Urban Legends Explained

Why do urban legends continue to thrive in our modern world? Explore the ways storytelling helps us face our fears, understand our own culture, and connect with each other.

Overview

Course No. 10610

Have you heard the story about the choking Doberman? You know, the one where the Doberman bit off the fingers of a man who had broken into the home—but the police didn’t know about the crime until the dog coughed up the fingers at the vet? This is an urban legend, and if you haven’t heard this particular story, you’ve certainly heard others like it. Is it true? Maybe, maybe not. The veracity is less important than what these stories tell us about ourselves, our emotions, and the world as we see it.

In the 12 fascinating lectures of Urban Legends Explained, you’ll hear all types of stories that are being circulated right now, right where you live. Your professors, Dr. Sara Cleto and Dr. Brittany Warman, will share some of the wildest stories circulating now, maybe the wildest you’ve ever heard, and explain why we continue to tell them.

Urban legends are contemporary legends. They can be set in a downtown skyscraper, a suburban school, or on a deserted country road—anywhere really. But they are always:

• Current: These stories take place now or in the very recent past. If your neighbor down the street didn’t report the story, your grandmother might have. They are part of the folklore of daily life—scary, silly, and sometimes dangerous.
• Told as truth: Not everyone believes every urban legend they hear. But the people propagating the stories tell them as if they’re either true or could be true. It’s commonly assumed there’s a reliable witness just a few people back, i.e. a “friend of a friend” or FOAF.
• Human: Urban legends involve normal human beings having extraordinary encounters and experiences. They depict realistic events or alleged events with an eventual ironic, bizarre, or supernatural twist.

Humans are storytellers by nature. Urban legends, like all other legends, work to help create and maintain invaluable social connections.

Video Lectures

1. Why We Love Urban Legends (27 min)
   Have you heard the one about “The Choking Doberman?” Or “The Stolen Kidney?” The Doberman story actually happened to my friend’s cousin’s neighbor’s vet…or maybe not. Welcome to the world of urban legends, these resilient, contemporary, often-frightening stories that always seem to have been witnessed by a FOAF (friend of a friend). Learn about their societal function and how they differ from fairytales and myths.
2. Bigfoot, Nessie, and the World of Cryptids (31 min)
   If you haven’t seen Bigfoot lately, it’s because he really prefers to remain hidden. The elusive nature of cryptids affects both folklorists and cryptozoologists, but in different ways. Explore the history of Bigfoot as an urban legend, as well as several other cryptids including the Yeti, Nessie, the Mothman, and Tizzie-Whizies. Learn why people continue to believe so passionately in these cryptids, without any real proof.
3. On Your Street, in Your Neighborhood (27 min)
   Among all the different kinds of folk narratives, urban legends are the quickest to adapt to new environments. Learn how the concept of oikotype development allows urban legends to thrive and explore the differences between the South African and American versions of the “Kentucky Fried Rat.” You’ll also discover a similar development in the school-haunting legends involving children.
4. “The Call Is Coming from inside the House” (25 min)
   “The Call is Coming from inside the House,” is one of the most well-known urban legends that take place inside the home. Discover exactly why a house—haunted or otherwise—cramped college dorm room, or a seedy hotel are the locations for so many urban legends. And have you heard the one called “The Statue in the Corner.” What is it about the title itself that makes it sound so creepy?
5. “The Man in the Back Seat” and Other Car Legends (25 min)
   Cars can be wonderful places of exploration for teens and—for those very same reasons—frightening places for parents. That’s one reason there are so many urban legends about cars and so much crossover with stories about teens. Here, you’ll explore “The Man with the Hook,” “The Man in the Backseat,” and more, as well as consider what new urban legends might develop as self-driving cars become more and more common.
6. Ghost Stories and “The Vanishing Hitchhiker” (24 min)
   Ghost stories have not vanished! Their inherent malleability and flexibility make them great subjects for urban legends, regardless of whether the listener believes in spirituality from the religious viewpoint or the supernatural at all. Explore “The Vanishing Hitchhiker” in several of its incarnations to discover the wide variety of anxieties and lessons the legend addresses. Chances are you will remember at least one version from your own youth.
7. The Dangers of Digital Demons (29 min)
   The internet has become the breeding ground and the home of some of the most famous and most unsettling urban legends circulating right now. In this lecture, you’ll learn how urban legends develop and maintain themselves on the internet and about the four main types of creepypasta. Specifically, you’ll meet “Slenderman” and learn about “Candle Cove” and explore why they are so frightening.
8. Exploding Toilets and More Hilarious High Jinks (27 min)
   Do exploding toilets sound funny to you? When it comes to humor in urban legends, each person takes it differently. Two of the biggest categories are sexual and scatological, both of which are largely considered taboo. Could this be exactly the reason those stories stay in circulation? Explore your own reactions to “The Philanderer’s Car,” “The Cement Cadillac,” and “The Nude Housewife.”
9. “The Red Velvet Cake” and “The Steak under the Hat” (27 min)
   Explore foodways, the cultural and social practices surrounding food. While we all need to eat, urban legends addressing foodways show that our issues related to food differ significantly across different generations and cultures. Discover how you react to “Bye, Mom,” “The Red Velvet Cake,” and “The Steak under the Hat,” all of which address our relationships to food.
10. “Patient Zero” and “The Kiss of Death” (27 min)
    Before science could answer our medical questions, we turned to folktales and urban legends—and we still do. Health legends aren’t inherently good or bad, and they can help people share “untellable” experiences when other avenues are closed. But unfortunately, urban legends can shape ideas that form the basis of health decisions and actions in bad ways too. Discover what you can learn from your own reaction to “The Cannibal’s Gift” and other legends.
11. Fairies, Aliens, and the Mystery of the Mara (26 min)
    Imagine being asleep and in danger but unable to move to save yourself. That is the terrifying experience of the Mara, from which we get the word nightmare. This legend isn’t going around much anymore, now that we know about sleep paralysis, but people referred to it for hundreds of years. Explore the relationship between the Mara, fairies, and the new urban legends of alien abductions.
12. A Grain of Truth in Urban Legends (28 min)
    Can urban legends be true? If they were 100% factual, they wouldn’t be legends at all. They would simply be the truth. But if they didn’t have at least a grain of truth, they would most likely stop circulating and fade into history. Learn how and why urban legends keep us guessing, what can happen when people try to test them out, and how they reflect the very shape of the world as we see it.