What are urban myths?

What are urban myths?

Perhaps it really happened, or perhaps it could happen, but no one seems to have been a direct witness to the event. The urban myth takes place in a parallel dimension, a plane identical to our own but in which the improbable becomes plausible. Sometimes the urban myth is a collective desire, a hope; other times a fear... a premonition. Other times, an improvised explanation or a moralizing lesson that can be read between the lines.

It is very difficult, in most cases, to trace the origins of these stories that circulate with the status of legends. They appear and are repeated not only in oral tradition but also in the media. It is likely that some of these accounts are deliberately crafted with a particular objective in mind—for example, to discredit someone or to obtain commercial benefits. Other times, they may arise from a story that becomes distorted from the original, or simply from a deliberate fiction that, as it is passed on, acquires the value of a true story.

Now, the question is why an urban legend, which in itself contains clearly irrational elements, becomes a believable account. Indeed, many of these stories, while not overtly fantastical, are at least surprising by virtue of their improbability. It seems as though, following a saturation effect from information delivered through traditional sources, an informal space opens up in which the account of an anonymous witness—with whom we would have no other connection than anonymity—is accepted through the “benefit of the doubt.” The strange is not necessarily impossible merely because it is improbable, and this defines the gateway through which the contemporary mythological account enters.

In this way, an urban legend fulfills the function of giving the individual the possibility of expressing a personal opinion, a fear, or perhaps a suspicion. It may offer a shortcut to an explanation that is too complex, too elaborately constructed. Myth is an expression as ancient as culture itself, and its structure persists in our minds just as our fears and longings do, and it never ceases to express itself in new formats, adapted to the times in which we live.

Urban legends about AIDS

These legends tend to carry a moralizing message of varying tenor. In some cases, they reveal a variant that confesses fears of contagion or even discrimination, which turns the AIDS patient into a being who wishes to transmit the disease to healthy people.

One such account tells of a girl who travels to the United States on a cultural exchange program. There she lives with a new family that has two sons. The girl has a sexual relationship with one of them without using condoms. Apparently everything goes smoothly. But when her exchange period ends, at the airport, her boyfriend hands her a gift box, telling her it is a surprise to be opened only once the plane has taken off.

After the farewells, the girl boards the plane and, already in her seat, opens the package to find inside it a black rose, with a card that reads “Welcome to the AIDS Club.” In this account, the moralizing message—“do not have sex without protection”—is obvious, but underlying it is also the malice of the infected person who, even knowing his condition, denies it. In the same vein, there are accounts of infected hypodermic needles placed by AIDS sufferers in the coin slots of public telephones, or of sick individuals who boarded buses or the subway and violently attacked passengers with needles infected with the virus.

Urban legends about entertainment personalities

Post-mortem cults

He sings better every day (Carlos Gardel)

For much of the year, but especially on June 24th and November 2nd, the mausoleum of Carlos Gardel in the Chacarita cemetery in Buenos Aires is covered in flowers, especially carnations.

On June 24, 1935, the plane in which he was traveling crashed in Medellín, Colombia, under confused circumstances that have never been convincingly explained to this day. Some maintain that during takeoff, a conflict broke out among the members of his company that ended in gunfire and caused the plane to crash. Others believe the reason was competition between airline companies seeking to exploit the newly established commercial routes. According to this version, the plane in which Gardel was traveling was struck by another plane belonging to a rival company as it took off.

The popular cult is expressed in the following rituals: placing a carnation in the left lapel of the statue on his tomb and a lit cigarette in a smoking position, also in his left hand.

Fatal accidents and popular cults

Of a similar nature, also in Buenos Aires, tribute is paid to popular music figures who also died suddenly and at the height of their success. Such are the cases of Gilda, a tropical music singer, and Rodrigo, a musician from Córdoba who popularized the cuarteto genre in Buenos Aires. Both died in road accidents and many fans pay tribute to them at the places where they lost their lives. However, in these cases, media action has contributed notably to the construction of these popular cults, as they are commercially exploited.

The immortals

Elvis is alive

Different from the post-mortem cult, another mythological variant consists in denying the death of the popular idol. The myth of Elvis’s faked death is perhaps the most famous. In this regard, a series of arguments exist upon which the credibility of the legend is purported to rest:

On his gravestone, his middle name is spelled incorrectly: it is Aaron and not Aron. His tomb in Memphis is between those of his father and his grandmother, and not next to his mother’s, as had always been his wish. Although at the time of his supposed death he weighed 115 kilograms, his death certificate lists him at “only” 76 kilograms. The original certificate disappeared. Witnesses at his funeral have said that his coffin was excessively cold, which gave rise to the theory that what was inside was nothing more than a wax body that had to be kept cool with air conditioning. Two hours after his death was announced, a man bearing a strong resemblance to Elvis purchased a plane ticket to Buenos Aires. He paid in cash and said his name was John Burrows—the same alias used by the singer on various occasions during his life. The day after his death, one of his former girlfriends received a rose by mail from “Lancelot”—the nickname Presley used during their relationship and which only the two of them knew. He was a great follower of numerology, and if the numbers of his date of death (16-08-1977) are added together, the result is 2001, precisely the title of the singer’s favorite film. Shortly before his death, Presley had lost 10 million dollars in a real estate deal with a company linked to the Mafia. It is believed that Presley may have helped the US government dismantle the group in exchange for a new identity.

Furthermore, after his death a masked singer known by the nickname Orion began giving concerts bearing a great resemblance to those of Presley. When in 1981 the television program “20/20” produced an extensive report on the singer’s death, Orion disappeared from the live performance scene forever.

And finally, to this day, no one has collected his life insurance.

Walt Disney frozen

Another widely circulated myth holds that Walt Disney, who was suffering from lung cancer and did indeed die in 1966, was frozen in order to be revived a century later, taking advantage of advances in medicine. In this way, a virtual immortality is being attributed to Disney.

The truth, however, is that Disney’s body was cremated and his ashes rest in Los Angeles. It is believed that this myth, which spread by word of mouth, was generated at Disneyland by his brother and business partner, Roy O. Disney, together with the illustrator Marc Davis in late January 1967.

Subliminal messages

Subliminal advertising

The belief in subliminal advertising is based on the assumption that a stimulus can be perceived below the threshold of consciousness and provoke uncontrollable consequences on consumer behavior without those consumers being able to defend themselves against this invisible manipulation.

The hypothesis has given rise to various speculations and even a vast series of dubious claims related to the supposed “secret” capacity of advertising to affect our behavior without our being able to do anything to stop this influence. Thus arise the various myths that claim, for example, that among the hidden shadows of the Camel cigarette logo, clear phallic signs stimulate sexual desires.

In this regard, the much-discussed book by Wilson Bryan Key, Subliminal Seduction, purports to shed light on various techniques supposedly used to produce subliminal messages—specifically of sexual content—through retouched photographic images. In it, he states:

“Subliminal perception is a subject that almost no one wants to believe exists, and if it did exist, even fewer think it could have any practical application. It is undoubtedly easier to simply ignore what is happening (...) We have all been deceived and manipulated by subliminal stimuli that the merchants of communication direct at our subconscious. These techniques are widely used by the media, advertising, public relations agencies, industrial and commercial companies, and even the federal government itself. All of them have managed to keep the secret very well. The ordinary citizen, as well as the majority of sociologists and intellectuals, simply do not know what is happening. On the other hand, and even more surprisingly, they seem not to want to know what is going on.” Bryan Key (1973)

However, scientifically speaking, there is no evidence whatsoever that any form of subliminal action can exert relevant influence on behavior. And in this regard, there are not a few who believe that Key’s denunciatory work says more about himself than about the supposed sexually connotative inserts in graphic productions. A well-known advertisement by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, in clear allusion to the “myth” of subliminal advertising, reads beneath a photograph of a glass of whiskey:

People have been trying to find the breasts in these ice cubes since 1957. The advertising industry sometimes changes with small, seductive hidden representations that become advertisements. Supposedly, these representations can lead you to buy a product without your even seeing it. Consider this photograph. According to some people, there is a pair of female breasts hidden in the patterns of light refracted by the ice cubes. Well, if you really looked, you might see the breasts. And you might also see Millard Fillmore, a stuffed pork chop, and a 1496 Dodge. The point is that so-called “subliminal advertising” does not exist. However, overactive imaginations certainly do. Therefore, if someone claims to see breasts in the drink shown, it is not the ice cubes. They are in the eye of the beholder. Advertising: another word for freedom of expression.

Satanic Messages

With this same logic, various versions circulate affecting different rock groups and other genres, whose recorded productions were accused of including supposed messages from Satanic cults that would become legible when the tapes were played backwards.

Over the years, versions have circulated regarding performers as diverse as The Beatles (the White Album) and the Brazilian artist Xuxa. More recently, similar myths have been spread regarding the pop group Bandana.

The central point of these myths is that even if such treatments of hidden messages existed, the evidence gathered from empirical experience demonstrates that they would not be effective.