Legends: Folklore on Reddit

Abstract: In this paper we introduce Reddit legends, a collection of venerated old posts that have become famous on Reddit. To establish the utility of Reddit legends for both computational science/HCI and folkloristics, we investigate two main questions: (1) whether they can be considered folklore, i.e. if they have consistent form, cultural significance, and undergo spontaneous transmission, and (2) whether they can be studied in a systematic manner. Through several subtasks, including the creation of a typology, an analysis of references to Reddit legends, and an examination of some of the textual characteristics of referencing behaviour, we show that Reddit legends can indeed be considered as folklore and that they are amendable to systematic text-based approaches. We discuss how these results will enable future analyses of folklore on Reddit, including tracking subreddit-wide and individual-user behaviour, and the relationship of this behaviour to other cultural markers.