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Trivia / Urban Legend. Trivia /. Urban Legend. Cast the Runner-Up: Danielle Harris originally auditioned for the lead role of Natalie, but was instead cast as Tosh, her temperamental roommate. Creator Backlash: Jared Leto likes to pretend he never did this movie in interviews.
- Urban Legends
An Urban Legend is a story which imparts information or An...
- History for Trivia/UrbanLegend
However, the urban legend website Snopes was actually...
- Urban Legends
- When was the term "urban legend" first introduced? 1892 1645 1904 1968. According to Merriam-Webster, the first known use of "urban legend" was in 1968, though it was Jan Harold Brunvand, professor of English at the University of Utah, who popularized the term in a series of books she began publishing in 1981.
- Who is said to appear in a mirror if their name is chanted repeatedly? THE WOMAN IN WHITE BLOODY MARY JERSEY DEVIL LA LLORONA. Bloody Mary allegedly appears as a corpse, witch or ghost and can be friendly or evil depending on historic variations of the legend.
- According to lore, what does La Llorona do to children? STEALS THEIR SOULS KEEPS THEM FOR HER OWN DROWNS THEM EATS THEM. Doomed to walk the earth in search of her children after she drowned them, La Llorona or the "Wailing Woman" is said to take children and drown them in the river.
- In what country did the legend of the Slit-Mouthed Woman originate? GERMANY JAPAN FRANCE CHINA. In this legend from Japan, Kuchisake-onna or the "Slit-Mouthed Woman" is a malevolent figure with a partially covered face, carrying a sharp weapon.
Urban Legend. Estimated reading time: 1 minute. Urban legends are, in a basic sense, anecdotes that people share with one another, akin to jokes or tall tales. But although many urban legends are ...
- Overview
- Origins and characteristics
- Media and entertainment
urban legend, in folklore, a story about an unusual or humorous event that many people believe to be true but that is not true.
Urban legends typically combine secondhand narratives, such as those heard from “a friend of a friend,” with contemporary settings and familiar everyday objects, such as shopping malls or automobiles. Similar to older traditional folk tales and legends, urban legends spread through word of mouth but are increasingly shared through print, digital, and social media. They occur in cultures worldwide, featuring common plots and themes with minor differences reflecting local knowledge and cultural mores. Although many urban legends are told for their shock value or humour, folklorists believe that urban legends reflect the anxieties and beliefs in modern society, such as fears related to technology or crime. Thus, they hold as important a place in the study and collection of folklore as older traditional tales.
The term urban legend began appearing in folklore studies in the mid-20th century, and it was used to describe the genre of modern “too good to be true” stories shared through oral accounts. The phrase was popularized in 1981 with the publication of The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings, a book by American folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand. The title of the collection refers to one of the most well-known urban legends, that of a person traveling in a vehicle, usually a car, who meets a mysterious hitchhiker. The latter suddenly vanishes and is subsequently discovered to have been a ghost. The story of the vanishing hitchhiker typifies an urban legend in both its being widely shared through oral telling and its contemporary elements, such as the modern form of transport. As with other urban legends, the vanishing hitchhiker has many variants that differ based on local details. For instance, Chicago’s legend of “Resurrection Mary” is named after a ghost said to appear to drivers on a road past Resurrection Cemetery in the city’s southwest suburbs. Over time the legend may adapt or modernize further. More recent accounts of the vanishing hitchhiker often occur in subways or airports or incorporate recent events. For example, after the devastating tsunami of 2004, tuk-tuk drivers in Thailand began to share a common “wandering dead” story of picking up a fare (usually a Western tourist and his Thai girlfriend) urgently headed to the airport, only to find that the passengers had vanished upon arrival at their destination.
With the invention of the Internet, urban legends have become more frequently shared online through chain e-mails, social media posts, and video-sharing websites. Some websites, such as Snopes, were created specifically for investigating and debunking urban legends. Numerous urban legends have provided the basis for films, novels, short stories, radio and television shows, video games, and comic books, especially in the horror genre. Full-length dramatizations of an urban legend include When a Stranger Calls (1979), in which a babysitter discovers that the prank calls she has been receiving are coming from a phone line inside the house, and Alligator (1980), based on a persistent myth in New York City about abandoned pet baby alligators grown to monster size in the sewer system. The summer camp comedy Meatballs (1979) is a rare example of a film featuring an oral telling rather than a dramatization of an urban legend. In a campfire scene a counselor played by Bill Murray relates “The Hook” story about a mad slasher on the loose.
In 1985 English horror writer Clive Barker published “The Forbidden,” a short story about a graduate student who investigates urban legends in Liverpool and conjures up supernatural forces in a decrepit housing estate. In 1992 the story was transferred to Chicago in the horror classic Candyman, which explores the elements of racism and classism in many urban legends. The movie led to a series of sequels and a 2021 reboot of the original that was cowritten by Jordan Peele.
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Urban legends about media are as common as urban legends told through media, such as the many tales about ghosts unexpectedly appearing in the background of movie scenes and photographs or satanic hidden messages that can be detected in rock or pop songs when played backward. Likewise, urban legends abound about notorious incidents or mistaken identities involving celebrities despite the lack of any documented evidence that would prove they occurred. For example, the urban legend “The Death of Little Mikey” combines the themes of celebrities and food by claiming that a child actor who appeared in a famous cereal commercial died after consuming Pop Rocks candy with soda, which urban folklore maintains makes the stomach explode.
In the 21st century the popularity of various storytelling festivals and podcasts attests to the continuing interest in urban legends. Research on urban legends is likewise ongoing through academic studies and conferences such as the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research, founded in 1988, and its peer-reviewed journal, Contemporary Legend, published annually since 1991.
Jan 23, 2024 · Urban legends are the kinds of stories told around a campfire or under a sofa cushion fort at a sleepover. These modern folktakes are usually pretty scary—and of course, the storyteller swears...
