Urban legend
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Urban legends (sometimes modern legend, urban myth, or simply legend) is a genre of folklore concerning stories about an unusual (usually scary) or humorous event that many people believe to be true but largely are not.[1]
These legends can be entertaining but often concern mysterious peril or troubling events, such as disappearances and strange objects or entities. Urban legends may confirm moral standards, reflect prejudices, or be a way to make sense of societal anxieties.[2]
In the past, urban legends were most often circulated orally, at gatherings and around the
Origin and structure
The term "urban legend", as used by folklorists, has appeared in print since at least 1968, when it was used by
Many urban legends are framed as complete
Urban legends will often try to invoke a feeling of disgust in the reader which tends to make these stories more memorable and potent. Elements of shock value can be found in almost every form of urban legend and are partially what makes these tales so impactful.[6] An urban legend may include elements of the supernatural or paranormal.[citation needed]
Propagation and belief
As Jan Brunvand points out,[7] antecedent legends including some of the motifs, themes and symbolism of the urtexts can readily be identified. Cases that may have been at least partially inspired by real events include "The Death Car" (traced by Richard Dorson to Michigan, United States);[7] "the Solid Cement Cadillac"[8] and the possible origin of "The Hook" in the 1946 series of Lovers' Lane murders in Texarkana, Texas, United States.[9][10] The urban legend that Coca-Cola developed the drink Fanta to sell in Nazi Germany without public backlash originated as the actual tale of German Max Keith, who invented the drink and ran Coca-Cola's operations in Germany during World War II.[11]
The narrator of an urban legend may claim it happened to a friend (or to a
Urban legends typically include common elements: the tale is retold on behalf of the original witness or participant; dire warnings are often given for those who might not heed the advice or lesson contained therein (a typical element of many e-mail phishing scams); and the tale is often touted as "something a friend told me", the friend being identified by first name only or not identified at all.[15] Such legends seem to be believable and even provocative, as some readers are led in turn to pass them on, including on social media platforms that instantly reach millions worldwide.[16] Many are essentially extended jokes, told as if they were true events.[17]
Persistent urban legends do often maintain a degree of plausibility, as in the story a
Relation to mythology
The earliest term by which these narratives were known, "urban belief tales", highlights what was then thought of as a key property: their tellers regarded the stories as true accounts, and the device of the FOAF (acronym for "Friend of a Friend" invented by English writer and folklorist Rodney Dale in 1976) was a spurious but significant effort at authentication.[20] The coinage leads in turn to the terms "FOAFlore" and "FOAFtale". While at least one classic legend, the "Death Car", has been shown to have some basis in fact,[21] folklorists have an interest in debunking those narratives only to the degree that establishing non-factuality warrants the assumption that there must be some other reason why the tales are told, re-told and believed.[22] As in the case of myth, the narratives are believed because they construct and reinforce the worldview of the group within which they are told, or "because they provide us with coherent and convincing explanations of complex events".[23]
Documentation
The
Television shows such as Urban Legends, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, and later Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed, feature re-enactments of urban legends, detailing the accounts of the tales and (typically later in an episode) revealing any factual basis they may have. The Discovery Channel TV show MythBusters (2003–2016) tried to prove or disprove several urban legends by attempting to reproduce them using the scientific method.[citation needed]
The 1998 film Urban Legend featured students discussing popular urban legends while at the same time falling victim to killings re-enacting them.[31]
Between 1992 and 1998
The British writer Tony Barrell has explored urban legends in a long-running column in The Sunday Times. These include the story that Orson Welles began work on a Batman movie in the 1940s, which was to feature James Cagney as the Riddler and Marlene Dietrich as Catwoman;[33] the persistent rumour that the rock singer Courtney Love is the granddaughter of Marlon Brando;[34] and the idea that a famous 1970s poster of Farrah Fawcett contains a subliminal sexual message concealed in the actress's hair.[35]
Genres
Crime
As with traditional urban legends, many internet rumors are about crimes or crime waves – either fictional or based on real events that have been largely exaggerated.[36][37][38] Such stories can be problematic, both because they purport to be relevant modern news and because they do not follow the typical patterns of urban legends.[39]
Medicine
Some legends are medical folklore, such as the claim that eating watermelon seeds will result in a watermelon growing in the stomach, or that going outdoors just after showering will result in catching a cold.[40] Many Old wives' tales have grown around the identification of ailments, real and imagined, and the recommended remedies, rituals, and home-grown medical treatments to treat them.[citation needed]
Internet
Internet urban legends are those spread through the internet, as through Usenet or email
Paranormal
Paranormal urban-legend stories usually involve someone encountering something supernatural, such as a cryptid[45]—for instance, Bigfoot or Mothman,[46] legendary creatures for which evidence is lacking but which have legions of believers.[47] Research shows that people experiencing sudden or surprising events (such as a Bigfoot sighting) may significantly overestimate the duration of the event.[48]
Marketing
Companies have been accused of hiding "secret messages" behind their logos or packaging,[49] as in the case of the old Procter & Gamble symbol, supposedly an occult figure that gave panache to the brand. (If the thirteen stars in the symbol were connected a certain way, it would show three sixes in a row.)[50] Similarly, a video of a Christian woman "exposing" Monster Energy for using the Hebrew alphabet symbol for the letter "M" to disguise the number 666 went viral on Facebook.[51]
Some urban legends have been used intentionally for comic purposes in advertising. The most well-known examples include the use of a
See also
References
Citations
- ^ "Urban legend | Definition, Meaning, Examples, & Facts | Britannica". www.britannica.com. 16 January 2024. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
- ^ "Urban Legend Definition". Snopes.com. 10 March 2011.
- ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 2d ed. 1989, entry for "urban legend", citing R. M. Dorson in T. P. Coffin, Our Living Traditions, xiv. 166 (1968). See also William B. Edgerton, "The Ghost in Search of Help for a Dying Man", Journal of the Folklore Institute, Vol. 5, No. 1. pp. 31, 38, 41 (1968).
- ^ "Urban Legend Definition". Snopes.com. 10 March 2011. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
- ^ "How Urban Legends Work". HowStuffWorks. 16 May 2001. Retrieved 10 January 2022.
- ^ Robson, David. "What makes an urban legend?". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
- ^ a b Mikkelson, Barbara (10 August 2006). "snopes.com: Death Car". Urban Legends Reference Pages. Retrieved 30 June 2010.
- ^ "snopes.com: Cement in Lover's Car". Urban Legends Reference Pages. 10 August 2006. Retrieved 3 July 2007.
- ^ Mikkelson, Barbara (2 June 2008). "snopes.com: The Hook". Urban Legends Reference Pages. Retrieved 30 June 2010.
- Turner Broadcasting System Inc. Archived from the originalon 31 August 2009. Retrieved 28 August 2010.
- ^ Mikkelson, Barbara (13 September 2004). "The Reich Stuff?". Urban Legends Reference Pages. Retrieved 9 January 2007.
- ^ Brunvand, p. 423
- ^ Gross, Dave. "The "Blue Star" LSD Tattoo Urban Legend Page". the Lycaeum Drug Archives. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 29 August 2010.
- ^ a b Mikkelson, Barbara (8 December 2008). "snopes.com: Flashing Headlights Gang Initiation". Urban Legends Reference Pages. Retrieved 28 August 2010.
- ^ "Heard the one about..." BBC News. 27 October 2006. Archived from the original on 4 June 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2010.
- ^ Gelfand, Lynn (2014). They are watching you: The Slender Man and the Terrors of 21st Century Technologies.
- ^ Brunvand, p. 223
- ^ Procter and Gamble v. Amway 242 F.3d 539
- ^ Brunvand, p. 333
- ^ Brunvand, p. 459
- ^ Richard Dorson. "American Folklore" University of Chicago Press, 1959, pp. 250–52.
- ^ a b Adam Brooke Davis."Davis, Adam Brooke. "Devil's Night and Hallowe'en: The Linked Fates of Two Folk Festivals." Missouri Folklore Society Journal XXIV (2002) 69–82 Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ John Mosier "War Myths" Historically Speaking: The Bulletin of the Historical Society: VI: 4, March/April 2005.
- S2CID 144646252.
- JSTOR 800777.
- ^ Donovan, p.129
- ^ "How Urban Legends Work". HowStuffWorks. 16 May 2001. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
- ^ "The U.S. Department of Energy has decided that it no longer wants to be associated with hoaxbusters.ciac.org so this site has been permanently shut down". Archived from the original on 22 September 2008.
- ISBN 9781573563758. Retrieved 26 January 2020..
A number of Internet sites are available regarding urban legends and hoaxes, such as [...] the Compute Incident Advisory Committee and Department of Energy's HoaxBusters site at http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org
- ^ "Slender Man case: girl who attacked classmate gets 25-year hospital sentence". the Guardian. 21 December 2017. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
- ^ Ebert, Roger. "Urban Legend movie review & film summary (1998) | Roger Ebert". Retrieved 6 March 2024.
- ISBN 9780863698972. Retrieved 26 January 2020.
- ^ Tony Barrell (5 July 2009). "Did You Know: Orson Welles". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
- ^ Tony Barrell (13 September 2009). "Did You Know: Courtney Love". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
- ^ Tony Barrell (4 October 2009). "Did You Know: Farrah Fawcett". The Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 13 March 2012.
- ^ Pamela Donovan, No Way of Knowing: Crime, Urban Legends, and the Internet (Psychology Press, 2004).
- ^ Pamela Donovan, Crime legends in a new medium: Fact, fiction and loss of authority, Theoretical Criminology; vol. 6 no. 2; May 2002; pp. 189–215.
- ISBN 9780226770062. Retrieved 1 March 2022.
Although isolated and misleading statistical sound bites make the news, the long-term stability of low rates of serious crime by females is a rule with very few exceptions. As of 2008, the girl crime wave is properly classified as an urban legend.
- ISBN 0203507797.
- ^ "Medical Myths and Hoaxes: Debunked? You Be The Judge". April 2017.
- ^ Chris Frost, (2000) "Tales on the Internet: making it up as you go along", ASLIB Proceedings, Vol. 52 Iss: 1, pp. 5–10
- ^ "Chain Linked". Snopes.com. 5 May 2005. Retrieved 21 November 2012.
- ^ Blank, Trevor (2007). "Examining the Transmission of Urban Legends: Making the Case for Folklore Fieldwork on the Internet".
- ISBN 9781598846331.
- ^ "Definition of CRYPTID". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
- ^ "An Overview of Paracryptozoology". Supernatural Magazine. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
- PMID 28642726.
- ^ Radford, Benjamin; Frazier, Kendrick (January 2017). "Felt Time: The Psychology of How We Perceive Time". Skeptical Inquirer. 41 (1): 60–61.
- ISBN 9781601630018.
- ISBN 1-56389-165-4.
- ^ LaCapria, Kim (10 November 2014). "Does the Monster Energy Drink Logo Include the Number 666?". Snopes.
- ^ Andrews, Evan (14 May 2009). "Top 10 Most Famous Cryptids". Toptenz.net. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
General and cited sources
- Jan Harold Brunvand (2012). Encyclopedia of Urban Legends: Updated and Expanded Edition. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-598847208.
- Pamela Donovan (2004). No Way of Knowing: Crime, Urban Legends, and the Internet. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-203-50779-7.
Further reading
- Enders, Jody (2002). Death by Drama and Other Medieval Urban Legends. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-20788-9.
- Bennett, Gillian; Smith, Paul (2007). Urban legends : a collection of international tall tales and terrors. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. OCLC 76864037.
- De Caro, F. A. (2009). An anthology of American folktales and legends. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe. OCLC 212627165.