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One of the phenomena of our society is the urban legend. An Urban Legend is a strange story that passes from person to person that usually has little basis in truth. Urban legends used to be told word of mouth around a campfire or late at night in a college dorm room. However, with the invention of the computer, urban legends can be emailed around the world. What distinguished an urban legend from an ordinary story? According to Jan Harold Brunvand in his book Too Good To Be True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends, in an urban legend “All of these things could conceivably happen, but it is thoroughly unlikely that they really did happen in all the different times and places that the legend tellers describe.”
One of the oldest and most popular Urban Legends is the “Guy with the Hook”. In this story a young couple is told not to park in the woods because a one-armed psychiatric patient has escaped in the area. Not heeding the warning, the couple park in a secluded spot anyway and proceed to neck, fogging up the windows. The girl thinks she hears a sound like metal tapping on her window, the couple panic and drive off. They pull into her driveway, laughing at themselves for getting so spooked, and the boy gets out and goes to open the passenger door for the girl and there is a bloody hook attached to the passenger door. There are several variations of this story, some in which the psycho kills the guy, the girl, or both of them.
Late nights, teenagers, and cars comprise more than a few urban legends. One of the most popular legends that have been recently recycled in a film "Urban Legend" is that of a particular gang initiation. In this tale, a gang drives around with their headlights off, waiting for someone to "flash" them as a prompt to turn on their lights. The first car to do this is picked as the gang’s victim and the gang member has to run them down and shoot them. This tale prompted much hysteria and reports (unconfirmed) that police departments are advising people in city areas not to flash cars driving in the dark.
College life has many urban legends attached, which make great stories when pulling an “all nighter”. One of the most popular dorm stories is the one where if your roommate commits suicide, you will get a guaranteed 4.0 GPA for that semester. The actual scoop on this tale is that (it is reported) to have happened in one instance, and it was supposedly just one adjusted test grade due to trauma experienced by the unfortunate roommate who found the suicide hanging in their room.
Another more unbelievable urban legend is the story of two roommates, one of which was very sexually active and always left a scarf on the door to let her roommate know she was entertaining. One night, the locked out roommate had a few drinks and was dead tired, so she saw the scarf on the room but entered anyway, heard some rustling of the sheets and moaning, but went over to her side of the room and crashed asleep. When she awoke she saw that the trampy roommate was brutally murdered and the blood was everywhere. A note was on the lamp table between the beds, which read “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light!”
Another much repeated UL is the kidney removal story, where a passed-out person wakes up in a tub of ice with a note attached to him or her (written in blood) to call 911 as their kidney (or other such organ) has been stolen to be sold as a transplant.
Urban legends can involve all sorts of people, places and things, like the soap product manufacturer that was rumored to be involved in Satanism, because of their celestial company logo. Word has it that a competing company started this Urban Legend.
People were reluctant to purchase fried chicken takeout during the 1970s when a rumor was rampant about a girl in a car at a latenight drive-in (again the standard formula) where the girl grabs a piece of chicken out of a bucket, bites into it and notices it tastes funny. She turns on the light and pulls off some of the "original crispy" batter and sees that it has a thin tail attached.
A definitive characteristic of an urban legend is that its original source is nearly impossible to track down, as the stories are modified and embellished as they change hands, much like a game of “telephone”. Each teller changes some detail and presents it as it is brand new. Most stories have two or more versions. An example of this would be the “dead child star” urban legend where you could fill in the blank for which child died violently or by suicide using any circa 1960s child who acted in a cereal commercial or sitcom.
Many Urban Legends have a short shelf life and disappear as fast as they are started, though some like “The Guy with the Hook” appear timeless bits of nonsense that continue to thrill and chill for generations.
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