vampireapologist:

twofingerswhiskey:

vampireapologist:

Tumblr and twitter discussing ancient folklore and myths and beliefs is so wild bc one day someone will without sources comment on a post like “actually! [fact about faeries or vampires or witchcraft or the gods etc without any links to back it whatsoever]” and people will be like “omg how did I never know this that makes so much sense!!!”

And then six months later I’ll reference the lore and like 200 people will be like “actually did you know,” and they’ll cite the “information” as a fact with usually no awareness that it came from a tumblr post that also provided no sources and 9/10 times it’s absolutely baseless and it’s

Just such a strange study in the rapid and traceable spread of absolutely sourceless misinformation being accepted as fact.

To be fair, isn’t that really how folklore started? People saying random shit that just stuck, stuff that has a personal or cultural impact, things that are in line with other things, building and building upon a central idea or feeling or place or person until it’s a mountain? Modern-day people are doing this now, too. My city has a piece of folklore surrounding the reason why nobody ventures into the marshes or floodplains, and it’s fairly recent (80s or so) but it stuck and people built upon it until it became its own entity entirely. 

I get what you’re saying, and the modern birth and evolution of folklore is really cool and a whole topic to study and discuss on it’s own!!! That’s good stuff.

But what we’re looking at here is folklore as a study of cultures,

And for someone on a random tumblr post to say “this is why these people did this 1000 years ago” with absolutely No grounds for the claim, no background in studying that culture or society, that’s not evolving a story. That’s just misinformation.

You can’t just say “this is what the Romans believed,” and then just make something up. Because it just…..isn’t what the Romans believed! You made it up!

It’s even worse when it’s about the lore of a culture that still exists and someone who’s not part of it just blatantly spreading misinformation.