FOLKLIFE IN FOCUS – Personal Experience Narratives: Tall Tales, Memorates, and More

Welcome to the Follow the Folklorist blog! Founded by Rebecca Snetlesaar and currently led by Nevada State Folklorist Brad McMullen, our blog is dedicated to exploring the rich tapestry of cultures, traditions, and celebrations that make Nevada such a vibrant state. Through our two main topics, Folklife in Focus and Notes from the Field, Brad will share his unique insights and experiences, providing a captivating glimpse into the diverse and fascinating world of Nevada folk traditions. Join us on this exciting journey as we delve into the stories, customs, and heritage that shape our state’s identity. Get ready to be inspired and amazed! 

Personal Experience Narratives: Tall Tales, Memorates, and More

One of the ways folklorists talk about different kinds of folklore is to talk about genre. There are some clear breaking points and divisions between different types of traditions—there’s a pretty obvious distinction between a dance and a quilt. Still, once you start trying to distinguish between similar kinds of folklore, it can get more complicated. What is the distinction, for example, between a fairy tale and a myth? And how are things like tall tales related to ghost stories? I can answer that first question later, if people are interested, but the second question is what I want to talk about today. 

The phrase “personal experience narrative” is a genre folklorists use to describe certain oral narratives, in particular those in which someone tells a story from their own personal perspective. This runs the gamut from telling your spouse about what happened at work to telling a group of kids about the time you saw a ghost at the Old Jenkins place. From the mundane to the supernatural, personal experience narratives are any kind of story where the teller relays something as if it happened to them. 

These stories can range from the mundane to the exaggerated to the supernatural. I’ve talked about tall tales before, the term used for exaggerated stories, but stories involving the supernatural are what folklorists call memorates. Whether the encounter being described is someone’s real experience or just a yarn they’re spinning (I’m not here to judge!), if it’s about an encounter with something beyond this world (a category that stretches from ghosts to cryptids to extraterrestrials to the fair folk and beyond), it is its own genre of folklore that many active traditions bearers have excelled at over the years. Many passive tradition bearers have engaged with it at some point in their lives. 

And if someone is good enough at telling ghost stories or memorialising office incidents, those stories will get repeated by others, losing that personal element. That is when the story moves from being a personal experience narrative to being a legend, but that’s something else I can talk about later, too. Personal experience narratives have been on my mind a lot lately as I’ve been travelling around the state interviewing people for Our Nevada Stories, and I’d love to hear yours. Feel free to reach out if you’ve got a personal experience narrative you want to share, or record it yourself at TheirStory. It lets you record your story from your phone, tablet, or computer (no downloads or special equipment required). If you know someone with a good one, consider recording them yourself with that same link. I can’t wait to hear what encounters people have had out in the Silver State! 

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