Why There's No New Mythology

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Myth is one of the oldest and most human forms of storytelling. It's been with mankind for as long as stories have been told. So why, then, does it seem to be dying out?

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[TheTaleFoundry]

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[ShadowEclipex]

I would say even stuff like Sherlock Holmes and Lovecraft could be considered borderline myths. Thanks to how much they have grown beyond their original states.

[weaverfromthenorth]

Wouldn't the SCP foundation be a mythology? Its written by many writers. Some stories don't work in the same cannon as others. They tell you literally to just think of your own cannon more often than not. You even have operating as the unexplainable. However it does not hit the beat of being there to explain how things really work but it does re-contextualize the world as being a part of the SCP universe

[katherineheasley]

American mythology is alive, if not well. When I was a child, I was taught about the first Thanksgiving and Columbus discovering America, etc. So many of those tales had only a passing resemblance to real history, but they were believed like articles of faith. You see a lot of people who react extremely strongly to the questioning of aspects of our history, as if doing so is attacking something sacred.

[victor]

Trying to look at the sun through a telescope in an attempt to spot Apollo seems like a pretty bad idea.

[joshuatran]

The Devil going to Georgia to challenge Johnny for a golden fiddle is modern mythology.

[SergioLeonardoCornejo]

Mythology isn't gone. We just talk about Roco's Basilisk, Mothman, and governments operating for the people instead of Baal, the chimera, and Zeus.

[infinitylord]

Two things
1. I believe there are still people who Worship the Gods and Goddesses from Hellenism (The Greek Pantheon) and the other Religions people typically assume are dead
2. This kinda of reminds me of the Cargo Cults that more or less created new religious movements around the American Soldiers that were based in Melanesia during WW2, recreating airplanes and runways out of bamboo and wood as well as preforming military marches in hopes that this will bring the American Soldiers back

[DAMDO]

what we refer to today as "folklore", "superstition" and "mythology" used to be considered religion back in those days, so as long as religion and most importantly _mysticism_ exists, i don't think mythology is gonna die out any time soon.. it's also important to know that a lot of modern day fiction take inspiration from mythologies as well..

[TheUniqueen]

"We still don't know where the original picture of the Backrooms was taken."
It was actually found recently (yes I do know this video was made 6 months ago)

[kaleidoscope]

This channel literally has the best intro music and animation on YouTube. It's so cute and nostalgic. It makes me feel like I'm a kid watching my favorite fantasy tv show.

[ShawnRavenfire]

What about the mythology of children, like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or the Boogieman? This is kind of a mythology, but unusual because it's age-specific.

[MathasiaJ]

One of my favorite points to talk about when this topic comes up, is one of the most timeless contexts for mythology: campfire stories. The Internet may be a powerful force for storytelling, but there will be people going camping and sitting down around a campfire as long as we have places to go camping. And the campfire is the home of storytelling. Everything from the Russian Sleep experiment to Pecos Bill naturally flows around the crackling of a fire.

[Dinuial]

Mythology =/= legendarium. The word Myth in anthropology means "sacred narrative", and it doesn't just refer to the legendarium, it has as much or more to do with the way the legendarium gets interpreted as the stories themselves. Think "core philosophy". This is how and why it intersects with religion. Religion, BTW, is defined by patterns of behavior, not specifics of belief, artifice, and edifice. It is the collection of rituals and philosophies by which a group defines and identifies itself. Humans think in narrative and are CONSTANLY mythologizing important figures and events. Mythology isn't dead, it just mutated.

[sarcasm-aplenty]

My siblings and I had so many oral stories that expanded the nonexistent lore of a young children's show. None of which are written down, but many remembered

[nightshaderose]

To propose that we aren't making myths anymore is to propose that we have already accurately discovered/explained *everything*, because a story doesn't become a myth until a more accurate explanation/description of the thing is found. Before that it's just the most widely accepted explanation.

[Solstice]

Mythology isn't dead, we just can't see it until several hundred years pass and people write about our mythology, based on folktales and smaller faiths that are forgotten and become an intrinsic part of culture, then we shall see our mythology, thats why it's so good to be an immortal robot

[redjaypictures]

One of my favorite explanations of myths actually comes from the “Extra Credits” channel

“Myths are not stories that are untrue, rather they are tales that don’t fit neatly into the historical record which serves as a foundation for a culture”

It depends on what you mean by ‘Dead’, there will always be an interest in past cultures, …Also Folklore, is the closest Modern society has to Mythology and that is always evolving.

[donnieenfield]

Myths aren't dead we just call them " Urban Legends "