I originally posted this in The Pit, and as per Giraffe’s advice, I am re-posting it here; since it wasn’t really a pit and more of a whine, I think he’s right.
The Internet has made me feel dirty.
JKCinema has this series of movies online called the Urban Legends series. Against my better judgment, I watched a few, and now I’m shaking in my computer chair. I know the majority of the first few episodes aren’t true, I looked up the stories on Snopes and thus disproved (most) of them.
JKCinema got smart. They found and put in their shows stories that aren’t on Snopes, so I can’t disprove them, and because I’m so damned gullible, I’m alone and very very much creeped out.
Take for example their origin of the Sloppy Joe. I won’t post the details here, but the name Manwich makes a lot more sense now…ew…
Please, fellow Dopers…I know I’m gullible and stupid and a wimp, no need to post that in here. Just help me fight ignorance. I’m currently Googling the Manwich story, along with the Christmas Carol story and the Led Zepplin backwards song story. Help me find some answers so that I’m not so freaked out. Please?
I don’t know what additional information you’re hoping for beyond my reply in the original thread:
With the Sloppy Joe thing, you can’t prove a negative, but there’s never been anything to substantiate the claim that the described murders even took place, much less that the recipe refers to the killings. A more reliable origin story has a somewhat classier version of the sandwich being imported from Cuba. The name is said to either come from a “Sloppy Joe’s” in Cuba or one in Key West. We know at least that there was a “Sloppy Joe’s” in Key West, and the name sounds more American than Cuban. I’m inclined to think that the recipe started out in Cuba and became famous as a “Sloppy Joe” sandwich in Key West. Although it’s not mentioned in that article, Ropa Vieja means “old clothes” – so the recipe and the name are similar.
“Carol” meant “song” long before the Whitechapel murders. This one is really silly.
Here is one of the more recent threads about backwards messages on rock records, with special emphasis on Stairway to Heaven, if you’re interested.
Thanks, Larry. I was hoping for disproof of other legends as well, although I know I should have put that in the OP. How about the paint thinner origin, for example?
I appreciate the (sort of) de-bunking of the Sloppy Joe one. Since I couldn’t find anything on Snopes about it, that one in particular freaked me out. I don’t like Sloppy Joes anyway but my stepdad loves them, so that…just…bleargh. Do you think the name of the Manwich brand came from that legend though?
I’m also thinking that the researchers at JK Cinema are looking to see if the legends they post are covered on Snopes now. I prefer my urban legends when I can look for the truth of the matter and go, “silly me! it was stupid to be scared when this is what really happened!”
So, naturally, when I can’t find anything about it I freak. I have to admit I already knew the Christmas Carol one was bullshit. Wassailing existed centuries before Jack the Ripper even picked up a knife.
I doubt it. “Manwich” Sloppy Joe sauce came out at a time when it was the fashion to promote processed food products as being exceptionally substantial and “manly.” (Compare its contemporaries like Swanson’s “Hungry Man” TV dinners and Campbell’s “Manhandler” soups.)
These are positive (if silly) connotations that make sense as promotion. If there was a pre-existing story associating the Sloppy Joe with cannibalism, the marketing would have never gone that way.
You might get a little more information on the other urban legends you want debunked if you give a little more information about what the legend is, aside from its name (ie, “The paint thinner story”)
I’m not saying that you’re ditzy or alone, but urban legends are called that for a reason. If someone tells me a story about the Bunnyman or whatever, it’s up to them to prove it to me… not for me to disprove.
Definition: a folkloric and often sensational tale about modern life that is repeated in the media and by other means, making it more believable to some; also called urban legend
from the book book The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings
I guess I’m confused. Not having read the article in question, I can only surmise that they’re claiming the Sloppy Joe sandwhich was originally made from human flesh? Um…so what? Are the ones your stepfather eats still made from human flesh, or does he, like me, make them from ground round? Do you think Manwich is canning manmeat? I don’t get it. I’m pretty sure the FDA would frown on such things. Even if, as is highly unlikely, some weirdo cooked up his wife and called it Sloppy Joe, why would that skeeve you out about what your stepfather is eating?
Ditto for many of the other legends. Even if the Christmas Carol urban legend was true (and it isn’t), so what? What does that have to do with kindergartners screeching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in shopping malls today?
I guess I just can’t figure out why these would be important enough to get “creeped out” “freaked” or “feel dirty” about.
The only urband legend that got me was one (also not true) back in the late '80s about a carjacker who hid underneath parked cars at the parking lot of the mall near my home, waiting to slash women across the Achille’s tendon with a razor blade, rape them and steal their car keys. I felt that this, if it were true, would be rather relevant to me, and so was accordingly skeeved out.
No urban legend has ever bothered me. Compared to the real things that happen every day that are a million times worse, it’s hard to imagine how an urban legend - which are normally hilarious - could ever compete.
So, since this is GQ, the answer to your question is that you are probably alone in this. At least on a place as enlightened as the Dope.
TellMeI’mNotCrazy: The origin of paint thinner is supposedly because a chemist lived in a house he thought was haunted by his murdered parents and their murderer, and he invented paint thinner as a kind of Ghost-B-Gone tonic.
WhyNot: I know the legends are stupid when I’m not watching them. Usually I like to think I’m a pretty intelligent Doper. It’s just that the way the company presents them is so damned creepy. I watched the “Origins” episode because I didn’t think it would be as bad as, say, their “Ghosts” episode. I was wrong. When I told a friend how creeped out I was, he said it was like I was expecting Friday the 13th and got Ringu. I have to admit that the episodes are both creepy and strangely fascinating, and they keeped me tuned in. Somehow I believe them for a while, then I come to my senses the next day or so.
I think you’re liable to be alone on that one, too.
Even if you overlook how utterly uncompelling the premise is, the presentation is a woefully juvenile attempt at “solemn and scary.” I couldn’t watch more than a couple of minutes, they were so childish. “Just narrate the damned thing, you little prats.”
Look, I already feel bad enough for being so gullible and paranoid when I started this thread. At least I’m trying to fight my own personal ignorance by asking for help; thank you for not failing me in that.
As long as you don’t start doing Jar-Jar Binks impressions, Larry, then we’re cool.
So yeah, I’m now ok. I think my problem is that I get curious about them and watch them alone, knowing how paranoid I get and not caring for the moment. :smack:
I agree with you about the narration though. The least they could do is get a voice mod that would make them sound like Vincent Price or something.
