E-mail: lottashekspir@mail.ru Tel.: + 7 (495) 694-03-71
5, Kozitsky side-str., Moscow, 125375, Russian Federation
Researcher, Folklore and Folk Art Department, State Institute for Art Studies
This article, based on folklore from the Internet, examines the reactions of Runet users to the main event of the early 2020s — the COVID-19 pandemic. United by desire to confront a global disaster using the traditional tools of laughter and play, members of online communities recorded the organizational and everyday circumstances of the pandemic (quarantine, forced home isolation, remote work, specific everyday problems), relying on the phenomena of online folklore. The author examines creolized works, that is, forms and genres combining verbal and visual codes such as meme, comic book, “demotivator”, “fotozhaba” (photoshop contest). The genre of online cosplay, which flourished during the pandemic, is also considered, represented by the Isolation (Izoizolyatsiya) Project, which brought together hundreds of thousands of participants. The internet carnival knows no limits, subjecting the enemy — the coronavirus — to mockery and derision, on which there exist no prohibitions. Passing through the laughing and at the same time playful prism of the Internet, the impressions of real events processed in the virtual other-world, network folklore represent the most important documentary evidence of everyday life during the pandemic. By transmitting impressions of real events processed in this way, online folklore represents the most important documentary evidence of everyday life during the pandemic.
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