Authenticity vs Fakeness

When in 1777 Herder launched the folklore collecting revolution that would lead ninety-years later to the first unified German state he didn’t think the folklore needed to be faked. Goethe, the Grimm Brothers and all those who collected the stories and songs from the folk made a good faith effort to find what was already there. Disinfolklore is perhaps designed from some truthful parts, but it attempts to use the qualities first found in the structure of folklore to assemble, in the manner of a Paint-by-Numbers method, Disinfolklore that poses as a positive, real, community cohesion and emotionally resonant device. Disinfolklore’s fakeness is its very nature.

Source: Book Proposal (May 2024)

Infolklore: a good faith effort to find what is already there. Disinfolklore: Paint-by-Numbers assembly of fake resonance. The difference is not content but intent — authenticity versus manufacture.

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