together to produce urban legends. There are various types and even more
stories, but most of them have a grain of truth because they are based
on certain elements in the real world.
We've all likely heard one or two of them before. There's the story
about the gang that offers girl the choice of being raped or having a
facial scar in the form of a sick smile. In Japan, there is a mythical
bus or train car where girls get raped and molested by the male
passengers. In some areas of the US, there are stories of an psychotic
killer that lurks in the backseats of cars and cuts the driver's head
off with an ax. Some of us have heard stories about the Islamic woman
who killed her husband's second wife with a scorpion hidden in the
wedding dress. A few of us might even have heard of the highly secretive
Global Conspiracy of the Bald. Or some of us might have heard one of
thousands upon thousands of other stories, each with just enough truth
to be believable. Regardless, the one thing that is certain is that, at
some point in our lives, we've heard an urban legend.
Urban legends can sometimes be pinned down to fear and anxiety in
society, particularly in the light of certain technological or social
developments. For example, the "pervert bus" myth was made prevalent in
Japan when trains and buses started emerging, before they became
prevalent means of public transportation. Fear and anxiety, as well as
ignorance, regarding the polygamous marriages allowed by Islam prompted
the "scorpion in the wedding dress" myth, which shows a lack of
understanding of the underlying social mores behind the multiple wives.
Of course, like any good urban legend, myths of this sort persist long
after the initial fear and anxiety have faded into obscurity.
Another common source of urban legends would be the products we use on a
daily basis. One prevalent myth comes from the recent obsession with
losing weight and staying thin. There are stories that, at one point in
either the late 70s or early 80s, there was a mail-order weight loss
pill that promised people who took them that they would never gain a
pound. According to the stories, the weight loss pill worked because
they contained parasitic worms that would inhabit the stomach. According
to various records, there was never such a weight loss pill on the
market. One more popular story involved a couple purchasing a car that
was unbelievable in terms of fuel efficiency, having barely used a full
tank after days of driving. The car was, according to the story,
promptly stolen by oil companies after the couple commended the
manufacturer on the engine design.
Of course, performance anxiety and social anxiety have also produced a
number of urban legends, particularly of the "conspiracy theory" form.
For example, there are hundreds of people that believe they are unable
to get ahead in their professional lives because of pressure applied by
one secret society or another. In some ways, this is a subtle form of
performance anxiety, with the people unable to accept their
psychological inability to perform better and placing the blame on an
unseen "hand." A touch of social anxiety also pervades in a number of
conspiracy theories when taken to excess, as people become afraid of
social interaction for fear of coming into contact with agents of some
socio-political super-cabal. Typically, the performance anxiety that
inspires a person to hold these legends as reality come with other
psychological disorders.
Social anxiety can also take root in some older societies, particularly
in Europe, when urban legends about secret organizations generally have
more credence with the masses. The European continent is traditionally
home to a variety of secret societies, which have goals ranging from
world domination to controlling the global marketplace. In some
respects, social anxiety sets in when people who are mentally and
socially unstable in the first place hear the stories and begin to
construct elaborate and implausible stories to back up the legends. The
end result is that one ends up with a person that, essentially, believes
that group is "out to get them." The only real variation tends to be
what the group is, though the Illuminati, the Camarilla, the Knights
Templar, the Vatican, the New World Order, and Satanic cults are among
the more typical.
No comments:
Post a Comment