How do urban legends start

We think you have a great attitude-- if you can't ride today, there's always tomorrow! You are definitely on the right path! We think you're on to something, Nyla! What a spectacular guess for tomorrow's Wonder Wohoo, we're excited you're here today, Nira! We are happy that you enjoyed today's legendary Wonder! We think it's funny to imagine alligators in the subway in a big city! What a stellar guess!

The Wonder video features an urban legend that some students created. They did a great job of using their imaginations, but we don't know the details about the urban legend they created. We think it has something to do with the birds flying around What do you think, Sierra?

Hey there, Demitrius! Thanks for visiting us today-- we are having a great time with all our Wonder Friends as we think about all kinds of urban legends! It all depends on what you believe, Demitrius! Many folks believe that urban legends are true, including Big Foot, or Sasquatch! We Wonder if you have heard of Big Foot?

That's an excellent Wonder guess, Melisa S! We think you're on the right track We Wonder what you have learned about from today's legendary Wonder? Hey there, Manny! Thanks for visiting us today! We've been learning about all kinds of urban legends today, and we think Bloody Mary is one of them! While we cannot say for certain that it's an urban legend, we think it sounds like one! What do you think? Hey there, Mrs. Nixon's Class! What a marvelous Monday to Wonder!

It sure was creative, and we thought all the different sound effects and colors gave us an eerie feeling!

We don't know if it's true or not we've never spotted Big Foot but many folks believe he's real! Did you know the other name for Big Foot is Sasquatch? Great question, Ahmed Al-hilali! Usually urban legends are stories that are too strange to be real The only way we can know for sure is if there are witnesses to these events. We Wonder if you know of any stories that sound too crazy to be true? You did a great job describing the hitchhiker story-- creepy and mysterious!

We Wonder if urban legend stories are told around the campfire? Hey there, Malik, we sure are learning about all kinds of urban legends today! Of course, we didn't know Mr. Disney personally, but we understand how rumors can get started!

This sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie! Thanks for sharing your comment, Malik! We think it's interesting to learn about how urban legends begin and how they continue, too!

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You have answered 0 of 3 questions correctly and your score is:. Want to add a little wonder to your website? Help spread the wonder of families learning together. We sent you SMS, for complete subscription please reply. Follow Twitter Instagram Facebook. What is an urban legend? Can an urban legend be true? Are there any local urban legends popular where you live? Here are a few popular urban legends you may have heard at one time or another: The Good Samaritan: This story has been around for many years in various forms.

Wonder What's Next? Try It Out What urban legends are you familiar with? Keep the learning going by checking out one or more of the following activities with a friend or family member: Have you heard any good urban legends lately? You may have heard some of the most popular urban legends discussed in today's Wonder of the Day. But what about urban legends that might only be popular where you live? Are there any local urban legends you're aware of?

Ask friends and family members if they know of any good local urban legends that are popular in your area or got their start or take place where you live. Modern technology has made it much easier to pass urban legends along. Thanks to the Internet, email and social media outlets, such as Facebook, urban legends can be quickly passed around the world in a matter of seconds.

However, the Internet also makes it easy to check out the veracity of these stories before you pass them on as well. Do some independent Internet research on any urban legends you're curious about!

Up for a challenge? Make up your own urban legend! No, we don't want you to spread falsehood deliberately, but it can be fun to create your own fictional story that sounds just a bit like reality. You can keep it to yourself or share it with just a few friends or family members. What will your urban legend be about? If you need some inspiration, check the local news for some interesting or bizarre stories.

Perhaps you can turn one of them into your very own unique urban legend! Did you get it? Test your knowledge. What are you wondering? Wonder Words enduring audience evolved widespread teeming cautionary gist cryogenically fictional Take the Wonder Word Challenge. Join the Discussion. May 9, On the Internet and in universities all over the world, you'll find a lot of people interested in the role of urban legends in modern society.

Many folklorists argue that the more gruesome legends embody basic human fears , providing a cautionary note or moral lesson telling us how to protect ourselves from danger. The most famous cautionary urban legend is the "hook-hand killer" tale. In this story, a young couple on a date drive off to a remote spot to "park. The girl wants to leave, but her boyfriend insists there's nothing to worry about. After a while, the girl thinks she hears a scratching or tapping sound outside the car.

The boyfriend assures her it's nothing, but at her insistence, they eventually drive off. When they get to the girl's house, the boyfriend goes around to the passenger side to open her door. To his horror, there is a bloody hook hanging from the door handle. The warning and moral lesson of this story are clear: Don't go off by yourself, and don't engage in premarital intimacy!

If you do, something horrific could happen. When the story first circulated in the s, parking was a relatively new phenomenon, and parents were terrified of what might happen to their kids. Most people who tell the story today don't take it very seriously. Like the tale of the vanishing hitchhiker, it has graduated from urban legend to "campfire ghost story," a tale passed on to others for amusement, not told as gospel truth.

As gang violence increased in the s, cautionary tales began to focus more on criminal groups, rather than lone lunatics. In many cities around the United States, concerned citizens have been spreading a report of a gang initiation rite in which gang members drive at night with their headlights turned off.

When another driver flashes his or her headlights to signal that their car's lights are out, the gang pursues and kills them. Even people who don't believe this wholeheartedly may err on the side of caution. After all, with so much gang violence going on, why take a chance by flashing your lights? The rash of stories circulating about food contamination is a logical extension of the way Americans eat these days. More often than not, we are fed by faceless corporations and nameless restaurant employees.

We're aware that we are putting a lot of trust in people we know nothing about, and this fear is played out in our urban legends. As a general rule, if an urban legend touches on something many people are afraid of, it'll spread like wildfire. Urban legends also express something about the individual who believes them. You are much more likely to believe and pass on legends that have some resonance with your personal fears or experience.

In this way, urban legends provide valuable insight into the cultures that create them. Legends evolve as cultures evolve, so new themes and variations pop up all the time. People didn't begin talking about "urban legends" until the s and s, but they have existed in some form for thousands of years.

Urban legends are simply the modern version of traditional folklore. In most cultures of the world, folklore has always existed alongside, or in place of, recorded history. Where history is obsessed with accurately writing down the details of events, traditional folklore is characterized by the "oral tradition," the passing of stories by word of mouth. In this tradition, the storyteller will usually add new twists and turns to a story related by another storyteller.

Unlike mythology, these stories are about real people in believable situations. Just as with modern legends, old folk tales often focus on the things a society found frightening. Many of the "fairy tales" we read today began life as believable stories, passed from person to person.

Instead of warning against organ thieves and gang members, these tales relayed the dangers of the forest. In old Europe, the deep woods was a mysterious place to people, and there were indeed creatures that might attack you there. We do have a lot of fears in common with our ancestors, of course.

As is clear in " Snow White and the Seven Dwarves," the fear of food contamination has been around for quite a while. The methods of passing urban legends have evolved over time. In the past 10 years, there has been a huge surge of urban legends on the Internet. The most common venue is forwarded e-mail. This storytelling method is unique because usually the story is not reinterpreted by each person who passes it on. A person simply clicks the "Forward" icon in their e-mail and types in all his friends' e-mail addresses.

Having the original story gives e-mail legends a feeling of legitimacy. You don't know the original author, but they are speaking directly to you. Forwarded e-mail legends are often the work of one or more pranksters, not the product of many different storytellers. For these authors, the thrill is seeing how far a legend will spread.

As with word-of-mouth legends, there are all sorts of e-mail hoaxes. Cautionary legends are very common in e-mail forwards, often focusing on made-up computer viruses or Internet scams. Even a skeptical person might forward this sort of message, just in case it's true. A similar sort of e-mail legend is the charity or petition appeal, which outlines a good cause or a horrible miscarriage of justice and then instructs you to add your name to a petition and send it on to everybody you know.

There are real e-mail petitions, of course, and these do help out good causes. It can be tricky to spot a hoax, but one indicator is that the e-mail includes no address to send the list to when it is completed.

Additionally, if a message begins with "This is not a hoax or urban legend," it probably is. One of the most famous e-mail legends, the Neiman Marcus cookie recipe, combines a great story with an appeal to fight injustice.

The e-mail is a personal account of a mother and her daughter eating at a Neiman Marcus store. After their meal, they order a couple of Neiman Marcus chocolate cookies, which they enjoy immensely. The mother asks the waitress for the recipe, and is told that she can buy it for "two-fifty.

The customer-service representative refuses to refund her money, because the company's recipe is so valuable that it cannot be distributed cheaply. In order to exact revenge on the company, the mother claims in the e-mail, she has decided to distribute the recipe freely over the Internet, and she encourages you to send it to everyone you know. In fact, when the message was first circulated, Neiman Marcus didn't even make such a chocolate chip cookie.

Amazingly, this story has been around in various forms since the s. In the s, the overcharging company was Mrs. These sorts of e-mail stories demonstrate just how deep-rooted urban legends are.

No matter how much "information technology" we develop, human beings will always be drawn in by the unsubstantiated rumor. In fact, information technology actually accelerates the spread of tall tales. By definition, urban legends seem to have a life of their own, creeping through a society one person at a time.

And like a real life form, they adapt to changing conditions. It will always be human nature to tell bizarre stories, and there will always be an audience waiting to believe them.

However, in the case of less prominent famous figures, rejections are less widely reported and stories often continue to appear on social media. From a psychological standpoint, false news has been around for much longer.

It is an inherent feature of news reporting and precedes social media. We also want to feel like we perceive the world accurately, just as with urban legends. These biases direct people to accept information that is consistent with their worldview, regardless of accuracy. Sociologically, information contained within urban legends and false news offers insights into societal fears and anxieties.

Concerns stimulate new accounts, influence narrative longevity and determine when old stories resurface. But can you stop it? There are several potential ways to restrict the circulation. For example, media outlets and providers of internet-related services can use international fact checking networks. Similarly there are great debunking websites for urban legends, such as Snopes. Social media now also encourages users to report fake stories and provide guidelines for spotting fake news, and Facebook recently launched a UK campaign to raise awareness around this issue.

Many internet organisations are collating lists of fake news websites and alerting potential visitors to sources of dubious information. Software solutions are also in development. However, the effectiveness of these interventions depends on how aware and educated the user is. Often, stories spread so quickly that often it is a case of limiting the spread of fake stories rather than eliminating them. In the case of urban legends, history suggests they will find ways to evolve and prevail.