Urban Legends

Urban Legends : Origin and Purpose

This really happened : a friend of my friend Amy went out to a party on Saturday night and really tied one on - he was so drunk that he passed out . When he woke up the next morning , he was lying in a bathtub full of ice and there was a note written on the bathroom mirror in lipstick . It said , Call 911 or you will die ' It turned out that both of his kidneys had been stolen ! He 's now in the hospital on dialysis and life support

, waiting for a kidney transplant (Snopes

The above story is an example of a classic urban legend . It is , in fact , one of the more popular urban legends that has circulated for years . While there are many versions of the story , the victim always has his or her kidneys stolen , is left on ice , and warned in a message to call for help . According to John Todd Llewellyn in Public Relations Quarterly , urban legends

are instances of folklore in the oral tradition which are memorable repeatable and appropriate in some recurring social situations . The story in an urban legend is believable , involves the actions of regular people , and is set in the recent past . Usually the teller and the hearer are of the same locale and generation . The action being described happened "around here " but to an unnamed , near-acquaintance known as a FOAF (friend of a friend (Llewellyn

This definition can be applied to the example . An individual having his kidney stolen is memorable and inspires the retelling - why keep a good story to oneself ? In addition , the victim was a regular person , the friend of a friend . This is what makes the story believable when it truly is outrageous - that it really happened to a friend once or twice removed . The story is always told as if it happened recently , and the story is retold so that it happened locally . Within the story , there are no concrete details , such as the name of the victim , the specific location , the exact date , the hospital in which he now resides , and there is never a news or television news story to back up the claim

The most important factor of an urban legend , of course , is that it is believable . It is the belief that inspires individuals to spread the story . Llewellyn 's approach to the urban legend is from the perspective of public relations . After all , many legends are aimed at business and industry . Some are used as cautionary tales , like those that insist that rats , cockroaches and other unappetizing creatures are substituted for chicken at KFC . Other tales have little or no purpose , other than to discredit a business - such as the story that Neiman-Marcus charged 250 for a cookie recipe , so the unwitting buyer made the recipe public in to get her money 's worth . The important aspect of these legends is that they are false - they have never been proven to be true...