Urban Legends: Myth or Reality
...gh out the school systems and play grounds all over the United States. Eventually forcing the company to halt production in order to prove the legend was untrue. It was unbelievable that such a cute little boy such as Mikey could have died a horrible and terrifying death from candy. As “Snopes.com” states: We can only guess that Urban Legends require victims who are known yet anonymous, the ubiquitous friends of a friend to lend them a touch of credible realism without allowing for easy verification of their details. Little Mikey was a kid known to all children by virtue of his famous television commercial, yet he was still relatively anonymous, few people knew his real name. The famous “exploding kid” whose real name is John Gilchrist, not only survived his childhood unexploded, but is now an advertising account manager for a New York radio station. It is quite obvious any story that begins with “a friend of a friend said” should alarm us and make us realize that what we are about to hear is a complete untruth. It is possible though, that many of these stories are created by our parents to keep us from doing things that they consider to be bad, such as the “pop rocks” high sugar ingredients that could promote tooth decay along with hyper activity among small children. Is it possible in today’s hi-tech world that these sorts of legends can be more wide spread and in a faster amount of time? Yes, because in today’s society we all have some sort of accessibility to electronic mail, whether it is at home, school, or work. A few examples of the more recent legends spread over the internet via email are: the rub on tattoos laced with LSD being given to children, a woman who ate a chicken burrito from Taco Bell woke up the next morning with a swollen mouth only to found out that a roach from the burrito had gotten into her lip and laid eggs, and finally a young man who went to a party the night before with someone he didn’t know, woke up in a tub full of ice noticing a message had been written on his bathroom mirror “Call 911 or you will Die” he discovered a short time later while on the phone with the operator that his kidneys had been stolen. It appears that the modern legends all have similar patterns and outcomes that make them thrive and grow as they are passed from one generation to the other. Still, is it possible that these are stories created by other sources to pro...