The Urban Legends are cautionary tales, of usually fictional events, that are spread by word of mouth. With every retelling, the Urban Legends usually have something added to them, while maintaining the general story, as well as the moral message, the same. They can be considered a form of modern mythology.  

Unlike the mythology, however, the Urban Legends are set in believable situations and involving real people. They are, more often than not, horrific, tragic and carry a moral message for the listener. The popularity of certain Urban Legends through the different periods of history attests to the moral norms of the time. One such instance can be seen in multiple stories revolving around the “Lovers’ Lane”, and the most famous one being of “The Hook Man”, emerging in the 1950s. 

The moral lessons of this Urban Legend speak of the dangers of wondering off alone and of course, the discouragement of pre-marital intimacy.  More recently, an Urban Legend of similar nature is circulated, surrounding a man who takes a beautiful woman home from a bar, only to wake up in the morning in a bathtub filled with ice and his kidney missing. Although no such occurrences were ever reported, this Urban Legend clearly warns against one-night stands and promiscuous behaviour associated with clubbing.

It is important to note that not all Urban Legends are horrifying. Some are indeed humorous or silly, but they too, are infused with some kind of moral message.

What is the fascination with the Urban Legends

Society as a whole has always been greatly fascinated by things that are unknown, dangerous or scary. These kinds of stories prod at the very primal emotions, such as fear, and subsequently excite in such a way. Given, the Urban Legends vary from somewhat silly to downright disturbing and everything in between; they all tend to deal with the scenarios that could happen to anyone.

According to Aristotle, people are drawn to scary stories (and violent plays) as to purge their own negative emotions and aggression; it’s a process he called ‘catharsis’. Although later research has indicated somewhat opposite to be true, the Urban Legends are still enormously appealing to the public, either as entertainment (camp fire stories) or as cautionary tales.

In the 1970s, Dollf Zilmann suggested that negative feelings created by scary stories actually intensified the positive feelings when the protagonist of the story is triumphant. In both cases where the protagonist is victorious and where he/she isn’t, the Urban Legend stands as a warning as well as encouragement to the listener.

What is especially appealing in Urban Legends compared to, for example, horror or thriller movies, video games or plays, is that they’re told in such a way that they’re not only believable, but that they’re passed off as a true story. What is more, some Urban Legends have proven to actually be true. With the times, certain Urban Legends get discredited as absolutely not true, however that hasn’t deterred them from being spread around.

At the inception of all Urban Legends, there appears to be a period where they’re thought to be absolutely true. Some remain under the ‘true story’ category for decades, while others are discredited pretty quickly and some, as already mentioned, turn out to be true. Regardless, society has not stopped its fascination with the Urban Legends, nor has it stopped producing them. It is this very idea that, regardless of how few of the Urban Legends end up being true, there’s a probability that what one is being told at any one time, could have or has already happened.

With the rise of the internet, a number of such stories have gained massive popularity and have been spread and circulated, either via e-mail or social websites.

While there are some claims that the reason Urban Legends are created on the internet and circulated via e-mails is due to the spammers collecting e-mails, such may not actually be true. Stories of dying children or dead girls coming to life do indeed circulate around many e-mail accounts; however, due to the fact that there is no mechanism to return all the forwarded content back to the original sender, it might be safe to assume that Urban Legends and internet hoaxes aren’t made for such purpose.

Taking this into account, it might be prudent to stipulate that the emergence of such stories, while mostly untrue, stems from people’s general curiosity and love for stories they can relate to. There might be a sense of helping or contributing to others in need or spreading awareness of something that might ‘save’ someone.

Urban Legends have had a long history. From the dawn of the spoken languages, the stories were very popular and were passed down orally from generation to generation. Many were cautionary tales, fables, legends and myths dealing with situations that the people at the time were most concerned about. They gave useful advice to the listener on how to deal with certain things and they also invoked the fear of the dark, of the unknown and of all that posed dangers to humans.

Urban Legends have such functions today as well. Society is still interested in them, whether true or not, for the same reasons. Some Urban Legends are started in order to warn against certain acts and some are started to amuse the listener.

Most importantly, society has not lost its love for the stories of the weird, and the scary and the improbable and the triumphant that may or may not have happened and that may or may not happen to them. Urban Legends play an important part in society and they’ll continue to do so, be it in person, over an e-mail or a text message be it for entertainment, caution or merely amusement.