Snopes Says Nope

Urban Legend was a 1998 horror film based on a story bout a serial killer who used the same methods of death described in certain urban legends as a means to kill his victims.

Scary, right? The film even starred Robert Englund... Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger!

Although they make up a lot of contemporary folklore, these myths are not a new phenomenon... Stories represented as factual, portrayed as coming from a reliable source known by the teller, often having elements of humor or horror. Although those with a political connection tend to be mean-spirited, not all are malicious. Most are false, but all get repeated.

Long before the Internet these stories were viral. Most would be identified as apocryphal before appearing in print, because editors and publishers insisted on verification: Fact checking, the 18th Century version of a spam filter.

In our time, however, urban legends are pandemic. In a world of cut and paste, email forwarding and putting whatever you want up on the World Wide Web without any editorial process your own inbox is a source of infection.

“It is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a thousand times than to believe a fact that no one has heard before.”
--H.L. Mencken (American journalist/social critic 1880-1956),

But at Snopes.com, they try to sort it all out.

Audio: NPR's All Things Considered 3/20/10, Photo/Reporter: Guy Raz.

"You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.”
-- Anton Chekhov (Russian physician/playwright, 1860-1904)

"Trust, but verify."
-- Ronald Reagan (American actor/politician, 1911-2004),
quoting Damon Runyon (American journalist/writer, 1884-1946)