How do Urban Legends get started?

Question

Every time an email comes across my In Box that has a warning note to it, I always check www.snopes.com. But how do these "rumors" (for lack of a better term) get started? Better yet, why does it always have to be so horrifying? Example: needles with virsus attached to gas pumps, razors in benches at parks.....

Answer 1

It all started one day when Mikey, the kid from the Life cereal commercials washed down his Pop Rocks with a Can of Coke and exploded.

The poor little goat-less, leg-less boy from Bratislatvania, Mishka, watched this happen while he was mid-air jumping off the Empire State Building.

Luckily, the wind currents surrounding the Empire State Building blew him in through a window halfway down. In fact he landed in the mail room.

He promptly wrote of both these extraordinary experiences and stuck the message in a bottle, which he threw in the sewer. An alligator the size of a school bus ate an 80 foot Python down in the sewer, who incidentally had swallowed the message in the bottle.

Eventually, the bottle passed through the alligator and floated across the Atlantic where it washed ashore along the coast of Nigeria. An enterprising young man by the name of Umbu'k'ch'thul picked up the bottle and read the story.

Umbu'k'ch'thul happened to have a very rich uncle that had recently died, but due to political unrest in his native land, all the banking regulations were in turmoil.

Umbu'k'ch'thul decided that in order to pay for the funeral expense of Mikey the Life cereal kid, he would send an email out to his closest 142,536,862,377,223,254 friends letting them know that if they would be so kind as to open a banking account in their respective countries, he would deposit 42 trillion Rupinarlarios into their accounts and split it with them. (42 trillion Rupinarlarios = $2US). All he needed was plane fare to go to Mikey's funeral, oh and cab fare for the goat-less leg-less boy from Bratsilatvania, Mishka.

What Umbu'k'ch'thul didn't realize was that the goat-less leg-less boy from Bratsilatvania did not need any cab fare. Since Umbu'k'ch'thul did not bcc: his original message to his 142,536,862,377,223,254 friends, Mishka now had all those addresses.

Since Mishka was in dire need of medication to grow back his legs, he decided to sell Phar mA cEuti CALS over the internet. He also had a small 'member' and need enlargement pills. They tasted good, so he sold those over the Internet too.

Tragically, Mishka's life was cut short soon after he grew his legs (and 'member') back to full size - um... much 'fuller' size for the latter.

One day, while driving is new Porsche from the house he bought from Tom Vu for no money down, Mishka decided to go to the mall. It was there that he was attacked from behind after some mugger released Sarin Gas in the parking garage to knock him out and steal his wallet.

Upon hearing this news, Umbu'k'ch'thul wanted to go back home, but only had 21 trillion Rupinarlarios ($1US) to his name. It was either get eaten by an alligator and float home, or start giving out stock tips over the Internet.

Now you know the whole story about urban legends.

Answer 2

All you need is a group of people who spend the majority of their life in front of the TV. If you can tell a story that sounds plausable they will run and tell all of their friends.

To prove it, you could start a story about how there were a few defective Pentium 3 and Pentium 4 CPU's that were accidentally released from the factory during production and intel is offering a $1000 or a free laptop for every PC returned to their factory containing the defective chip. After all, they have a reputation to protect and that would be a small price to pay to prevent anything catostrophic from happeneing to their image.

After that, you can conclude your story by saying that if you ran the calculator accessory in Windows and added 4278 to 1967 you should get 6245. But if it comes up as something different, you know that the chip is defective.

This is a very believeable story and if you got it going far enough you would see people in offices "testing" every computer they came across.


This would

Answer 3

It's amazing how easy it is to start a rumor. A friend of mine and I used to drive a truck together. Boring work. So, just to be ornery, as we were coming east out of California one day, we decided to see how fast a rumor would spread. One of us got on the CB radio and started asking truckers coming west if they'd heard anything about the new law (totally nonexistan) in Kentucky that prohibited possession of a TV in the cab of a truck, and that if one was found the driver would be fined and the TV confiscated. Within 75 miles, all you heard on the radio was shock, alarm, and indignation, and the general determination not to drive through KY. We were still hearing about it when we reached Ohio.

Answer 4

I guess some people just aren't happy, unless they're freaking people out.

Answer 5

because no1 will pay attention to them if they arent scared. the person that made them is obviosly looking for attention

Answer 6

In the ghetto...