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Urban Legends (for fun and profit)

  
  

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Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:08 / 06.02.02
A few years back, the Grauniad's weekend listings mag used to get various comedians to write a column for its back page- a different person each week. One writer did an amusing little peice on urban myths, including an attempt to create a few new ones and see if they actually crept into the popular imagination. I can't remember what most of these were, but one stuck in my mind: "Bob Holness played the saxophone on Baker Street." I liked that, because it was such a nice mis-match of concepts.

And then I started seeing the Bob on Sax meme around. First it was on the radio in a factory where I was working. Then in a magazine. Then in a newspaper. The tenacious little critter just keeps on respawning, and the more times it is replicated, the stronger it gets; more and more people believe unquestioningly that Bob Holness played the sax on Baker Street.

So I was thinking- could we use this? Could we create urban-legend flavour hypersigils, little viral fibs freighted with magickal intent that will stroll around lodging in people's noggins, replicating themselves wherever a harried columnist forgets to check a fact?

How might we go about this?
 
 
Ierne
18:21 / 06.02.02
Stickers are always great – I'm always paying attention to strange stickers and flyposters on the street. All you need is a printer and adhesive paper / paper, pen & glue.

Figuring out what the stickers should say, now that would take some thought...
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
18:25 / 06.02.02
Or a pre-arranged hoax that we all participate in spreading.

Uh... we probably shouldn't be planning this in 'public' should we?
 
 
Ierne
18:28 / 06.02.02
We could tie it into Mordant C@rnival's Plan for Pop Music Domination somehow...

[ 06-02-2002: Message edited by: Ierne ]
 
 
Logos
18:34 / 06.02.02
Reminds me of the Obey the Giant posters that go up in various cities from time to time. Shepard Fairey, the creator, said something about wanting people to think there was an Andre the Giant cult operating.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:35 / 06.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Lothar Tuppan:
Uh... we probably shouldn't be planning this in 'public' should we?

Why not? The Bob-on-sax meme was created in public, and the article in which it first appeared quite clearly stated that it wasn't true.
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
18:36 / 06.02.02
Sounds cool to me. I have no idea how we should begin but I like this idea.
 
 
Persephone
19:14 / 06.02.02
Well it would be lovely if we could bring Bush's approval rating to a more normal level, or something like that...
 
 
Suffocate
00:01 / 07.02.02
I heard that Grant Morrison has a hit out on Courtney Love.

*nods fervently*

  
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:52 / 07.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Suffocate:
I heard that Grant Morrison has a hit out on Courtney Love.


ROTFLMAO! (Actually, we need a new acronym for the 'lith- DSOONGAOK: Drink Sprays Out Of Nostrils, Gets All Over Keyboard. One for the Conversation...)

I guess the disease vector for our urban myth isn't too important at this stage, tho' all the suggestions so far have been good. What's more important is what we actually create.

Now, I've noticed that most popular urban myths have some kind of subtext. For example, Granny on the Roofrack has the subtexts "respect the dead or pay", and "stealing could land you in more trouble than you anticipate"; there's a whole body of neo-folklore that deals largely with the subtext "Sex is wrong!", usually including the permutation "and female sexuality is even wronger!"

The question is, what are our messages, our actual spells, and how do we encode them in such a way as to make the legend-meme as contagious as possible?
 
 
Suffocate
23:24 / 07.02.02
Excellent point. We not only want to trick people, but we want to subliminally alter their synapses at the same time. Muahaha!

How complex do we want to be? It could be as simple as reinforcing the idea that people should learn to be more questioning of their environment and what they're told.

Or it could be as complicated as... I can't think of anything complicated.

*sigh*
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
00:25 / 08.02.02
How about "Take responsibility for your actions and their consequences or: this slimy monster will get you/you'll be tied to the bumper of a semi/bugs will pour from your zits/)."
 
 
The resistable rise of Reidcourchie
06:29 / 08.02.02
Originally posted by Persephone

"Well it would be lovely if we could bring Bush's approval rating to a more normal level, or something like that..."

May lack the pep of other urban legends.

I'm not sure about responsible positive memes but I would like to spread the rumour that Slipknot is N'Sync and the Backstreet Boys grindcore project and I still like the idea of people thinking that Brittany Spears is going to auction her virginity to the worlds most powerful/richest people.

Some friends and I have had minor success in starting urban myths.
 
 
The Sinister Haiku Bureau
14:37 / 08.02.02
quote:Originally posted by The resistable rise of Reidcourchie:
I'm not sure about responsible positive memes but I would like to spread the rumour that Slipknot is N'Sync and the Backstreet Boys grindcore project and I still like the idea of people thinking that Brittany Spears is going to auction her virginity to the worlds most powerful/richest people.


<waay waay off topic>
I actually heard that slipknot are really green jelly. 8 members, like wearing masks, AND, apparently, they all have the same names...
<and back on topic>
As for encoding a statement of intent into an urban myth: how about this for a technique, off the top of my head: you make a list of 26 nouns, randomly(ish) selected. Each is associated with a letter of the alphabet. Then you use a variation on the PO technique (see headshop thread on Po for details) to create an urban myth out of them. The design of the urban myth would be best influenced by a study of the infection vectors of urban myths memes- such as celebrity gossip, moral subtexts, and gross-out sexual twists. Then charge the myth, using normal sigilisation methods. I suppose you could associate moral-subtexts and subject-matter with godforms and consider the urban myth as a roaming prayer, which gets emitted every time it's retold, but (I/we)'d need to think about that a bit more...

[ 08-02-2002: Message edited by: Johnny Haiku ]
 
 
Indigo
10:24 / 10.02.02
Hmm - I like the idea of planting the idea in many peoples' minds that they should take responsiblity for their own actions. The world would be a so much better place if more people did that...
 
 
Lothar Tuppan
18:21 / 10.02.02
It also has the benefit that those of us that do our best to be responsible can always learn to do more.
 
 
ciarconn
23:58 / 12.02.02
I found out that one of my students likes Slipknot, and I told him the one about BSB and N'Synck, and he bought it... until he noticed that Slipknot has nine members, and BSB and N'sunck would sum up 10 persons.
It was interesting, how he handled the process of assimilating the idea, and then discriminating it.
 
 
The Sinister Haiku Bureau
09:11 / 14.02.02
quote:Originally posted by ciarconn:
I found out that one of my students likes Slipknot, and I told him the one about BSB and N'Synck, and he bought it... until he noticed that Slipknot has nine members, and BSB and N'sunck would sum up 10 persons....


That's because Justin Tiberlake's not in Slipknot- he's too busy boning Britney. Plus, his secret identity fights crime- mostly parking offences and telephone sanitation regulations.

[ 14-02-2002: Message edited by: Johnny Haiku ]
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
00:15 / 15.02.02
Recent thoughts: The basic theme of our yarn ought to be something with a decent amount of psychological clout, and also be the kind of thing that people will enjoy hearing and retelling. A ghost story or something else supernatural would fit the bill. Since we're encoding a spell into the story, this would be very useful; we could devise a simple, appealing ritual aspect and write the story around that.

I was thinking of something along the lines of the various mirror-witch stories. The one I heard as a kid involved brushing your hair at midnight on Halloween whilst looking into a mirror; your future lover was supposed to appear in the mirror looking over your shoulder (unless you were going to die within the next year, in which case you'd see a death's head). Then there's the old "Bloody Mary" game: go into the bathroom, spin around on the spot and chant "Bloody Mary" x number of times, and Mary is supposed to appear in the mirror and do something perfectly frightful to you. It goes back donkey's years, has dozens of variations, and turns up all over the place (I'm sure most of us have seen Candyman ).

For our purposes, we probably want to invent someone or something a bit less scary than Mary, otherwise people might be deterred from actually going through with the ritual. The story should be different enough from Bloody Mary to pique people's interest and to ensure that it doesn't get conflated with the original. I was thinking of the ghost of a drowning victim or (better yet) a water spirit, invoked using a bowl of water or running water, who can sometimes be persuaded to help out the invoker in some way (I dunno... telling them a secret? Making them better looking? Granting inspiration?). The flipside might be that if the summoner's done something that the spirit disapproves of (whatever that might be; I'm thinking some act of cruelty), they get punished instead of rewarded. That would provide the frisson of fear which might otherwise be lacking.

Simplistic, but then most urban legends are.

Any thoughts?

PS: You ain't seen me, right?
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
00:21 / 15.02.02
And for those of you who really need it,
Nsync/Bloody Mary fanfic

Anyone for synchronicity?

[ 15-02-2002: Message edited by: Mordant C@rnival ]
 
 
ciarconn
12:56 / 15.02.02
How about encoding a metaspell on the story?

Something like "I will get what I want" rune?

Basically, something that empowers our magick/will?

E-mail and chats are two great ways of doing meme-reproduction of urban legends
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
14:15 / 15.02.02
Yeah, I was thinking that when the story's done I'll post it to a few of those urban legends "research" pages, the ones that ask for reader's input.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
15:21 / 15.02.02
Check out this web site. It's a little Blair Witch-y, but it's a nice job. Not really an urban legend, I know, but it's interesting anyhow.
 
 
ciarconn
15:45 / 08.03.02
I decided to bring this one back to the top, because I think there is something valuable for all of us in this thread.

Any ideas on the specific construction of the urban legend?
 
 
grant
16:34 / 08.03.02
1. It has a prurient appeal - something sexy, gross or bloody. ("...and when they got back from vacation and developed the film, the third picture was of their toothbrushes - up some strange man's butt!")

2. It is well sourced. Orally, "This happened to a friend of mine." In writing, cite a TV news show or university study. One of the most pervasive urban legends (probably spread by PETA) was that the owners of Proctor & Gamble were Satanists. The story went that some executive appeared on a TV talk show and said that's why they tested products on animals, because the pain was for their religion. I seem to even remember a transcript of the show floating around. Needless to say, there was no such actual show.

3. Use specific details when possible. Not too many, mind. Notice how the photograph from the first example up there (the toothbrush tourist punchline) is numbered? Proper names are good. You can allow a certain amount of inaccuracy to slip in, as well - half remembered names, vague regions (It happened in Arizona... either Tempe or Phoenix. It was my last year of college, so 1992 or 93 - but definitely in a summer month.)

4. Make it inconvenient to check up on. If I remember the Proctor & Gamble Satanism tale, it regarded a show a few years old - no one is gonna check the show transcripts, and some might even allow themselves to remember something to do with animal abuse or cosmetics or something like that within the past few years of the show's broadcast.

5. Make it something people secretly believe might be true anyway. This is linked closely to number one. Link fear and desire in the story. A lot of horror films and (narrative) TV ads work on the same principle. Elvis lives. Wild animals love toilets. Dogs and rats are basically the same. Boring people have spectacular hobbies. Lovable celebrities are secretly rogues.

The same ingredients go into a good tabloid story.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
08:54 / 10.03.02
Thanks for that, grant.

I've started a companion thread to this one over in the Creation, here.

Edited to say: I do hope plenty of people will get involved in this, because it's potentially a mighty tool for memetic fuckery. I fear I lack the imagination to reailse this potential on my own tho- I'm better at style than content.

[ 10-03-2002: Message edited by: Mordant C@rnival ]
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
14:18 / 10.03.02
Hokay. As a rough guideline, I'm going to keep this thread primarily for the construction of the embedded spell-meme (which I'm thinking will be an "I will get what I want" power-booster type thing), and the Creation thread for the story proper. So, kiddies, your homework assignment is as follows:


*What form should the spell take?

The usual sigil formula isn't really going to cut it here; we can't ensure that the legend is going to be retold using exactly the same words in the same order every time. So I'm thinking more along the lines of encoding the spell as a handful of powerful concepts and embedding these into the story.


Edited to say that I've got my basic yarn now- the Anne Rice hokum over in the conversation thread will be the carrier, which leaves the spell.

[ 11-03-2002: Message edited by: Mordant C@rnival ]
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
15:10 / 13.03.02
Here's a few of the key concepts I've boiled my intent down into.

Growth, life, energy, ability, power, development, magick.

Thinking about it, the story already contains some of these. For growth, life, and development: The revived twin. For power and magick: the monkey glands. Now I just need an energy trope and something to help re-enforce the whole magickyness angle.
 
 
Lurid Archive
15:24 / 13.03.02
Mordant. Youve missed out sex. And possibly S&M. I also think that you should include sex.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
15:57 / 13.03.02
Lurid: You haven't actually read a damn thing I've said in this thread, have you? Run along and play, dear. I'll come round and hurt you in a day or two. Don't need magick for that.
 
 
Lurid Archive
16:02 / 13.03.02
No fair! I have read the thread, I just happen to think that one of the memes you should encode in your urban legend/spell should be heavily sexual. Its not that I don't pay attention, its just that I'm obsessed.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
16:21 / 13.03.02
Look, the whole point of the exercize was to up the magick quotient of the board, not to get you laid. Now go back to your Seven of Nine het-smut and stop rotting my thread.

I'm going to get you at playtime.
 
 
ciarconn
15:03 / 15.03.02
OK, let's work on MC's idea.

"Yeah. Actually it was Anne Rice. A few years back she started suffering severe chest pains and was whisked into hospital for a chest x-ray, which revealed a shadow on her lung. Because it was right near her heart, they decided to give her a CAT scan to get a good look at it so that they could operate. At first they thought it was a teratoma, but when they opened her up they found the malformed remains of a fetus which had somehow implanted itself inside her ribcage. The lack of space in the chest cavity meant that the fetus had become curled in on itself so as to be unrecognizable at first. The legs were missing- it was just a head, torso and one arm. Apparently what had happened was that she'd partially absorbed the twin whilst in utero, and somehow it had started growing again. (This was put down to Rice's use of a dangerous and unproven anti-ageing treatment, a hormone supplement derived from monkey-glands.)
And this all happened right after she published "The Tale of the Body Thief"!!!"

And I'm, going to compare it with Grant's checklist:

1. It has a prurient appeal - something sexy, gross or bloody.
Yes
2. It is well sourced.
I would add something like " My cousin was the anesthesiologist in the operation table", or "it was on E's Mysteries and scandals"
3. Use specific details when possible.
Yep.
4. Make it inconvenient to check up on.
Yep
5. Make it something people secretly believe might be true anyway.
Yep

*What form should the spell take?"

I would think a narrative hypersigil would be the best way

"Thinking about it, the story already contains some of these. For growth, life, and development: The revived twin."

Though I'm not sure what semiotic/magickal implications there would be because the fetus is malformed and incomplete, perhaps it should grow to be complete, somehow.

"For power and magick: the monkey glands."
Primal power, unformed magick, I like it.

"Now I just need an energy trope and something to help re-enforce the whole magickyness angle."

The trouble is that the legend is large enough as it is (and it must be kept short).
I would think of magicking it up by selecting the order in which the facts/memes/symbols present themselves.
Energy (srtuctured) might be present in the medical instruments (X-rays, CATscan), which are used to understand the featus.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:09 / 17.03.02
Thanks, ciarconn.

quote:Originally posted by ciarconn:
OK, let's work on MC's idea.
2. It is well sourced.
I would add something like " My cousin was the anesthesiologist in the operation table", or "it was on E's Mysteries and scandals".

<Assumes poker face> Actually, it was my cousin Josh. He was living in the States at the time, and he had a job as a hospital porter. The anesthesiologist told him all about it.

quote:Originally posted by ciarconn:

3. Use specific details when possible.
Yep.
4. Make it inconvenient to check up on.
Yep
5. Make it something people secretly believe might be true anyway.
Yep

Just type "fetus in fetu" into Google- it's a real phenomenon.

quote:Originally posted by ciarconn:
The trouble is that the legend is large enough as it is (and it must be kept short).
I would think of magicking it up by selecting the order in which the facts/memes/symbols present themselves.
Energy (srtuctured) might be present in the medical instruments (X-rays, CATscan), which are used to understand the featus.

I think we could probably go with the thing as it stands, plus a technical term or two. I'll go across to the Creation thread and make a few changes based on your suggestions.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:09 / 17.03.02
Okay, we have lift-off. Go here to read The Anne Rice Lung Fetus. Remember, pass it on!


PS: I've already done Snopes.

[ 18-03-2002: Message edited by: Mordant C@rnival ]
 
  

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