Atasözüyle Konuşan Dijital Kültür: “Kurt Kışı Geçirir Ama Yediği Ayazı Unutmaz”
A Digital Culture That Speaks in Proverbs: “The Wolf Survives the Winter but Never Forgets the Frost It Endured”

Summary/Abstract: Human communities and proverbs, like other components of culture, have coevolved over time. Richard Dawkins’s concept of the “meme”, introduced in The Selfish Gene (1976), extended evolutionary theory beyond biology and offered a new paradigm for explaining cultural transmission. Today, memes have become a dominant cultural form within digital communication environments, permeating even non-digital spheres of everyday life. Nevertheless, despite their importance at the intersection of folklore and communication studies, research on internet memes remains limited. This study discusses the potential directions of paremiological research in the digital communication era and analyzes the complex relationship between proverbs and internet memes. It focuses on the reproduction of the traditional Turkish proverb “The wolf survives the winter but never forgets the frost it endured ” (Kurt kışı geçirir ama yediği ayazı unutmaz) in meme form on Instagram. Between December 14, 2024, and February 14, 2025, 530 memes derived from this proverb were collected from 162 Instagram accounts through hashtag tracking and visual archiving. The collected data— comprising publication dates, engagement metrics, textual content, and visuals— were analyzed thematically. Findings reveal that proverbs maintain their presence in digital spaces, representing transformed forms of folklore, while memes have evolved into functional paremiological structures reflecting the cultural, political, and emotional discourses of contemporary society. In this context, the study offers new perspectives on digital communication studies and folklore analysis traditions.

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