Hmm, “It’s not an urban legend, it’s a story that’s been altered through repeated retellings.” What, exactly, do you think an urban legend is?
As David so wisely pointed out, a story can be true and still be a UL. Peruse snopes a bit more - you’ll find plenty of examples. Some UL’s have no basis in fact, some have a little, and some have a lot. This doesn’t make them any less ULish. If Lib were to find a tape exactly as he remembers the event, proves his case, and gets Eubank’s money, the story is still a UL.
And I agree with snopes’ “Sort of” assessment. There is a real event similar, but most definitely not the same as the commonly remembered event. To give this one a status of “True” would be a gross misrepresentation of the evidence.
Which commonly remembered event are you speaking of? According to Snopes there are many versions of this tale floating around. To simply pick one and say “See, the actual event doesn’t match this tale so we don’t have to admit we were wrong” seems a little disengenous. The fact of the matter is, the event in question, i.e. reference to anal sex in response to a question on the Newlywed game, did in fact occur.
Regarding the definition of urban legend,
according to the alt.folklore.urban FAQ:
I’ll admit that because part 3 of the definition includes the caveat that the story does not have to be false, this tale is not expressly disqualified. But how do we distinguish between a funny true story and a UL using this definition? Or are you claiming that the UL status is not related to veracity at all, but merely a label describing the fact that the story has survived so long?
Often the main evidence for a story being a UL is the lack of verifiable evidence of the event. In this case, the evidence has been found and is irrefutable (unless you think someone faked this clip) and as such I still think that this former UL has been shown to be true.
Good point. However, there seem to be some trends in the different versions, and the newly uncovered evidence is pretty unlike the rest. Most versions say “Up the butt, Bob” or “In the butt, Bob.”, and rarely if ever “In the ass.” That may seem like a small detail but to UL afficianados such small details morphing are a big deal.
Often the line between the 2 is pretty blurry. Off hand, I would say that if a funny true story gets told around the water cooler or spreads via e-mail, and begins to morph, that’s enough to call it a UL, although maybe not in the strictest definition of the term.
I would go with that. There are certainly some stories that can be traced back to their roots quite clearly, and we can still call those ULs. An example that comes to mind is a bit of scarelore that went around last Summer/Fall. Do you remember getting an e-mail about a woman that sniffed a bottle of bargain perfume in a parking lot, passed out, and got robbed? That was directly traceable to a real (though dubious) event. But I’ll bet we’ll see that e-mail coming around in another few years.
I agree. But I don’t think it goes from being a UL to a former UL just because evidence has been found. It stays a UL, but the status changes. Just as we would still think of King Arthur as a legend even if proof of his existance had been found.
Fair enough. Although I think that the status would change from legend to history, but that’s a minor quibble. You are correct that all of the fiction based on him would remain legend.
My major gripe here is not with the definition of UL used by Snopes and alt.folklore.urban, but with the manor in which it was applied in this case. The people who derided Libertarian’s claim maintained that his story could not be true because it was an urban legend. Now that we have established that a UL is not neccessarily false, we see the flaw in their arguments.
In fact, his story was true, and the fact that the tale technically can still be called an urban legend does not change the fact that those involved on this board and on the Snopes board owe him an apology for the contempt and abuse they heaped upon him.
Although I merely lurked, I too was guilty of assuming that he could not have seen the episode, as I was convinced it never happened. This merely serves to prove to me once again that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
A humble question here, since I haven’t seen the video clip or listened to the audio clip, but if her answer is “bleeped”, how does anyone know what the contestant said?
I know some of you are having trouble viewing the video clip. I read this info on AFU. Maybe it will help you see it. I was too dense to understand the instructions.
Arnold, while I was primed for it and am therefore possibly biased, I believe that the woman said “in the ass” from reading her lips. While it’s entirely possible that she said something else, her lip movements were consistent with that phrase.
gEEk, you said:
You have a good point. But the fact remains that Lib and Edlyn were not completely correct. They remembered stuff that simply didn’t happen (in this clip, of course–I suppose it’s possible there was another similar situation). Urban Legend does not necessarily equal False, but it never equals True.
While some of us may have pointed out that it was an urban legend, I don’t know that any of us said “This can’t be true because it’s an urban legend.” I admit I haven’t gone back and checked, and it’s possible I’ll have to eat my words, but in general I remember saying, “Show us the evidence and we’ll change our minds. But we don’t think you can show us the evidence because it doesn’t exist.” Were we wrong about the tape not existing? Apparently so – or, rather, something similar to that which was claimed does exist. But as somebody else already noted, the way Snopes and the rest of us reacted shows that Lib was wrong about “hyperskeptics.” We said that if he showed us the evidence, we’d change our minds. Somebody found the evidence, snopes changed the status of the UL, and I immediately (upon hearing about it) posted this thread. We saw the evidence and said, “Hmmm. Guess something like it did happen.” That said, his version was still different than the one on the tape, as we’ve noted.
In fact, it was not, as I’ve already described. It was close, but not 100% true.
I don’t think he was the target of “contempt and abuse.” In fact, he specifically noted, when somebody accused me of making it sound like he was an idiot, that he never thought that at all. I was talking about memory and ULs. Again, I haven’t gone back to check, but I don’t recall “contempt and abuse” being directed at Lib by any regular around here.
Ok, I went directly to Hitplay.com, did a search, and ran the clip that way. While the quality wasn’t very high (I couldn’t, for example, make out at all what she had said thru lip reading), it was enough that I could tell this was not a black couple. Dark, yes, but maybe of Pakistani or Indian descent, from what I could see. A nit, perhaps, but a main part of the legend (if not necessarily part of Lib’s version) is the, shall we say, “black” use of language, which these folks did not use.
Also, there were no shots whatsoever of the audience, again contradicting what Lib swears he saw.
So, I stick with what I said earlier – he may have seen this episode (though we still have no verification that it ever actually aired – I’d like to know for sure whether it was put on the air or in a bloopers tape), but his memory of the incident was contaminated by the UL.
Oh, and since we’re discussing memory, here’s a link to a Chicago Tribune article from today about a long-term study showing how people’s memories change over the years, get contaminated, etc.
Oh David, come on. You’re wiggling and squirming a little too much here. He did see a “Newlywed Game” show, with dark skinned people, a man with a bushy beard, and a reference to “up the ass/butt”. No, the details are not 100% correct. Yes, he got a few details warped. But come ON. To nit-pick about the fact that the couple was perhaps not black (but dark-skinned nonetheless) is beneath you. Give me a break. Just eat your words, and get it over with. You may not have come right out and said that Lib was imagining the whole thing in the original thread, but you came close enough. Many of you did. And I understand his frustration about it all now. He knew he saw something about “Up the butt” (or ass - whatever) on the “Newlywed Game” and now here’s the proof.
Give me a fricking break. He saw it a long time ago, he “filled in the blanks” of some sketchy memory with a few details that weren’t 100% correct, but dammit, bottom line, he SAW IT. His insistence was genuine. I believed that there must be something to it during the original thread, and I was right in believing that he saw something as well. Dammit. Just eat your words. At least partly. Don’t dick around with “Is it still an UL?” crap. Maybe it still is, maybe not. Don’t dick around with how faulty memory can be. Sure it can! But in this case, I don’t frigging care. Lib saw it, and he got enough details correct to verify that he saw it. This isn’t a court of law, and he’s not a witness under oath.
a. I can’t make out what she says myself, but if snopes says she says it, I trust 'em.
b. The ‘sort of’ thing is a total cop-out. The exact phrasing and the race thing may make for a better UL, but the core story is clear: someone on the newlywed game answered anal sex in response to the weirdest place they’d made whoopee. And in fact, it now seems that happened.
If tomorrow it’s discovered that Neil Armstrong did say “Good Luck” to Mr. Gorsky, then it’s true. Even if the guy was really Mr. Gordon. Even if the speaker was Buzz Aldrin.
Actually, I’m not wiggling and squirming at all. I’m pointing out facts. Which thing that I’ve said is wrong?
Probably, yes. I’ve already said that.
Actually, he got several points wrong that he insisted he was right about – such as being able to hear the comment and the content of said comment, and such as seeing the camera flit around to the audience, which it didn’t.
I’m sorry you feel discussing the facts is beneath me, but I have just been trying to work out all the details here. I already explained why the contestants’ being black was an issue.
No, you give me a break. I have no words to eat (unless you can find some). At the time when Lib was first discussing this, we asked for evidence. He had none, and neither did anybody else. Some was finally provided, so snopes changed their mind and so did I. I’m not sure where the problem is here.
Oh, I “came close enough.” Well, since you can apparently read minds, tell me what I’m thinking now.
No, the bottom line is actually one I’ve already stated – he probably saw it, but his memories were tainted by the UL. So it still goes back to what we said about memory in the first thread, though not as much as we first thought.
Again, what words would you like me to eat – specifically?
Well, you know what? I don’t base my posts on what you care about. I have been discussing the entire subject. If you don’t care about a part of it, don’t read it.
Then why are you acting like his defense attorney and badgering the witness?
No, actually, it’s not, as has already been explained at least once in this thread.
And there you have it. The story is sort of true. Not completely, because things changed in the normal UL version. Sort of. Just like snopes said.
No, it would not be. You can’t say, “The story is true, even though it wasn’t that person who said it and even though those weren’t the words he said.” If you have that many discrepancies, it’s not a true story.
I also read through the original thread when it was active. Wasn’t one of Libertarian’s main points that he had never heard the UL and thus could not have been influenced by a preconceived notion? He saw what he saw. Why do some here keep saying his memories were tainted by the UL? How could that be?
I watched the clip. I’ve seen lighter-skinned people than that guy who called themselves “black.” Maybe it was the beard.