Urban Legend Essay

Urban Legends

What are Urban Legends and where do they come from? An Urban Legend is a story that appears mysteriously and spreads spontaneously in various forms and is usually false; contains elements of humor or horror and is popularly believed to be true. The term “Urban Legend” has appeared since 1968. Before that time, it was known as a legend or folklore. It is from the traditional folklore in preindustrial times. Urban Legends are often repeated in news stories or distributed by e-mail. There are many Urban Legends that are often exaggerated and sensationalized but some are actually true. The story about The Lock Stalk and The Knockoff Pullover is a mixture of true and false statements. The legend of The Swiffer WetJet is believed to be false.
The Lock Stalk is an Urban Legend about robbers using a special device that clones the code to your car if your car doors are locked by the keypad. This story is a mixture of true and false statements. There is a device called the RKE system that can be used to clone the code to unlock the car doors. The falsity is regardless to the fact that you lock the car with the keypad, there is still a device that can unlock your doors, incase you’ve locked your keys in the car. And in research, it is said that this Urban Legend is highly believable.

The Urban Legend of The Knockoff Pullover is a mixture of true and false. It states that unmarked police cars are known to be driven by rapists and murderers who pass off to be police officers. It also says that if you are stopped or followed, proceed to the nearest gas station. This statement is what makes it false because you are suppose to proceed to the nearest police station after calling 911 so an officer can know that you are not refusing to stop for the police. But it is, in fact, true that you are not suppose to stop for unmarked police cars.

The third Urban Legend I chose was The Swiffer WetJet. This Legend says that there is a Warning Label that states “harmful to small children and animals.” This is true. Also, a nearby neighbor’s dog digested parts of the Swiffer WetJet that “destroyed” its liver, and later after another neighbor used the product on the floor, their two cats died of liver failure. This is a mixture of true and false because the Warning Label is true and is clearly printed and recommended to read before using the product. But according to snopes.com, it states that the WetJet can’t destroy an animals liver but it can poison them.

The Swiffer WetJet, Knockoff Pullover, and Lock Stalk all are Urban Legends that are half true and half false. But only one of them is completely false, which is The Swiffer WetJet. These Urban Legends are highly exaggerated but are very interesting. In each story, there are things that are true and should be believed. But there are things like, proceeding to the nearest gas station when followed by an unmarked police car, which are not true. Everyone should know to go to the police station closest to them after calling the police to let them know someone is following them. The next time there is a story told that sounds outrageous and exaggerated look up the research on the story because it may be an Urban Legend!

Pictures That Lie

The five pictures that stood out the most are:
1. Katie Couric
2. Oprah Winfrey
3. Septuplets Mom and Dad
4. O.J. Simpson
5. Martha Stewart

The one I like the most is the one about Katie Couric. On the unaltered picture she is shown as wide and more yellowish. On the altered picture they gave her more of a pale look and she is more thinner than she appears. Her face also seems a little more skinner. This picture stands out to me because it shows how the media can easily change the looks of person. And the fact that she is skinner than the unaltered picture stands out the most because that is really not her body, which means the media is lying to the viewers.

Violence In The Media

Example 1: There is a lot of violence in the media now and days. You have video games in which display a high rate of violence depending on the game. Like the shooting games and fighting games present violence and then the children react what they seen into the real world. Even sport games now are becoming dangerous such as hockey games have the players fighting and football games are showing people tackling each other. Then once children get that violence stored in their head, they go out and they do what they saw to their friends and it ends up being a a big fight. 

Example 2: Television media definitely is a huge contribution to violence in the world now. They have many shows on television that are sending out a bad message to children and adults. There are wrestling shows that come on and mainly boys watch it. So that's when they go out and repeat what they saw, or use it against others to defend themselves. Also there is a lot of violence in the world and the news displays it on television. 

Example 3: Movies altogether (drama, action, horror, etc.) have many affects. The media has movies that show murders and killers killing people and some people who watch that, may think it's okay to go out in bring the violence in reality. It is understood that movies have ratings for certain age groups but depending on the parents, is whether or not that person can watch a killer movie that may be rated R. The ratings are there to prevent children from watching some movies that may traumatize them or cause them to go out and do something harmful in the real world.

Hip Hop #1

The fact I choose is Rap music as a whole is disrespectful to women. This statement in my opinion is false because women aren't always the only one's who are disrespected in the music industry. There are rappers who disrespect each other out of a gang type thing. There may also be men who look at rappers and their music from a women's perspective. A quote supporting this opinion is "I mean, it's this real ironic sort of thing in hip hop, that it is such a homophobic culture oftentimes and yet it's so completely homoerotic. You know when L.L Cool Jay's got his shirt off and he's lickin' his lips, it's not just women lookin' at that. You know, it's, it's guys too. There is some awareness of the homoeroticism, but people aren't...really willing to confront it."-Tim,m West, Rapper. There could be a model man on television and there are times when, since men are around each other and they don't want other's to accuse them of being a homosexual because they are looking, they would all just cover their eyes and like act like they really don't want to look. But if they were alone, they probably would look. The reason I don't agree with this fact is because of two specific things. One is that women aren't the only ones who are disrespected by rappers, because you have men and rappers who are constantly disrespecting other men and rappers all the time. The second one is that rappers now and days disrespect men who are supposedly "faggots" or "p******". So it's not really safe to say that women are the only one's who are disrespected. You have men who are disrespected as well.

Media Analysis Movies

The difference between the two movies was that the first one was about a lady who was very opinionated. She was mainly against the fact that in reality it seems as if the male always has the upper hand. For instance, the magazine covers of the little boys who were already being portrayed as the "tough guys" and the other cover with the innocent little girl who is looking down at a flower, being kind of quiet. Also, she got on the fact of how women and girls are always the ones who are referred to as the ones who don't talk and just "shut up". In the second movie, a man is talking about how men are mostly the ones who are violent! Like there is a huge difference between the male and female ratio of killings. From the movie, it told that the male is the one who is always the one that does the most murdering, raping, etc to a female. It also talked about how the males were the ones who did the school shootings, and not females. There was a more chance of a school shooting being done by a male than a female. But in comparison, I believe that both movies and both speakers are against males in my persective, because they were going on and on about what the male does and what he says. And I kind of agree on their facts because of the simple fact that males do put themselves in the position where they are portrayed as murderers and rapist, and they use themselves as an example to be told to society.

Superbowl

What I learned about Superbowl commercials was that they have many messages. They also use different things in their commercials to send out to the viewers, a message that they should buy this product because it had a cool commercial. Some products don't really work. Like when they use the ProActiv commercial, they use different celebrities that say they use this product and since people follow and listen to celebrities, they will buy the product and it may turn out that the product doesn't really work. Some people just think that since the celebrity is using it and they are cool, then they should use it and become just like the celebrity. I've have learned that some Superbowl commercials add things into their commercial to make people want to buy the products. Plus they air a lot of beer commercials since its around Superbowl and they want people(preferably adults) to buy the beer so they can make more money.

Key concept

The key concept that I understand the most is concept number 1, which is -All media messages are constructed. Meaning that some ads that are on television construct a message that sometimes isn't the truth. I understood this concept the best because it basically lets you know that just because you see an ad on television with celebrities and all doesn't mean that that product really works for you. For instance, a Pantene commercial has pretty woman with long beautiful hair. It portrays the message that if you use Pantene, you will have long, silky, and beautiful hair just like the lady.