urban legends essay

Urban Legends often contain shocking stories about human fears regarding life in modern times. They begin in one place and are passed around between friends, coworkers, and the media. They are often handed down from person to person and changed slightly each time they are told, and as they evolve they are harder and harder to trace to actual facts. Urban legends sometimes are sometimes based in fact and are also often based in fiction. They are always told in a third person account, meaning that the story happened to someone besides the story teller. Urban Legends all contain many of these criteria, and this can be shown by looking at many stories that are referred to as Urban Legends, including myths about Coca-Cola, the office, and gang violence.
The first urban legend is about Coca-Cola. The urban legend is that if a tooth is left in Coca-Cola overnight, it will dissolve because of high levels of acid and carbonation in the Coca-Cola. The implication is two-fold, that Coke will rot your teeth and that if it is that bad for your teeth it must be even worse for your insides. It is not a true story. It originated from a Cornell professor stating that coca-cola could dissolve a baby’s tooth in two days, which is a much greater time than simply overnight. The truth of the story is that Coca-Cola contains harmful acids, but so do orange juice and lemonade. The concentration are not harmful, and the Coca-Cola does not cause harm to teeth because people do not leave it in their mouth for hours. The three definitions for urban legends are in this story. It shows a fear about modern life, the fear of the effects of Coca-Cola on health. It was based in fact and changed as the story was passed around.
Another urban legend has to do with gang members and car headlights. The myth has been applied to various gangs including the Hell’s Angels and Bloods. The myth is that gang members are initiated into the gang by driving around at night with their headlights off. The first person to flash their headlights at the new gang member is to be shot by that gang member. It is said that one weekend will be the “gang initiation weekend.” This story is not true because there have never been any gang related shootings on the weekends discussed in the various myths. The story has occurred in various cities, and slightly different each time. This legend shows modern fear of crime and gangs. Is has been passed around and changed since the 1980s.
The final urban legend is one about a man in a New York office who died at work. He had a heart attack and was dead at his desk for five days before the cleaning crew finally noticed him there. The story was reported by British newspapers, who said that nobody noticed because the man was a quiet worker who was always the first one at work and the last one to leave. The newspaper said they heard the story on a New York radio station, and after it was reported by one source many others picked up the story. This story reflects modern fears that people work too much. It is not proven false but is very unlikely, due to the fact that the only sources that talked about the event were in Britain, and the event was said to have taken place in New York. There are also too many holes in the story. The name of his employer was not given in the story and there were no obituaries for any man having died in an office at that time and of course the fact that a body would smell within five days of dying.
These three stories fall squarely into the definition of urban legends. The stories reflect fears about modern life, including coke on people’s health, work on their time, and gang violence on their lives. The coke story, headlights story, and office story are all examples of stories that have been picked up and reused and changed gradually, and last they all are shocking and may stir fear into the readers. These urban legends contribute to the lesser known part of the definition of urban legends, the urban part.