Ze Blog's Meme

 

One prevalent creature popping up in pop culture memes is the skin-walker. A creature that takes on the forms of animals to get close to its prey (Typically you). This meme is usually in reference to dogs or deer.  

The origins of the American Skin-walker seem to come from Navajo folktales. They describe that of a terrible witch that transforms into animals and imitates them. The native tongue for them is "Yee naaldlooshii" which means "By means of it, it goes on all fours". The legends the Navajo told weren't as particularly gruesome as what's used now as in legend, Skinwalkers can also possess people and the legend depicts a struggle of who wins out in keeping the body. Today, they're depicted as murderous and ravenous monsters that hunt you in whatever form helps them most be it a 'peaceful' animal, the family pet, or a family member. But mostly the meme is made on deer and there's a potential reason for why the focus shifted towards deer as the usual Skinwalker form. 

Cronic Wasting Disease or CWD is a prion disease that effects namely cervids of North America, Norway, and Korea typically. Cervidae is a family of animal considered 'artiodactyla' or even-numbered toed hooved animals which consist of deer, moose, elk, reindeer, etc. It is a neurological disease that causes confusion, wasting, stumbling, and other neuro issues. Which doesn't sound too terrible until you hear of some of the stories hunters and hikers have reported of deer with it. There are stories of deer attacking animals and eating them, walking on their hind legs, and bashing their skulls into rocks. While the skullbashing is less relevant, the walking and meat-eating of a normally placid creature may have contributed to the preference of deer to Skinwalker stories. 

While prion diseases are currently incurable in humans right now, thankfully there is no evidence of CWD spreading to people who've consumed deer meat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin-walker

https://www.history.co.uk/shows/curse-of-skinwalker-ranch/from-skinwalkers-to-wendigos-4-native-american-myths-and-legends

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/navajo-skinwalkers/

https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/index.html

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/prion-diseases