Xeroxlore

Xeroxlore and photocopylore are two terms folklorists apply to a corpus of humorous traditional materials that circulate in physical form and are reproduced through mechanical means, such as photocopiers, scanners, mimeographs, typing, and printing. Much of this corpus has been shown to circulate in the United States, Great Britain, South America, and European nations. Like jokes, legends, and other folklore speech genres, xeroxlore texts have no known creator, are updated to remain current, and evolve into variants. Within the field of folklore, xeroxlore has been assumed to be an offshoot of the joke tradition. This entry discusses the content of xeroxlore, the major analytical approaches to it, its transmission and use in social life, and the role of graphics.

In form, xeroxlore is very heterogeneous and ...