Also known as “photocopylore,” signifies traditional items reproduced by xerographic or
analogous means that subvert the primary intentions of those in ostensible control of
those higher-level technologies; the ubiquitous photocopier has replaced older
technologies used for making copies, such as carbon paper, and its name is accordingly
used to describe the phenomenon. Examples of other devices used similarly include
printing presses, photographic printing, mimeograph machines, computer printers,
computer networks, fax machines, and coin-minting presses. The themes of Xeroxlore are
similarly various: current events and contemporary concerns (recent scandals, specific
politicians, feminism, taxes, health care, and popular culture generally, but also one’s
circumstances of employment) as well as traditional concerns (sex and sexuality, humor
at the expense of every conceivable group, and so forth). Here is a sample text:
Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks French, the mechanics
German, the lovers Italian, and it is all organized by the Swiss.
Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lovers
Swiss, the police German, and it is all organized by the Italians.
Any device that reproduces an item or transmits alphanumeric data may be employed in
this folk practice, and most such devices are known to have been so employed.
Because Xeroxlore is the product of the unofficial use of technology, it reflects the
customary practices of those who use it rather than the intentions of the institutions that
own or control it. It is also affected by its host technology and often reflects folk attitudes
to its institutional context: “Tell me again how lucky I am to work here…. I keep
forgetting.” Xeroxlore usually contains a visual component—“The Last Great Act of
Defiance” depicts an eagle swooping down upon a mouse who presents it the digitus
impudicus (“the finger”)—and Xeroxlore is often parodic of the values of the host institution
through fake memos and of the values of dominant culture more generally through
obscene Christmas cards and the like. An example of Xeroxlore, reproduced by
photocopy machines on paper, by coin-elongating machines on U.S. cents, and by private
mints on oneounce silver ingots, reads:
Big cats are dangerous,
[representation of a tiger]
but a little pussy never hurt anyone.
Although the technology often serves seemingly innocuous ends, such as the circulation
of favorite recipes, chain letters, and favorite published cartoons, even these are
reproduced despite managerial restrictions on what may be copied and often in violation
of copyright; their circulation may violate postal regulations. It is a small step from such
transgressive uses of the technology to the photocopying of body parts.
Just as the technology is an extension of human faculties, so also Xeroxlore is an
extension of traditional joking practices and of the making of items of material culture,
novelty items in particular, whether printed and pictorially represented or materially
constructed. Thus, the genres of Xeroxlore (parody letters, memos, and glossaries, folk
poetry, folk cartoons, parodies of comic strips, and so forth) and its forms (fold-up novelty cards, Rorschach tests, and the like) are as significant as its themes. The folk make
their own uses of technological innovations as they become available, just as they always
have. The fragmentary record of printed and graphic folklore of the past includes typeset
folk verse and World War II-era blueprints of female nudes with their body parts labeled
as if they were airplanes. The practice in the 1990s includes use of facsimile machines to
transmit photocopied materials, with an increasing proportion of pictorial material that
that technology permits, and wholesale circulation of alphanumeric Xeroxlore by means
of the Internet.
Although Xeroxlore is an international phenomenon, the product of whatever
technology is available for its duplication and dissemination, all items ofXeroxlore are
not equally widespread. Xeroxlore is frequently adapted to different cultural contexts, but
many items are of interest to specific groups of people only, whether employees of a
particular corporation, the citizens of a particular country, or the speakers of a particular
language or dialect. Early Xeroxlore was largely male centered, but an increasing
percentage shows a female perspective: “Twenty-five reasons why cucumbers are better
than men.” Xeroxlore represents age-old human practices carried out by meahs of, and
influenced by, modern inventions, but, despite the international availability of the same
technologies, the same kind (and perhaps degree) of variation is to be found in it—based
on race, color, creed, gender, sexual orientation, political ideology, and so forth—as in
any other traditional practice. Michael J.Preston
References
Bell, Louis Michael, Cathy Makin Orr (Preston), and Michael James Preston, eds. 1976. Urban
Folklore from Colorado: Photocopy Cartoons. Research Monographs LD00079. Ann Arbor,
MI: Xerox University Microfilms.
Dundes, Alan, and Carl R.Pagter, eds. 1978. Work Hardand You Shall Be Rewarded: Urban
Folklore from the Paperwork Empire. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
——. 1987. When Youre up to YourAss in Alligators…: More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork
Empire. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
——. 1991. Never Try to Teach a Pig to Sing: Still More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork
Empire. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Orr (Preston), Cathy Makin, and Michael James Preston, eds. 1976. Urban Folklore from
Colorado: Typescript Broadsides. Research Monographs LD00069. Ann Arbor. MI: Xerox
University Microfilms.
Preston, Cathy Lynn, and Michael J.Preston, eds. 1994. Photocopylore from Colorado: Folk
Collections. Boulder, CO: Janus Academic Press.
Preston, Michael J. 1994. Traditional Humor from the Fax Machine. Western Folklore 53:147–170.