Oral Histories Everywhere

Oral history is a method historians employ to gather information about historic events from people who lived though those events. Its goal is to capture additional perspectives different from official historic records like newspaper articles, political speeches, or once secret memos. We’ve seen oral histories from survivors of the holocaust, slavery, and wars, shedding light on individual fates. Pretty heavy stuff, very important work.

Now, oral histories are all over the Web: There’s one for the recently axed BuzzFeed News, one for MTV News, which shares the same fate, and another for Sydney’s declining clubbing scene. Whenever someone sat down with a group of people to interview them to recount the rise and fall of something that was once important to some; it gets the oral-history stamp of approval.

And there’s more where that came from:

• The K-Pop group BTS announced the oral history of the group in book form,
• An oral history of sports betting,
• Chris Pratt and James Gunn do the same for the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise,
• The oral history of Legends of Tomorrow is looking for funding, and
• Another one for Lary David’s flopped film debut.

All published within the recent weeks. It could be a case of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Could be a trend too: The international guild of online writers has discovered a way to make headlines sound more profound; to coat reporting of mundane topics with an aura of historic importance.