What is urban legends and how they affect people's behavior

Fifty years ago, in one of the articles published in the scientific journal Journal of the Folklore Institute, first encountered the phrase "urban legend" in scientific language. Its author was William Edgerton, and the article talked about circulating among educated stories of the townspeople how a spirit asks for help to the dying man.

Later urban legends have become an independent object of study, and found that they are able to not only amuse and frighten the audience, but also a very significant influence on people's behavior.

Folklorists have set ourselves the aim to elucidate the mechanism of occurrence and functioning of such legends, and also explain the reason why they occur and why human society do not seem able to without them do. More about urban legends says researcher ION RANHiGS, member of the research group "Monitoring of the actual folklore" Anna Kirzyuk.

The case in San Cristóbal

March 29, 1994 a small mountain town of San Cristobal Verapaz, located in the four-hour drive from Guatemala City - Guatemala City, was decorated with flowers on the occasion of Holy Week. By City procession was headed by carrying sacred images. The streets were a lot of people - seven thousand residents of San Cristobal added visitors, people from nearby villages.

The city also stayed 51-year-old June Weinstock, environmental activist who had come to Guatemala to Alaska. In the afternoon she went to the town square where children played, to photograph them. One of the boys walked away from the others and ran after the procession. Soon it will be enough mother - and around the city in a matter of minutes, it became clear that the boy was kidnapped June Weinstock, to cut his vital organs out of the country, and profitable to sell on underground market.

The police rushed to hide Weinstock at the courthouse, but the mob surrounded the building, and after a five-hour siege stormed inside. Weinstock found in the judgment closet, where she was trying to hide. She pulled out and started beating him. Her stoned and beaten with rods, it struck eight stab wounds, broke both arms and struck her head in several places. An angry crowd Weinstock left only after found her dead. Although June Weinstock ultimately survived, the rest of her life she spent in a semi-conscious state, under the supervision of doctors and nurses.

What has caused such a rapid change in mood kristobaltsev, complacent and festive lively more for half an hour before the beginning of hunting Weinstock? In this case, as in the case of several other attacks on foreigners, especially Americans, who came in Guatemala City in March and April 1994, it was a suspicion of theft and murder children for the purpose of export to the United States and European countries their authorities. No real reason to suspect American tourists in these intentions were not, but rumors that the white gringos hunt for Guatemalan children, began to circulate in the country for two or three months before the incident San Cristobal.

These rumors shirilis overgrown and compelling details. Two weeks before the attack on the journalist Weinstock Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre named Mario David Garcia posted great article titled "Children are often abducted to dismember organs", which introduced the rumors HISTORICAL facts.

The author accused the "developed countries" that they are stealing organs from people in Latin America, and that for this purpose in the course are "murder, kidnapping, dismemberment." David Garcia wrote that "the Americans, Europeans and Canadians," pretending to be tourists, buy and kidnapped Guatemalan children. A single proof in the article was not dealt, but the text accompanying the pictures, made in the form of a price tag with a list of authorities and the price for each of them. Number Prensa Libre this article was posted on the central square in San Cristobal a few days before the massacre of Weinstock.

Attacks on Americans in Guatemala is one of many examples of how urban legends, not backed up by any evidence, gain the credibility in the eyes of many people, and begin to influence their behavior. Where did come from such legends as they arise and function? These questions are answered by science, it would seem very far from the actual news - Folklore.

Scary stories

In 1959, the future renowned expert on urban legend, an American folklorist Jan Branvand was a graduate student at Indiana University and helped Professor Richard Dorsonu in the preparation of the book "The American folklore". In the last chapter, devoted to modern folklore, among other things, it was about the legend of "Dead cat in a bag" (The Dead Cat in the Package) - funny stories about how thief mistakenly blows from a supermarket bag with the corpse cat. While working on the book, Branvand saw a note in the local newspaper, where the legend is presented as a true story. Struck by how active and omnipresent story, which he had just written a book Branvand cut note. That was the beginning of the collection, which later formed the basis of his many published collections of encyclopedias and urban legends.

History of occurrence branvandovskoy collection is quite significant. Folklorists began to study urban legends since realized that folklore - it is not only fairy tales and ballads that are stored in the memory elderly rural residents, but also the texts of living here and now (they can be read in the newspaper, listen to the TV news or on the party).

American folklorists began to collect stories, which we now call "urban legends" in the 1940s. It happened like this: the university professor interviewed their students, and then published an article, which was called, for example, "Fables of students at Indiana University." Such stories of university campuses often talked about extraordinary events, related to the intervention of supernatural forces in human life.

This is the famous legend "Vanishing Hitch» (Vanishing Hitchhiker), where the occasional traveling companion is a ghost. Part of the "tales of university students so and so" was not mysterious and terrible, and was a funny story anecdotal type - as, for example, the already mentioned "Dead cat in a bag."

Not only funny, but also horror stories being told mainly in order to entertain the audience. Eerie ghost stories and maniacs were performed, as a rule, in special situations - when you visit the "worst places" for night gatherings in fire during the outings, while sharing stories at bedtime in summer camp - which made them fear caused quite conditional.

The common property of urban legend is the so-called "setting the reliability." This means that the legend of the narrator seeks to convince the audience the reality of the events.

In a newspaper article, which began its collection Jan Branvand legends story expounded as a real event that happened to a friend of the author. But in reality, for different types of urban legends question of authenticity has different meanings.

Stories such as "vanishing hitchhiker" tells how real cases. However, the answer to the question of whether someone's occasional companion was indeed a ghost, does not affect the actual behavior of those talks and listens to this story. Just as the story of the theft of the bag with a dead cat, it does not contain any recommendations regarding behavior in real life. Listeners such histories can experience chills from contact with the other, can laugh unlucky thief but not cease to bring up hitchhikers or steal bags in supermarkets, to discover if the legend that they engaged.

real threat

In the 1970s, folklorists began to study the history of a different type, not funny, and completely devoid of the supernatural component, but informing about some danger to us in real life.

First of all, it is familiar to many of us, "the story of poisoned Food »(contamination food stories), depicting, for example, a visitor restaurant MacDonald`s (or KFC, or Burger King), who is a rat, worm or other inedible and unpleasant object in its lunchbox.

In addition to stories about poisoned food in many other "consumer legends" field of view gets folklorists (mercantile legends), in particular Cokelore - many stories about dangerous and wonderful properties of cola, which was supposed to be capable of dissolving the coins to provoke deadly disease caused by drug addiction and serve as a means of home contraception. In 1980-1990-ies this collection is complemented by the legends of the "HIV-terrorists" that leave public places infected needles, legends about the theft of organs (organ theft legends) and many others.

All of these stories, too, began to be called "urban legends." However, the type of "vanishing hitchhiker" stories and "Dead pig in a poke" they are distinguished by one important feature.

If the "authenticity" of stories about ghosts and hapless thieves came to nothing obliges the audience, the stories of poisoned food, and HIV-infected needles encourage the audience to do or to refrain from executing certain actions. Their goal - not to entertain, but to inform about the real threat.

That is why the distributors of the legends of this type is very important to prove its authenticity. To convince us of the reality of the threat, they put a lot of effort. When a classic for the "entertainment" legends reference to the experience of "friend of a friend" is not enough, then the link to "Message from the Interior Ministry" and the conclusion of research institutes, and in extreme cases, create psevdodokumenty, as if coming from authorities.

Exactly entered an official from the administration of the Moscow city Victor Grishchenko in October 2017. Grishchenko was so worried about reports Internet "narkozhvachkah", which are supposed to hand out to children anonymous drug dealers that Print this information on the official form, supplied all relying seals and referred to in this kind of letter from the "Main Department of Internal Affairs. " Similarly, the distributor of the unknown history of Costa Rican "banana-killers", though containing a deadly parasites, put the text of the legend in the form of the University of Ottawa and placed underneath the signature medical researcher faculty.

"Credibility" legends of the second type has a very real, sometimes very serious consequences.

After hearing the story of the old lady who decided to dry the cat in the microwave, we just laugh, and our reaction to this matter, we believe that story or not reliable. If we believe the journalist who published an article about the villains who kill "our children" through the "group of death", we certainly feel the need to take something: to limit your child's access to social networks, to forbid teenagers to use the Internet at the legislative level, to find and to put the villains and the like.

Examples where "the legend of the real threat" caused people to do, or, conversely, not to do something - a huge set. KFC drop in sales due to the stories about a rat found in the lunchbox - it is a relatively harmless version of the influence of folklore on life. History June Weinstock says that under the influence of urban legends sometimes people are willing to kill.

It is the study of "legends about the real threat" affecting the actual behavior of people, led to the theory ostended - the influence of the folk tale on the actual behavior of people. The importance of this theory is not confined to folklore.

Dag Linda, Andrew and Bill Vashon Ellis proposed the concept ostended in 1980, gave the name of the phenomenon, which has long been known not Only folklorists, but also for historians studying various cases of mass panic caused by stories of atrocities "witches", or Jews heretics. Theorists ostended identified several forms of influence of folk stories to reality. The strongest of them, actually ostended (ostention itself), we see when someone embodies the plot legend to life and begins to fight with the sources of danger to which the legend points.

It actually stands for ostended modern Russian news titled "teenage girls convicted for inducing minors to commit suicide": likely condemned decided to bring the legend of the "Group of Death" and become a "curator" of the game, "Blue Whale" What is this legend told. The same shape ostended are attempts by some teens to seek imaginary "curators" and yourself to deal with them.

As we can see, the concept, developed by American folklorists, perfectly describe our Russian cases. The fact that the legend of the "real" threats are arranged very similar way - even if they appear "live" in very diverse conditions. Because they are based are often representations that are common to many cultures, such as the dangers of alien or new technologies, such stories are easy to overcome ethnic, political and social border.

Legends "entertainment" such as this is not peculiar to ease movement: common throughout the world, "Vanishing Hitch" is the exception rather than the rule. We did not find domestic counterparts for most of the "entertainment" of American legend, but it is easy to find their stories about the "poisoned food." For example, the story of a rat's tail, which the consumer finds in the food went in the 1980s and in the United States and the Soviet Union, only in American Tail was in the hamburger, and the Soviet - in the sausage.

In search of an illusion

The ability to "threatening" legends influence the actual behavior of people has led not only to the appearance ostended theory, but also to the fact that the changed approach to the study of urban legends. While folklore engaged in "entertainment" scene, a typical work of the urban legend looked like this: researcher listed options for the plot he had collected, carefully comparing them with each other and report where and when those options were recorded. The questions he asked himself concerning geographical origin, structure and plot of existence. After a brief period of study of the history of the "real danger", research questions have changed. Most important was the question of why a legend appears and becomes popular.

The very idea of ​​the need to respond to the question of raison d`être folklore text belonged to Alan Dandesu who analyzed mostly "entertainment" legends and stories and children's Counting. However, his idea did not become mainstream before scientists began to regularly engage in the legends of the "real danger."

Actions of people who see these stories as valid, often reminiscent of the collective madness attacks that had to be explained somehow.

Perhaps that is why researchers became important to understand why these stories believe.

In its most general form, the answer to this question lies in the fact that the legend of the "real threat" to perform some important functions: people some reason to believe in such stories and distribute them. What for? Some researchers have concluded that the legend reflects the fears and other uncomfortable emotions group, the other - that the legend gives the group a symbolic solution to its problems.

In the first case the urban legend is regarded as "the spokesman of the unspeakable." It is in this, researchers Joel Best and Gerald Horiuchi see the appointment of stories about the unknown villains who allegedly handed out to children Halloween poisoned treats. Such stories had mass circulation in the United States in the late 1960s - in the 1970s: in October and November of each year, the newspapers were filled with terrible reports of children receiving candy with poison or razor inside, frightened parents forbade children to take part in a traditional ritual of trick-or-treating, and in northern California it came down to the fact that the bags of goodies was checked by X-ray.

On the question of the causes of the susceptibility of society to this legend Best and Horiuchi respond as follows. Legend of the poisoning on Halloween, they say, was especially prevalent at a time when America was going through an unpopular war in country there were student riots and demonstrations, Americans are faced with the new problem of youth subcultures and addiction.

At the same time there was the destruction of the traditional "one-storey America" ​​neighboring communities. A vague anxiety for children who may die in the war, to become victims of crime or drug addicts, joined with a sense of loss of confidence to the familiar people, and all this was reflected in a simple and clear narrative about anonymous villains, toxic children's goodies on Halloween. This urban legend claiming Best and Horiuchi, articulated social tension: pointing to a fictitious threat in the face of anonymous sadists, she helped the community to express concern that before was unclear and undifferentiated.

In the second case, the researcher believes that the legend not only expresses poorly expressible emotion group, but also fighting with them, becoming something of a "symbolic pill" against the collective anxieties. In this vein Diane Goldstein interprets the legend of the infected HIV needles that seem to await about anything unsuspecting people in theater seats, nightclubs and public telephone. This story has caused several waves of panic in the United States and Canada in the 1980-1990-ies: people were afraid to go to cinema and nightclubs, and some, going to the theater, put on clothes more tightly in order to avoid injection.

Goldstein notes that in all cases the infection is a legend in the public space, and the role of the villain serves an anonymous stranger. Therefore, it is believed that the legend should be considered as a "reluctant response» (resistant response) of modern medicine, which claims that the source of HIV infection may be permanent partner.

The idea that you can catch in your own bedroom by a loved one, is a strong psychological discomfort. That is why there is the story, which asserts the exact opposite (that danger comes from public places and anonymous strangers). Thus, portraying reality is more comfortable than it actually is, the legend allows its holders to amuse illusions.

In both cases, it is easy to notice the story fulfills a therapeutic function.

It turns out that in certain situations, society simply can not spread the legend - as well as the psychosomatic patient can not do without symptom (as a symptom of "speaks" for him), and just as any of us can do without dreams, which made our wishes, unworkable in reality. Urban legend, no matter how ridiculous it may seem, in fact, is a special language that allows us to talk about our problems and sometimes - symbolically solve them.