Thursday, November 13, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Urban legends
Urban Legends often contain exciting or scary stories about human fears. They begin in one area and get told to and from everyone. They are often told from person to person and changed every time they are told, and as they evolve they are harder to trace to find actual facts. Urban legends sometime are based in fact and in fiction. They are always told in a third person account hat the story happened to someone besides the story teller. Urban Legends all contain many of these criteria, and this can be shown by looking at many stories that are referred to as Urban Legends, including myths about Coca-Cola, the office, and gang violence.
One urban legend that is said to be true is that if you eat pop rocks with coke or Pepsi you will blow up. It has been proven to be false but some people still think that it’s true.
Another urban legend has to do with gang members and car headlights. The myth has been applied to various gangs including the Hell’s Angels and Bloods. The myth is that gang members are initiated into the gang by driving around at night with their headlights off. The first person to flash their headlights at the new gang member is to be shot by that gang member. It is said that one weekend will be the “gang initiation weekend.” This story is not true because there have never been any gang related shootings on the weekends discussed in the various myths. The story has occurred in various cities, and slightly different each time. This legend shows modern fear of crime and gangs. Is has been passed around and changed since the 1980s.
The final urban legend is one about a man in a New York office who died at work. He had a heart attack and was dead at his desk for five days before the cleaning crew finally noticed him there. The story was reported by British newspapers, who said that nobody noticed because the man was a quiet worker who was always the first one at work and the last one to leave. The newspaper said they heard the story on a New York radio station, and after it was reported by one source many others picked up the story. This story reflects modern fears that people work too much. It is not proven false but is very unlikely, due to the fact that the only sources that talked about the event were in Britain, and the event was said to have taken place in New York. There are also too many holes in the story. The name of his employer was not given in the story and there were no obituaries for any man having died in an office at that time and of course the fact that a body would smell within five days of dying.
These three stories fall squarely into the definition of urban legends. The stories reflect fears about modern life, including coke on people’s health, work on their time, and gang violence on their lives. The coke story, headlights story, and office story are all examples of stories that have been picked up and reused and changed gradually, and last they all are shocking and may stir fear into the readers. These urban legends contribute to the lesser known part of the definition of urban legends, the urban part.
One urban legend that is said to be true is that if you eat pop rocks with coke or Pepsi you will blow up. It has been proven to be false but some people still think that it’s true.
Another urban legend has to do with gang members and car headlights. The myth has been applied to various gangs including the Hell’s Angels and Bloods. The myth is that gang members are initiated into the gang by driving around at night with their headlights off. The first person to flash their headlights at the new gang member is to be shot by that gang member. It is said that one weekend will be the “gang initiation weekend.” This story is not true because there have never been any gang related shootings on the weekends discussed in the various myths. The story has occurred in various cities, and slightly different each time. This legend shows modern fear of crime and gangs. Is has been passed around and changed since the 1980s.
The final urban legend is one about a man in a New York office who died at work. He had a heart attack and was dead at his desk for five days before the cleaning crew finally noticed him there. The story was reported by British newspapers, who said that nobody noticed because the man was a quiet worker who was always the first one at work and the last one to leave. The newspaper said they heard the story on a New York radio station, and after it was reported by one source many others picked up the story. This story reflects modern fears that people work too much. It is not proven false but is very unlikely, due to the fact that the only sources that talked about the event were in Britain, and the event was said to have taken place in New York. There are also too many holes in the story. The name of his employer was not given in the story and there were no obituaries for any man having died in an office at that time and of course the fact that a body would smell within five days of dying.
These three stories fall squarely into the definition of urban legends. The stories reflect fears about modern life, including coke on people’s health, work on their time, and gang violence on their lives. The coke story, headlights story, and office story are all examples of stories that have been picked up and reused and changed gradually, and last they all are shocking and may stir fear into the readers. These urban legends contribute to the lesser known part of the definition of urban legends, the urban part.
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