The Internet Folklore

In the article, “Electronic Hybridity: The Persistent Processes of the Vernacular Web” by Robert Glenn Howard, he says “When “folk” express meaning though new communication technologies, the distinction between folk and mass is, as Dorst suggested, blurred by the vernacular deployment of institutionally produced commercial technologies.” The “folk” that he mentions are us. He people who sign up for these different blogs and add on to what the internet is. When we participate in things like blogs and online diaries, we become part of the folk. As soon as one posts a comment online it is permanently part of the internet. The “Mass” is the commercial part of it all. These are the creator and controllers. They are usually the owners of the sites like Facebook, or MySpace also law makers. They become the mass in that they make the rules as to what can be freely posted unto these sites and what is revoked. They also can create and image into themselves in that they will be seen in society as they want to be portrayed apart from what may really be the situation. We the folk promote this every time we sign up to use these various sites we keep their myth alive. This caught my attention because this is sort of like what James Scott was talking about When he makes mention of the slaves and what was really going on during slavery. The slave owners make it seem as though they were doing a favor for the Africans in taking them in and exposing them to religion. When what really was going on is that the slaves were being battered and burse and mistreated the whole time. But no would have known this till they studied the negro spirituals and the brer rabbit stories. The slaves where always there however they aren’t really seen as the mass rather as the folk that have to deal with what the mass says or the image that they want to portray of them.
Scott says that “the safest and most public form of political discourse is that which takes as its basis the flattering self- image of elites. Owing rhetorical concessions that self image contains, it offers a surprisingly large arena for political conflict that appeals to these concessions and makes use of the room for interpretation within and ideology.”(Chapter 2 page 18,). This is true as we can see with the Kerry blog website in the Howard article and with slavery. Bloggers saw that they were censoring what was going on to the site. So they made their own. In slavery days there was no such thing as internet but there was such a thing as written language and works. Because they were band from learning to read and write, they made song and told stories. And those who knew how to write taught others.
This leads me to think about us and our society. Even though we all have different vernaculars and we are part of the different folk, aren’t we all somewhat controlled be the “mass” which is dictated those who have the money at the time. In a sense the internet has no folklore because it is constantly censored as to what can be posted. But on the other end of the stick, this censorship is part of the folklore and what keeps it alive. Without this censorship there would not be things as blogs, or they wouldn’t be as popular. People wouldn’t fell a compelled to push the buttons of the elites and express their opinions. This “slavery” makes us, the “folk”, want to strive harder. It gives us a challenge and our rebuttal gives more of an impact. I cannot imagine the internet without censorship. I guess being that out lives are tripped by society cannot see past it. We find was too but in a sense we embrace it