

children’s culture; children’s folklore; internet memes; virtual culture; youth culture

• Publisher: Folk Belief and Media Group of the Estonian Literary Museum, Estonian Institute of Folklore, EKM Teaduskirjastus
• Journal: Mäetagused
• Year: 2019
• Volume: 74
• Pages: 151-174

Contributors

author

Kalda Mare

• Department of Folkloristics, Estonian Literary Museum, Vanemuise 42, 51003 Tartu, ESTONIA

author

Tuisk Astrid

• Estonian Folklore Archives, Estonian Literary Museum, Vanemuise 42, 51003 Tartu, ESTONIA