That story isn't true, of course; it's an urban legend that has circulated since the 1970s. It tells of a mishap that could have happened, but we have no real evidence, nor any good reason to believe, that it ever really did. It also conveys a familiar moral message: new technologies, albeit a boon to humanity, can also be dangerous when misused. Beware!
Whether factual or not, an urban legend is meant to be believed. In lieu of evidence, however, the teller of an urban legend is apt to rely on skillful storytelling and reference to putatively trustworthy sources — e.g., "it really happened to my hairdresser's brother's best friend" — to convince hearers of its veracity.
As many versions as tellers of the tale
Urban legends are a type of folklore, defined as the handed-down beliefs, stories, songs and customs of ordinary people ("the folk"). One way to differentiate urban legends from other narrative forms (e.g., popular fiction, TV dramas, or news stories) is to compare where they come from and how they're propagated.
Unlike fiction or drama, which are usually produced by individual authors, urban legends tend to emerge spontaneously and are rarely traceable to a single source. Again unlike fiction or drama, urban legends are spread primarily via interpersonal communication, from individual to individual, and only in atypical cases via mass media or other institutional means. And lastly, urban legends change over time due to repetition and embellishment, hence no two versions are ever exactly alike; there can be as many variants as there are tellers of the tale.
Not always false
The phrase "urban legend" entered the popular lexicon in the early 1980s with the publication of folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand's first book on the subject, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings (New York: W.W. Norton, 1981). Though it has unfortunately become synonymous in common parlance with "false belief," the term is meant to denote a more subtle and complex societal phenomenon entailing the creation and transmission of folk narratives — narratives which are indeed usually false, but which also, on occasion, turn out to be 99.99% true.
Common characteristics
Accordingly, a classic urban legend will exhibit most or all of the following characteristics:
- It's a narrative.
- It's alleged to be true.
- It's just plausible (sometimes just barely plausible) enough to be believed.
- Its veracity is unproven.
- It's of spontaneous (or indeterminate) origin.
- It varies in the telling.
- It's likely to take the form of a cautionary tale.
- It circulates by being passed from individual to individual, either orally or in written form (e.g., via fax, photocopy or email).
- It's attributed to putatively trustworthy secondhand sources (e.g., "a friend of a friend," "my sister's accountant," etc.).
Further reading:
Classic urban legends:
