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Internet a breeding ground for urban legends By Michael C. Guilmette Jr. Originally published on Feb. 12, 2004, in the Bay Mills News.
Of course, we all want to help out the poor Nigerian civil servant who wants desperately to get $100 million into a U.S. bank, or give Bill Gates a hand testing his new e-mail tracking software. And who could ignore the pleas of a terminally ill child who wants to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by getting the most business cards. These are just a few examples of the multitude of urban legends that have been passed around and taken as true by millions of people. While these fanciful and rarely accurate tales have been around for decades if not centuries, the Internet has offered a new medium on which these legends can be passed and proliferated. As the popularity of e-mail grew in the mid-1990s, Internet users would see messages forwarded to them with seemingly valid warnings that are not generally heard in the mainstream media. Even in the beginning, forwarding an e-mail message was an easy task, so users would unwittingly load up all their friends' e-mail addresses and fire the messages along. Alas, the chain would continue. Urban legends are usually devised to play on the public's compassion for pleas from the sick, or outrage over the actions of the government or politicians, or ignorance of current events. Now that we're in an election year, the legends are running rampant. Take, for example, a message that recently hit my inbox. An e-mail message about Social Security recounted in bullet point format all the actions those dastardly Republicans have taken against the federal social insurance program. However, two minutes of investigation revealed that this e-mail was originally an attack on the Democrats — the party name was simply substituted to suit the current political climate. Either way, the message was nothing more than exaggerations and falsehoods. The horrific events of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon also spurned a slew of urban legends that circled the globe. One legend in particular was well-suited for the Internet, since it actually featured an attached photo of a tourist standing atop the doomed North Tower looking out over New York City as one of hijacked airliners careened towards the building. Being visual, the photo is very convincing — to those unaware of the facts of the attacks. According to the urban legend debunking site Snopes.com, the photo was a clever piece of digital manipulation reportedly created by a 25-year old Hungarian man named Peter, who created the image as a poor taste joke and sent it to a few friends. They forwarded the image on and a legend was born. A few urban legends out there fall into the category of “it's true, but ...,” in that a warning will circulate through the Internet, but will vastly overplay the danger. The 809 area code scam is one such legend. According to the warning, victims receive a message saying that they have won a prize of some sort, but they have to place a call to an 809 area code number to claim their winnings. The warning goes on to say that the 809 area code is in the Caribbean and anyone who calls the number or any 809 number will be charged $2,400 a minute for the call. While it is true that 809 is an area code in the Bahamas, most 809 numbers are legitimate phone numbers. Scams of this nature are attempted, but Snopes.com reports that victims have only lost an average of $25 to $100. Some of the more prevalent e-mail-resident urban legends out there include the e-mail tax supposedly being proposed by the U.S. Postal Service because of lost revenue because of e-mail; the “Kidney Thieves” legend, recounting the tale of an unlucky man who was seduced, drugged, and then had one of his kidneys removed for sale on the organ black market; Cindy Williams of the TV show 'Laverne & Shirley' wrote a letter criticizing a military pay raise, prompting a response from a irritated airman (a Cindy Williams wrote a letter decrying the pay raise, but not the Cindy Williams that portrayed Shirley Feeney in the popular Happy Days spin-off); or more recently, Microsoft was reportedly marketing an Internet-ready portable toilet called the 'iLoo.' Urban legends may be as old as gossip, are many would say that they are not that harmful, but like spam, urban legend e-mails can clog e-mail inboxes and be problematic for e-mail systems, since users tend to forward entire messages along, including the list of addresses that have already received the message. These lists can be longer than the messages themselves. The best way to combat these messages is with a healthy dose of skepticism. If it sounds overly fantastic or outrageous, chances are it isn't true. Fortunately, the convenience of the Internet provides an easy opportunity to research a questionable story to ascertain the veracity of the report. Next issue's topic will follow on the heels of the MyDoom worm that swarmed the Internet over the past two weeks — viruses, worms and trojan horses, oh my. Related sites: www.snopes.com, urbanlegends.about.com. • Mike Guilmette is a staff reporter/columnist with the Bay Mills News. His website can be seen at http://www.sigperl.com/. |
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Copyright © 2004, Michael C. Guilmette Jr. |
Ever receive a warning about how the U.S. Post Office is going to start charging a nickel for every e-mail sent? How about the dangers of reusing plastic water bottles and containers? Or even the dastardly deeds perpetrated by President Bush-Clinton-Gore-Reagan?
