Urban Legends

An urban legend or urban myth is similar to a modern folklore consisting of stories often thought to be factual by those circulating them. The term is often used to mean something akin to "apocryphal story". Urban legends are not necessarily untrue, but they are often distorted, exaggerated, or sensationalized. Despite the name, a typical urban legend does not necessarily originate in an urban setting. The term is designed to differentiate them from traditional folklore in preindustrial times.

Urban legends are sometimes repeated in news stories and, in recent years, distributed by emails. People frequently allege that such tales happened to a "friend of a friend"—so often, in fact, that "Friend of a friend", or "FOAF", has become a commonly used term when recounting this type of story.

The urban legend phenomenon is well-known in other languages. In the Netherlands, for example, a tale about monkey meat gave rise to the term "broodje aap verhalen" (i.e., monkey sandwich stories).

Some urban legends have survived a long time, evolving only slightly over the years, as in the case of the story of a woman killed by spiders nesting in her elaborate hairdo. Newer legends tend to reflect modern circumstances, like the story of people ambushed, anaesthetized and waking up minus one kidney, which was surgically removed for transplantation.

One well-known modern urban legend depicts a person, typically an outrageously old woman who knew no better, who attempted to dry a wet poodle in a microwave oven, only to kill it. Another legend depicts what is known as The Vanishing hitchhiker , while another poses that alligators dwell in New York City's sewers, where they grow to enormous size after being flushed down the toilet by dissatisfied pet owners.

Few urban legends can be traced to their actual origins, exceptions to which include the Submarine, the steam tunnel incident and "Gloomy Sunday", the tale of the so-called Hungarian suicide song.

Many urban legends revolve around consumer products and their perceived danger. One such urban legend depicts deaths caused by ingesting Pop Rocks candy mixed with soda, as they cause the stomach to explode. In reality, there is nothing dangerous about the products either separate or together, as the fizzing in Pop Rocks and soda are both caused by carbon dioxide gas. In fact, the soda tends to diminish the 'pop' of the Pop Rocks.