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Urban Legends as Folklore

Urban Legends are in a subclass of folklore narratives because they are set in the recent past and involve your average person. Legends are quasi-history they gain credibility with specific details as to a location or time frame or an authoritative source. In modern Urban Legends theses stories are "true." The narrator tells a factual story that happened recently and that they knew this story because it happened to "a friend of a friend." "The Legends' physical settings are often close by, real, and sometimes even locally renowned for other such happenings. Though the characters in the stories are usually nameless, they are true-to-life examples of the kind of people the narrators and their audience know firsthand. " (Brunvand, Vanishing Hitchhiker). The greatest mystery of folklore research is where the stories originate from and who first invents them.

Urban Legends as Cultural Stories

For an Urban Legend to stay alive in our culture it should contain these elements: a strong basic story appeal, a foundation in actual belief, and a meaningful message or "moral." Often times these stories are targeted toward teens. Showing that being a promiscuous teen can lead to danger. During the late 90's horror flick were at a new peak. So Hollywood decided to cash in on these stories that everyone has heard about but no one knows where they came from. They took some of the most famous stories together and made them into the movie "Urban Legends."

Most Commonly Known Urban Legend


* The Boyfriend's Death
* The Vanishing Hitchhiker
* The Hook
* The Killer in the Back seat
* The Baby-sitter and the Man Upstairs
* The Roommate's Death
* The Gang Initiation

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