The Man, the Myth, the Mothman: Cryptid Folklore and West Virginian Identity Formation

“Cryptids” as a theme within Appalachian (more specifically West Virginian) folklore has gained increased interest in recent years, yet limited scholarly attention has been paid as to why. Along similar lines, many West Virginians have reclaimed the West Virginia regional identity. In this study, I collected and analyzed the opinions of West Virginians on the West Virginia identity and on cryptids to argue that the popularity of cryptids within folklore (a reclamation) has coincided with the reclamation of the West Virginian identity. I surveyed a demographic of mainly students through an online survey to analyze their perspectives, gathering demographic data and qualitative answers to long-response questions. The results indicated that the majority of respondents felt that the West Virginia identity has been reclaimed, and that cryptids resonate with them as a folkloric means of state identity expression. I was interested in respondents' expressions of what outsiders thought of the state, and the reasons why the West Virginia identity needed to be reclaimed in the first place. The significance of the study is that it addresses gaps in anthropological literature in both the areas of regional identity formation and the folkloric study of cryptids, and allows a way for the recent popularity of cryptids in West Virginia folklore to be understood through an anthropological and identity-based lens.