Video:How to Spot an Urban Legend

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Transcript:How to Spot an Urban Legend

Got a friend of a friend who didn’t even know she was pregnant until delivering her baby in a McDonald’s parking lot? How about a third cousin whose next door neighbor went out for drinks and woke up in a bathtub of ice one kidney shy? We’ve all heard ‘em, probably even perpetuated ‘em -- wittingly or not -- but here’s how you spot ‘em: urban legends.

What Are Urban Legends?

Urban legends are fabricated stories that can be spread by word of mouth, e-mail, and even popular culture itself, and many times the line between truth and fiction can be pretty thin.

Because let’s face it, we all love a great story, and if it’s supposedly real, well that usually makes a great story even better. Unless of course my Uncle Bill is telling it, in which case it just goes on and on and on…

Too Perfect to be True

Tip One: If the story in question sounds like a well-crafted tale with a beginning, middle, and end - or some sort of surprising or frightening or humorous punch line - it’s probably an urban legend. And if the main character of the story is a distant relative or loosely affiliated friend -- anyone that’s just far enough removed as to be tough to pin down -- it’s probably an urban legend.

Heard It Before

Tip Two: If you’ve heard the story before, or if the details vary only slightly from another story with a similar gist, it’s probably a product of the rumor mill as well. It’s like that old game, “telephone” where you might start with a phrase like, “never feed animals at the zoo before sunrise” and after whispering it down the line you end up with, “that Jonathon Stewart plays a mean trombone.” Urban legend.

Do Some Online Research

Tip Three: When in doubt, do your research. If something about a story seems too good, too funny, too sad, or too frightening to be true, or if it just seems a little fishy, hop online and check it out. Sites like urban legends.about.com chronicle these stories as they circulate, and evaluate their truthfulness in detail.

So next time your co-worker tells you about her PTA friend’s boss’s autistic son who locked a short census worker in the closet thinking he was a troll, you can just smile and nod and ask her if she heard about Lady Gaga amputating her leg as a fashion statement. I’m Jonathon Stewart with About.com.