One thing that really pisses me off is academics that have qualifications in Folklore, specifically the ones at Ph.D level. Aside from the fact that so many of them fought me and tried to get me blocked and banned (and my channel taken down), their profession is fundamentally anti-folk in nature.
Folklore is the expression of a shared culture of an ethnic group. It is tales, proverbs, customs, songs, lore, rituals, celebrations, dances, etc.
The academic spends years ‘studying’ these things, deconstructing them and trying to find ‘reason’ to explain away these ‘silly’ and ‘outdated’ customs. They are always urbanists and outright reject the spiritual and supernatural. To them, these stories and customs are just relics of the past and make for good stories to laugh about on twitter every ‘Folklore Thursday’. Further, they believe that folklore is inclusive and for everyone, totally oblivious to the nature of what it is. (Folklore is, by definition, exclusive to the FOLK) This belief can be evidenced with their hashtag ‘Folklore Against Fascism’, where they try to deplatform anyone that dares use folklore to reinforce their identity.
They actually believe that they are the sole and best authority to discuss folklore. They will rationalise and deconstruct everything. Literally working towards destroying belief in lore and tradition. To them, people that live in the countryside and are largely unaffected from much of the cancer of the city, and who may actually have some knowledge of their old local traditions, are irrelevant and ‘unqualified’ to talk about folklore because they don’t have a degree.