Urban Legends

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What is an Urban Legend?

• A kind of modern folklore consisting of stories
  often thought to be factual by those who are
  circulating them.
• EX Humans Can Lick Too
• EX Bloody Mary

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Are they true or not?

• Urban Legends are not necessarily untrue, but
  they are often distorted, exaggerated, or
  sensationalized.
• EX Pop Rocks and Soda KILLS!

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Do they take place in the city?

• Despite the name, Urban Legends do not
  necessarily take place in an urban setting. The
  name is designed to differentiate them from
  traditional folklore.

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How are they circulated?

• Urban Legends, or ULs, are sometimes repeated in
  news stories and, in recent years, distributed by
  e-mail.
• People frequently say such tales happened to a
  friend of a friend-so often, in fact, that
  friend of a friend or FOAF, has become a
  commonly used term for this sort of story.

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How long have they been around?

• Some ULs have survived a long time, changing
  slightly over the years.
• EX Spiders in the Hairdo
• Others are new and reflect modern circumstances.
• EX The Great Kidney Heist

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Structure

• Most ULs are framed as stories, with plots and
  characters.
• The UL resembles a joke, especially in how they
  are told, only they are much darker in tone and
  theme.
• The elements of horror, mystery, fear, or humor
  are part of what make these tales so attractive.

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Different types of ULs

• Many ULs are presented as warnings, or
  cautionary tales.
• EX Someones in the backseat
• Other ULs are better known as widely dispersed
  misinformation.
• EX Automatic As in college upon death

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Types(Cont.)

• Horrific Crimes
• Many ULs are about horrific crimes, or other
  situations that might affect a lot of people.
• EX Roach eggs and envelopes
• if one hears a story like this, they might feel
  like they need to repeat it to friends.

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• 2001 Variant Email example contributed by Gerry
  F., 2 April 2001
• Subject just a note of warning... Yeah... so if
  I am going to be grossed out, I thought I would
  share it with all of you.
• A woman was working in a post office in
  California. One day she licked the envelopes and
  postage stamps instead of sing a sponge. That
  very day the lady cut her tongue on the envelope.
  A week later, she noticed an abnormal swelling of
  her tongue. She went to the doctor, and they
  found nothing wrong. Her tongue was not sore or
  anything. A couple of days later, her tongue
  started to swell more, and it began to get really
  sore, so sore, that she could not eat. She went
  back to the hospital, and demanded something be
  done. The doctor took an x-ray of her tongue, and
  noticed a lump. He prepared her for minor
  surgery. When the doctor cut her tongue open, a
  live roach crawled out. There were roach eggs on
  the seal of the envelope. The egg was able to
  hatch inside of her tongue, because of her
  saliva. It was warm and moist... This is a true
  story reported on CNN Andy Hume wrote Hey, I
  used to work in an envelope factory. You wouldn't
  believe the..... things that float around in
  those gum applicator trays. I haven't licked an
  envelope for years. To All I used to work for a
  print shop (32 years ago) and we were told NEVER
  to lick the envelopes. I never understood why
  until I had to go into storage and pull out 2500
  envelops that were already printed for a customer
  who was doing a mailing and saw several squads of
  roaches roaming around inside a couple of boxes
  with eggs everywhere. They eat the glue on the
  envelopes. I think print shops have a harder time
  controlling roaches than a restaurant. I always
  buy the self sealing type. Or if need be I use a
  glue stick to seal one that has the type of glue
  that needs to be wet to stick. PLEASE PASS THIS
  ON!!!!

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Types (Cont.)

• Many, like tall tales, contain a grain of truth.
• EX Coca-Cola, Fanta, and the Germans

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Children and ULs

• Some ULs originate from parents who wish to
  scare their children into doing what they are
  supposed to do.
• EX The Hairy-Armed Hitchhiker
• This leads to stories where someone (usually a
  child) is acting in a similar manner and winds up
  hurt, dead, or in trouble.
• EX The Hook
• The argument for such stories being created is
  that it lowers the misbehavior of children.
• EX The Clown Statue
• Drawbacks include
• phobias
• distrust of ones parents

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Old Times

• Similarly to the legends of older times, urban
  legends also concern unexplained phenomena, like
  ghosts or other apparitions.
• EX The Vanishing Hitchhiker

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Real or Fake?