Or, they assume that their intended reader won’t bother to verify that the link says what the author claims…
A little defense from a folklorist’s perspective: the general public is so focused on the true / untrue factor of urban legends that they often refuse to believe there’s anything more to it. Often, though the stories are untrue, they do express social fears and anxieties. Mikkelson has gone to a great deal of trouble to pound that through people’s thick heads; she does get carried away sometimes, but I think most people are far too inclined to dismiss it altogether. Folk narratives function on many levels and most people are inclined to reduce that to just one; Mikkelson is resisting. In other words, she’s overcompensating, maybe, but it’s not pointless moralizing / psychology.
Yes, and they are correct. My brother (whom I love dearly) forwarded me a virus hoax asking me if I knew anything about it. The hoax included “this has been verified by Snopes” with a link to an article debunking that very hoax*. Neither my brother, really a very sharp fellow, nor anyone previous to him in the chain bothered to follow the link right in the freakin’ email.
Anyway, I too would like to know if there is any substance to the xkcd claim.
*Not quite debunking – just saying how old and exaggerated it was
Dr. Drake: Then their problem is that they’ve accidentally dominated the wrong niche, except they’re doing it too well for it to be an accident. As it is, the meat of their site is the first few inches of each page (often reduced to a brief one-liner and a colored dot) with all of that ‘folklore’ maundering and mumbling written off as pure fluffy filler.
It’s discussed here on the Snopes.com site, without any denial, so I guess it must be true.
[Unless you trust the person there called “Snopes” who says, “Good lord, does it really take that much brainpower to figure out that if it were true, it wouldn’t be funny (and therefore wouldn’t be much of a gag for a comic strip)?”]
I find it to be pointless, since it amounts to little more than guessing.
It’s probaby been 10 years since I’ve visited that board with any regularity. It’s good to know that they still think the “my best friend’s mother’s cousin’s neighbor…” jokes are still funny.
You’re entitled to your opinion. This isn’t the right forum to debate that. There’s a solid methodology behind the analysis of legends. Mikkelson is aware of it, but because she’s doing a website with frequent updates, her pieces are glib and as you say, little more than educated guessing. Unfortunately, most people are not interested enough to do more than puruse (peruse? no time to check spelling) a website.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I think she’s given herself an educational remit more than a scholarly one, but I think she’s reaching more people than a scholarly website would do. I think she’s doing more good than harm, and I don’t agree that the “guessing” is pointless. But I can see why you’d think so, especially if you’re only concerned with black-and-white truth and falsehood.
When I made my initial comment about the psychology in Snopes, I wasn’t being absolutely serious. After all, it doesn’t take a huge effort to scan past the introduction if it were really that annoying.
But I resent the implication that you keep making, that anyone that dislikes these explanations doesn’t know and doesn’t care about the origin of such urban legends.
I care, but the explanations on Snopes are, as Labrador Deceiver says, little more than guesses. Also, as I said with my original comment; I dislike how they’ve become mandatory. Often it’s very obvious why people might find a particular scenario scary and/or believable.
Please don’t take my comments personally. They’re based on having taught introduction to folklore classes at the college level, not you (the particular comment you objected to was directed at Labrador Deceiver, anyway). It’s really, really, really difficult to get people to see that there’s ANY point to something that’s not true. But I’m not trying to paint all people with the same brush. I agree that the commentary can be annoying, I’m just trying to explain that it might have a purpose.
I should stay out of the folklore threads.
[Priority monitor]Psst… SCSimmons in post #30 (also, am I the only one confused by the response in post #39?).[/Priority monitor]
I had my first experience of this a few weeks ago. A credulous, but sweet, friend used to regularly forward all sorts of UL-type stuff. I kept referring her to Snopes, and eventually she stopped believing all the crap that she got. But then recently she forwarded to me one that claimed two different aging threats - one a hoax, the other a Trojan that originated in 2004 and is really old news now - in it, together with the link to the Snopes index page. I found the pages giving information which was apparently not read by the originator. After reading the site’s verdicts, I gave her the specific links. Fighting ignorance inevitably requires us to occasionally repeat old lessons to such well-meaning but naive individuals. Oh, well, at least she usually checks Snopes, or asks me, these days, rather than forwarding the nonsense to her entire address book immediately.
I suspect that’s the case. Like the people who try to infect you in order to sell you shoddy repair programs, and other similar scams.
I don’t know if they own spam servers, but they’re certainly not too particular about their advertisers. Back in my pre-Firefox days, i gave up using Snopes because opening many of their pages would lead to multiple pop-ups, pop-unders, and other annoying stuff.
For a time some of their ads were coming from Zango, which is a notorious pusher of crappy ads and installer of adware, and has been fined by the FTC for its underhanded business practices in installing stuff on people’s computers.
I rarely go there and refuse to post anymore because of this unsavoury practice.
I’ve noticed that - I have pop-up and ad blockers running on Safari, and they’re fairly effective with the rest of the internet, but I get a pop-under every time I open Snopes. Jerks.
That’s more of an approach that Uncle Cecil and the Straight Dope would take. But not all other websites do their educating to the same high standards 