Abstract: With the development of the information society, all social institutions have undergone changes. Folklore, as a sociolinguistic phenomenon, has also undergone a transformation of the concept of network folklore, the structure of which includes Internet memes. The aim of the work is to consider the development of Internet memes as a form of network folklore during a pandemic. The subject of the study is Internet memes as a new form of network folklore.
The secondary analysis of the research and data collection from Yandex Wordstat for 2023 were used to achieve the goal. The content analysis of memes on the platform Reddit was also carried out.
The results showed that memes during the pandemic period have gained their actuality as a new form of network folklore, which has a feature of mass psychotherapeutic impact through the possibility of escaping reality, as well as a more positive view of the situation. In the context of total digital communication during the coronavirus period, the Internet environment was saturated with content, making it difficult to identify the most popular Internet meme.
The results of the work can be used as a theoretical base containing a systematized range of works on the topic of network folklore and digital communication, as well as a base for practical application in the field of sociolinguistics and journalism. The novelty of the work lies in the detection of a new form of digital communication.
The development of language is closely linked to the development of society and its processes. The conclusions of the work confirm the importance of memes as a form of network folklore in a period of mass isolation due to the spread of coronavirus infection digital communication.

Abstract: Folklore is a very old phenomenon that has undergone great changes over the entire period of its existence. The telecommunications revolution has significantly changed our lives, and folklore has undergone the same changes, which has penetrated into the space of digital communications, social networks. This actualized the study of this topic in modern linguistic science. In accordance with the high relevance of this topic, folklore in social networks such as Twitter and Telegram became the object of the article's research.
In the course of the work, general scientific methods of induction, deduction, synthesis, abstraction were used, as well as particular methods of linguistic research – descriptive method, typological method, method of formalization and method of logical comparison.
Through the conducted research, it was found out that modern folklore has moved into the field of digital communications, where it has been actively developed, many new forms of folklore and channels for its dissemination have appeared.
The results of the work can be used as a theoretical basis containing a systematic range of works on folklore, as well as as a basis for practical application when working in the field of Internet communications, public relations, mass media, journalism.
Along with the development of society, language also develops, new forms of expression appear, thanks to the mass media it has become much easier to create and distribute them. Folklore is no exception in this sense – it has become one of the means of communication, expression of emotions to describe the current situation on the Internet, the pandemic is a vivid result of that. It has become the main theme of modern folklore since 2020.