What exactly is an ‘urban legend?’ Is it modern folklore? Does it have validity? Is it a part of our memes? Is it all of the above?
Mainly, do urban legends fill some sort of ‘need’ within Homo sapiens for ritual and belief that’s been taken from us by scientific ‘explanations’ and ‘rationality?’
I’ll try to drum up discussion by giving some examples of urban legends–but first I’d like to differentiate them from internet rumors that took hold and spread like a meme–the two most recent of which are the President’s birth certificate and the May 21st Rapture. There are still people who believe the President wasn’t born in Hawaii and there are still people who believe in the coming rapture–but that it’s been postponed until Oct. 21st.
Urban legends have been around for ages. I’d say the Salem witches came into being as the result of both urban legend and ergot poisoning, and that the story was a thankfully short-lived meme.
The true urban legends inspire fear; as a matter of fact, many of them have inspired the plot lines for scream/horror flicks. They are the things that go bump in the night; e.g., the unknown. They have many variations and adaptations depending on the ‘times.’ The story of The Man Upstairs about a teen-aged baby-sitter who’s in charge of 3 children who are asleep when she arrives at the house is one such. The girl starts getting phone calls from an unknown man who eventually asks if she’s looked in on the children. Since she’s been told by the parents that the kids are asleep and not to bother them, she hasn’t. She turns down the lights to see if she can see anyone outside–and gets another phone call asking her why she turned down the lights–so she knows she’s being watched. She calls 911 after the man on the telephone tells her he wants to see her blood all over him. When the doorbells rings she trepidatiously answers it to find a policeman, gun drawn, on the porch. Just then, the door to the children’s bedroom opens and reveals a man, covered in blood. He’s killed all the children.
This is very like the story of The Clown in the Corner. In this story, the baby-sitter is again there to tend sleeping children in a huge house with many rooms. The father tells the girl to watch TV in a given room. She does so, but becomes bothered by the clown statue in the corner which she imagines is somehow watching her. She finally calls the parents at the number they’d given her and explains how she’s bothered by the clown statue in the corner of the room where she’s watching television. The father tells her to immediately rouse the children and take them next door to call 911, she asks why–the father says, “We have no clown statue.”
These stories are seen to be modern folklore–they’re warnings, just as Grimm’s Fairy Tales often contain warnings. They appeal because they strike our basic fear–fear. As modern folklore, they contain ‘truths’ that are our memes.
And I believe they bring a sort of wonder to our lives that we’ve somehow lost. Does this make sense to anyone?
"Double your brightness, double your fun,
With Doublemint, Doublemint,
Doublemint Gum!
That’s a meme.
No one seems to feel that there is any importance to legend, myth and folklore in their lives–or this is a subject that’s already been beaten to death. May I declare the thread officially dead, or does it have to slip beyond the bottom of the page with no responses before it can be declared so? Don’t want to step on any toes, doncha know. 