LLANIDLOES, WALES – Died-in-the-wool traditionalists are bemoaning the gradual loss of community-minded events like May Day, and the Internet and social media are being blamed.

“I am completely disgusted. There isn’t a Maypole to be found within five-hundred miles these days,” said Eddie Stempowski, thirty-one, from London. “The next thing we know, traditions like Christmas and St. Valentine’s day will disappear too. You just watch.”

“And what about Maslenitsa? “ he continued, “It used to happen at the end of February and lasted a week. We celebrated the end of winter. My family cooked pancakes over fires and burnt straw scarecrows of winter. But last February when I lit a fire, a hook and ladder truck showed up. I blame those busybodies on social media.”

Mr. Stempowski is not alone in noting this alarming trend in disappearing traditions and his observations are backed up by solid research.

An Oxford University study has shown that traditions previously begun, carried on and passed down for hundreds of years are now being started, practiced and then discarded within minutes.

This flouting of habitual group behavior that, once established with symbolic meaning, used to persist and be passed on to later generations, does not bode well for the future.

“My friends and I had a tradition between eleven o’clock and noon of sending hashtagged photos to each other” said Tara Loudsen, who is studying first-year milk carton decorating at university. “But that was so this morning.”

“I tried to start a tradition in my family,” grumbled twenty-three year old Shawn Overmyer, looking down at his smartphone while he texted as he talked, not making eye contact, “And I set the boundaries for it and everything, but I couldn’t get anyone else interested in posting disappearing media to the Internet.”   Source: FNT Staff

Photo credit: Original images at: Sykes Cottages, CNBC