Urban Legends

I have a long-standing interest in Urban Legends. Although I find it easy to spot and diffuse these bombs of bullshit now, like most people I have, in the past, been guilty of passing on the false rumours that they seek to spread rather unquestioningly. I can't say I ever particularly believed any of them to be purely factual, though that didn't stop me exercising the thoughtless, natural human desire to entertain, speculate, gossip and spread nasty rumours.

As soon as I started to receive them through the medium of email however, I could see through their deceitfulness with far greater clarity. There are always tell-tale formulae in these emails which enable you to pick them apart very simply. These emails always involve an unknown or distant person who is rarely named, are usually attributed to an anonymous or fictional source, always involve some kind of horror story and often attempt to sway the readers' conscience into spreading the rumour further and further afield by playing on their fears, concerns, naiveties and kindnesses.

One rumour that I came across, left on a table in work the other day, was a recently generated hoax regarding a date-rape style drug called Burundanga which an unknown man drugs a woman with by giving her a business card soaked in it. Although the Snopes website reveals that the drug is a very real one that is commonly used by gangs in Columbia, the means by which it is distributed to the victim in the email legend - that is, via tactile transmission - is not a way that it is actually possible to administer it. There are, then, deliberate mistruths, twistings of natural concerns and ghoulish scaremongerings at the hearts of emails such as these. 

Snopes categorises the Burundanga hoax in the category of 'Malicious Mayhem', which they describe as the category of 'mean-spirited pranks' which frequently get out of hand because of the amount of fear, concern and mistrust that they spread. For that, really, is the issue surrounding these legends. They seem, on the surface, to be giving people advice and reminding them to be on their guard and to look after themselves. But in reality, because they are in fact false and malicious by nature, what they are actually doing is spreading fear and stifling our trust in one another. How many people, on hearing about all of these terrible strangers who want to remove their organs, stalk them, steal their identities, drug them, abduct them or kill them, become more distrustful and fearful of their fellow man because of false and malicious rumours which are designed to do nothing but seize people's minds as part of some foul, sniggering, egoistic power-trip? 

Most people who forward these legends on, print them out or otherwise unintentionally spread their lies do so out of genuine fear and concern for others for the most part. But in some cases the recipients of some of these horribly constructed hoaxes do so out of superstition, as some promise bad luck if you don't forward them on, or out of a sort of emotional bribery or peer pressure, as some imply that the recipient must be somehow lacking, uncaring or selfish if they do not forward their information on. 

When you spot the obvious signs of a hoax email, which if you're aware of them should take no longer than a few seconds, you should stop and think about why exactly these rumours are being spread. What is it that causes somebody to generate these myths via email? Where do they usually begin and why? What are the real motivations behind them? Why do they want you to forward tales of fear to 'every female you know'? 

When you actually stop to address these questions you come to realise that despite their outward appearances of philanthropy or concern these mails are in fact cruel, divisive falsehoods invented by skilled liars who blend verifiable truths with unlikely situations or variations in order to spread a global network of fear.