Retelling Tamil Folklore in the Digital Age: Oral Traditions, YouTube and Instagram

Abstract

Tamil folklore has traditionally circulated through oral narration, performance, repetition, memory, and community participation. Folk tales, village legends, proverbs, songs, Villupattu, Therukoothu, and narratives associated with local traditions have been transmitted through culturally situated relationships between storyteller, audience, place, and occasion. The expansion of YouTube and Instagram has introduced new conditions for the circulation of these traditions. Folk narratives can now be recorded, edited, visualized, shared, commented upon, and encountered by audiences far removed from their original communities. This paper examines this transformation through the concept of “platform storytelling.” Drawing upon folklore studies, performance theory, cultural representation, convergence culture, and digital folklore studies, it argues that digital platforms do not merely preserve Tamil folklore but participate in its re-narrativisation. The camera changes the performance frame, editing changes narrative duration, platform conventions encourage different forms of storytelling, and algorithmic systems influence cultural visibility. Villupattu and Therukoothu demonstrate the transformation of performance and audience, while village legends, proverbs, and folk narratives illustrate the compression and contextual displacement that can occur in short-form digital media. The contemporary Tamil song “Enjoy Enjaami” further demonstrates how inherited folk-cultural resources can be transformed into new digital cultural productions rather than simply preserved in their earlier forms. The paper argues that YouTube and Instagram create different environments for cultural transmission: YouTube can accommodate extended performances and narratives, whereas Instagram encourages shorter, visually immediate fragments. Tamil folklore in the digital age is therefore neither simply preserved nor replaced. It is reconfigured through an interaction among tradition, technology, creators, audiences, and platform structures.