İnternette Doğmuş Halkbilimi Ürünlerinin Metin Merkezli İncelenmesi: Caps Örneği

Abstract

This study aims to examine capses, a folklore product born in the internet environment, through a text-based approach. It questions how the historical-geographical method (HGM), developed by the Finnish School in the 19th century, can be adapted to cultural environment of the internet for the purpose of analysing internet-based folklore products. The study addresses how the unique archival nature of the internet can be utilized in obtaining folklore data and conducting text-based analysis. While HGM seeks to analyse folk narratives based on their historical, geographical, and structural features, the internet folklore research method developed in this study demonstrates how a similar analytical approach can be applied to the internet products. This method was successfully implemented on folklore products that emerged in online platforms. In this context, the production and dissemination environments of capses, their formal characteristics, and their circulation dynamics were examined, and their ur-forms (basic form) were identified. The recorded nature of the internet, combined with archival studies and compilations carried out in collaborative dictionaries, forums, and other platforms, allowed for the identification of the earliest capses and even their pre-formation stages. The methodology used in the study enabled access to data where textual and visual elements could be examined simultaneously. Furthermore, the study showed that visual folklore products can also be systematically analysed using text-centered methods, and that their basic forms can indeed be identified. The limitations of HGM regarding the identification of basic forms—one of its key criticisms—have been overcome thanks to the recorded nature of internet culture. The evolutional sequence of capses was revealed in detail, and their visual content could be traced back to their moment of creation, allowing access to the earliest examples in their structural lineage. This study is also the first in academia to address capses in such a comprehensive manner. Although the main focus is text-based analysis, the formal properties of capses, the profiles of their producers and consumers, their creation and dissemination dynamics, and the characteristics of the internet environment that enables their emergence to have been summarized to contribute both to the understanding and historical documentation of caps culture. While offering a methodological contribution to internet-centered folklore research, this study also draws attention to the cultural significance of capses, a folklore product that is now nearly obsolete. It demonstrates that the internet can be used effectively in folklore research and that products like capses can be located within cultural history through systematic methods.