Folklore digital: la vigencia de las leyendas urbanas en los creepypastas

Abstract

The aim of this research is to relieve the genre variances and invariances of the creepypasta to establish the distinctive traits of this genre in Argentina. Our theoretical framework is taken from Discourse Analysis and recent works about mediation and platforms by Oscar Traversa (2009), studies about the culture of connectivity by José Van Dijck (2016) and works about Urban legends by Jan Harold Brunvand (2011). We believe that this popular literature in digital form generates spaces of collective and collaborative writing where short versions or adaptations of urban legends are shared with the purpose of generating fear in the readers. In Argentina the creepypasta presents a stylistic challenge: to be creative in the production of regional variants of several classical stories. This research, thus, serves as a contribution for the studies of digital folklore in our country. But moreover, we believe that teachers can enrich themselves with this knowledge because the students who were or are still administrators, readers or producers of creepypasta, participate in a “group or group network that generates particular forms of production, interpretation and circulation of discourse” (Maingueneau, 2004. our translation). The users of this and other platforms, acquire ?due to frequency? the genre features and restrictions that correspond to these texts. Using the abilities and previous knowledge of the students may be productive to overcome some of the difficulties that students face in their own written productions, not to mention the competences they acquire in the use and manipulation of illustrations, images, videos and audios.