Ghosts in the Streets of Athens: Ghostlore and Social Media

Abstract

Ghostlore or ghost-lore is, in short, a subgenre of folklore that focuses on ghostly tales which can be found in both pre-industrial and contemporary contexts. The majority of these stories are connected to houses and other buildings that are either dilapidated or inhabited but can be described mainly as private places. Due to the nature of public places -whether they are connected to people’s experiences or could be described as non-places- it is odd to ‘find’ ghosts there, as it is odd to ‘find’ them in parks or streets. However, they remain social places open to multiple interpretations and symbolisms. Through pertinent online entries, mostly uploaded by groups describing their practices as ‘investigating’ the paranormal or the occult, this paper aims to discuss the connection between ghost-lore and public places, mainly from the city of Athens. Furthermore, a very important aspect demonstrating the effectiveness of these online entries are the comments made by the netizens following these ‘investigations’, which result in the formation of new groups. These groups are created online, but are driven by a common interest in ghosts in the offline world. Thus, in order to study how the physical public space is being reinterpreted in light of the supernatural, the paper intends to approach the digital public space of social media.