The evolution and survival of Urban Legends have positive, negative and historical impact on humans. They shape and make the thought of most people. This also adds on to the truth revealed and mysteries of Urban Legends. Urban Legends are “those bizarre, whimsical, 99 percent apocryphal, yet believable stories that are too good to be true” (James). People often believe them even though there are many contradicting facts against them. Urban Legends tend to reflect fears and horrible nightmares. They also are most likely to be the start or the cause of these fears existing. Most of the time, legends suggest rewards for good actions or thoughts. The worst punishments are often suggest to be for bad behavior (Wickersham). This supports the …show more content…
It can literally make a legend die faster or last longer. The cultural sens brings relevance to the story. The urban legend may not be as effective to the listener if the listener cannot relate. For example, the urban legend of “La Llorona” some people can relate to it because of the cultural background. Others can relate because they lived in the neighborhood and were raised through that urban legend. “It is the lack of information that gives rise to new legends or retelling” (Whipps). The lack of information and details gives the storyteller the freedom to create their own version that can be more relatable to the audience. Cultural effects applies to another topic which is “Same but Different”. Many urban legends are different but similar in some way or in certain views. There can be one story and multiple different versions throughout the world. The culture is what brings it to life. Cultural gives the legends importance. There can be a legend with completely same plot but different information and details are being shared to fit the location (Stubberfield). For instance, you cannot telling an urban legend about the hot and dry weather if you are in Antarctica. It wouldn’t make sense. That is why there needs to be a little freedom for the
Culture is a unique way to express the way one shows the world and others how different each one is. Culture affects the way one views the world and others. This is demonstrated in the stories “Ethnic Hash” by Patricia Williams, “Legal Alien” by Pat Mora, and “By Any Other Name” by Santha Rama Rau. These stories come together to show examples of how people of different cultures are viewed by others as different. Mora, Williams, and Rau all have very unique styles, and this is shown throughout the following quotes.
Perhaps some of the best stories told are classified as urban legends. Urban legends have become a part of culture, and a way to tell stories. They can tell us things about ourselves and about how we lead our lives. They serve to entertain us, but can also teach us lessons, such as morals to live by. Urban legends are passed on between generations, and become a part of the oral history of a place. Whether the stories are true or not, urban legends are often taken to hold at least some truth about a culture. No matter how radical some of the stories may be, people often take the urban legends to be true. People may take these stories to be true simply for entertainment purposes, but mostly because the morals the stories teach are important. Urban legends can become a part of the place where they originate, and can help define a culture, and shape its history.
Urban legends can be effective conveyors of entertainment and morals. We all have heard urban legends during our lives, whether it was in a dorm room, the dinner table, or around the campfire, but rarely do we take the time to fully appreciate the value of the stories. Urban legends have this rare ability to make us question reality. We have this feeling in our minds that says “Oh, this cannot possible be real,” but then our imagination questions that and reels us in and plants a lingering doubt. David Emery, a writer and follower of urban folklore, defines urban legends as “told [to be] true, and plausible enough to be believed.” Besides this lingering suspense, urban legends and similar folklore often have underlying morals that are hard to uncover, but when they are, the stories become clear. When collecting stories, the best and most unique one was a local story native to a town in New York State. I vividly remember how he told the story:
The significance of oral tradition is stories that are told in which people formulate, pick up, and carry along as part of their cultural freight and these stories are told by people through folklore which is a form of oral tradition. Oral tradition helped shape our culture because we continue to do what we have been told orally by our ancestors as they passed it down through the generations. Culture shaped folklore by using
Through studying Urban Legends in class, I have become very interested in them. For this field report I decided to take this Urban Legend to see if there was anyone else who heard it, and to see if it was being passed on or if was just my deviant mother. My research consisted of two interviews. I interviewed a few of my friends that go to Indiana University and asked them if they would help me with my research. They agreed to an interview. With the interviews I compared variants of a single Urban Legend. I wanted to see how each individual. s story differed, even though they were the same story. This is what makes an Urban Legend.
My family, most being first generation immigrants, has at times a slightly negative view of American culture. Because of this, many of the family dinner conversations are about the differences between American and Iranian cultures and often how the Iranian culture is better in some ways. To support this theory many urban legends are brought up that show the “dark side” of the American culture. For example, when the family was gathered together for the Iranian new year, a version of the famous legend about the traveler who was drugged and robbed of his organs in a hotel room was told by a family member. It is important to note that he told the story in Farsi, which means that I am translating and not merely re-telling the story verbatim.
The overall message that can be derived from the myths is that humans can be overly judgmental and make decisions based off what they see without thinking. We all do this and its something that can be minimized if we all try to be as truthful as possible and stay away from other humans that don’t respect you and your family. There are many wicked, mean spirited and jealous humans out in the world and its our job to determine who they are and to stay away form them. Life’s too short why not listen to what others have to say, re-think every decision and have control over our emotions.
Why do people tend to falsify tales when in a tragic setting? Many authors of great books have credited their amazing stories to the human behavioral tendency of fabricating stories and having dreams to distract them from reality. Krik? Krak! Is a collection of such stories, in which every story is somehow linked in a not-so-obvious way.
Urban legends are the supernatural folklore of our modern society. From one generation to the next, they orally travel throughout the world, constantly changing from one region to the next. Although cultural variations exist, the core of all these urban legends remains the same, to unveil the universally known individual and societal fears. “The Graveyard Wager” is a timeless urban legend told again and again, and the one of which I will explore more in depth.
A good urban legend is like a good movie. It unfolds perfectly and it appeals to the audience’s hopes, fears, and anxieties. The urban legend I am about to describe was told by a first year female biology major at the University. She is of Indian descent and both her parents work in the biotechnology field. I collected this story on a Sunday night in the dorm. The fact that it was nighttime helped create the proper mood for the story. It was told in a dimly lit dorm room. The story was told with an eerie tone of voice, with emphasis and excitement during certain parts. The final part of the story was told in a mysterious fashion, which helped with the delivery of the ending.
Throughout the years that humans have roamed this land we call earth they have made myths. Myths that give them a certain sense of security to fill that unknown knowledge they have. The most common myth is the cultural myth. What is a cultural myth? A cultural myth is the narrative explanation--in both written, visual and oral form--of a culture, its origins, its mission, its development, and its future. Along with elements of truth, myths constitute the very substance of a culture’s concept of reality (week 1, day 2 notes).
... of a legend, and the details provide a vivid image for the mind to weave. Like numerous other cultures in history, the modern human is searching for answers to questions. However, these questions cannot be answered by the means that exist in the twenty-first century, so they return to the intellectual way of explaining events through their own perception, which are then created into stories and later evolve into legends and myths. Urban legends hold a significant place within the world's cultures, dating back to time beyond remembering, and are likely to be told and believed well into the future.
The articles "Are These Stories True? (Nope)", by Adee Braun and Kristin Lewis, and "The Story that Got Away", retold by Debby Waldman, are both about fake news. One thing about fake news, is sometimes how believable article are. For instance, some stories hold many things that regular articles have and are written a lot like real stories. This is stated in the first article, it writes that fake stories can "Come with photos and believable quotes" (Braun and Lewis, 10). If the article sounds real and it holds many similar text features, most people would not think about if it is a joke. Also, the bold letters at the top of a news story or a website that looks and appears real can be tricky to identify. For example, Later in the beginning article, it focuses that fake news
In Paul A. Kirschner and Jeroen J. G. van Merrienboer’s article, “Do learners Really Know Best? Urban Legends in Education”, discussion of three urban legends in education; digital natives, specific learning styles, and self-educators are analyzed in order to determine a learner’s ability to learn new information through these popular styles and persuade readers that these popular educational styles are urban legends. The three urban legends discussed are digital natives, specific learning styles, and self-educators. These three legends have embraced the education system, have been persuasive, and have been difficult to eliminate even though they have no scientific evidence backing their theories.
One is exposed to superstitions and curses from a young age as a way to blame something that could have caused the effect of the circumstance. There are a few superstitions that people believe in today: If you walk under a ladder you would receive bad luck, knock on wood to avoid bad luck, avoiding a black car, or breaking a mirror and you would acquire seven years of bad luck. Superstition is an illogical belief in supernatural influences that evolved due to ignorance or fear of the unknown. Superstition and curses can't be prove with physical facts or have any logical evidence from scientists. However, superstitions and curses are believed by humans because of supernatural beliefs and try to find fault in these superstitions then find a