AL520/Blog3
| In my experience or How I see it, a rumor is somewhat personal. A rumor involves people I know personally or know of them. An urban legend deals with a story of people or events that I’m not familiar with in my everyday life. Does anyone remember the hit song from the mid-eighties called “Rumors”? The song was about how rumors got started about him. Who he was seeing, who he was sleeping with or cheating on etc. I try not to involve myself with rumors anymore. However, I love a good urban legend.
I’m very familiar with the Aids urban legend. This was circulating amid the gay and lesbian community throughout the 80’s and early 90’s. The U.S. government wanted to kill off Gay’s, drug addicts and people of color in general. So it goes to show that an urban legend can be tweaked to fit any group of people. In this case groups of people that feel discrimination. Does anyone else agree with me about rumors? |
SS024
Contemporary Legends, also known as folklore’s often times pertain to the same qualities of that of an urban Legend; Though they may seem unnatural, weird and ironic these events have somehow somewhere happened in the past, thus making it some what factual and not fictional. Authors like, Jan Brunvand, spend a significant amount of time looking through these urban legends just so they can try and prove it for themselves and everyone else.
This leads to what we call contemporary society, local places, that involve groups of believers and non-believers making them reflect on their own fears and anxieties, interpretating these stories and taking them as warning signs to beware of the dangers around them. For example, take the Tanning bed incident when the lady so called burned herself alive a day before her wedding. It made people reconsider and acknowledge the fact that the tanning bed is in fact harmful.
Believing these legends or not believing it totally depends on the audience and of course the teller; If my mom, for example, told me the story about the tanning bed I would probably believe it more than just hearing it from a friend. This is how these legends are kept alive though, if it wasn’t for the doubters and the believers these stories would not have been passed on or even remembered in society. They get passed on as rumors, jokes, news, conversations, personal experiences and so on, people some times don’t even know that they’re talking about a legend, that’s how common it is but merely unrecognizable. These legends don’t all have documentation’s but believed or looked at as a lie they still circulate throughout society always targeting a new group of people.
1. Can Urban legends portray actual event in a fictional manner?
2. if so, what would ben an example?
JT255, Blog 3
An interesting thing about Whatley and Henken’s Yes, We Are the Folk and We Do Have Folklore, is that they make legends seem like gossip/rumors. People don’t just repeat what they they hear from others verbatim, they also add their own twists, opinions, etc. into the story. It also seemed that people regard legends with more credibility than folklore, because they tend to think that they’re created a long time ago, and I think that a lot of it has to do with our automatic distrust of old things. However, that’s not to say that everything made up will be believed, it depends on the audience, speaker, etc.
It’s kind of ironic how people are naturally suspicious of old thing in the article, but most of the times they’re ready to believe the products of new technology. Of course, a lot of this is because we can make a lot of things look realistic with tools such as Photoshop, but a point that the article mentions is that the media will sometimes mistakenly report those hoaxes as real news stories. Most of that has to do with how technology enables information to travel fast, but at the same time though, it travels so fast that nobody really has enough time to verify the information, nor do they really want to.
- If folklore changes with different eras, cultures, etc., why do we have the same recurring morals appearing in the majority of the folklore, such as honesty, honor, humbleness, etc.?
- Why do people have the misconception that folklore is archaic?
TS484, Blog 3
| I read the article “Did you hear about the girl who…” and found it to be very comprehensive and upfront. I enjoyed the ease of readability while still maintaining complex ideas backed up by sound arguments. I particularly found it interesting when it was pointed out that folklore is always spread through an unofficial culture or other group, no matter what kind of group it may be. That no matter the size of the group, they will always share some common background. I never really thought about that before, but now that it’s been brought to my attention it really does seem unequivocally true. It almost seems like folklore has a target audience, even if it wasn’t handcrafted to fit a specific audience. Everything will eventually identify with a certain group of people.
The article also describes afterwards how folklore can be more than just oral, which is how it is normally thought of. It includes customs and materials, which I have never even thought of as being folklore. It also ends up tying in beautifully with the earlier idea that every folktale has an audience. Later it mentions how it is transmitted more than just orally, also observation, custom and practice. This article has really made me aware of how many things in my life are folktales and how influential they are. Questions 1: Can a simple statement of fact be considered folklore? Question 2: Is it realistic for folklore to disappear over time and then have similar folklore emerge much later and/or in a different location? |
NM510 Blog # 2
| Children folktales and legends teaches us about the narrators personalities, enthusiasm, and anxieties. they reavels community standards and cultural trends, as well as cross cultural similarities. With each child they have their own intrerest, mood, and attitudein story telling. Most of their storys fall into developmental patternand plut structure that is in a tale or folktale like onceupon a time. As a childs get older the more develop their story telling skills get with more details, sequence of events, beginning middle end, and more character develmopment.
So their saying today world is going to have a impact in the future children stories? |
JY2389 Blog 3
I read did you hear about the girl who. it told about a girl who wanted to be perfectly tan for her wedding. she went so much that the day before her wedding she died from her insides being fried. the article talked about with the internet and media these days that we never really know the whole truth to these folklore. in my opinion i dont think that the truth is not necessarily as important as the message of the folklore. what i got from the story was that the girl was putting to much value on looks and died for it. wether that really happened or not ill never know but the message of not dieing for looks got through to me and probably others who hear the story.
The other half of the article talks about younger legends that are usually passed along by the youth dealing withe sexuality. the two the article talks about are based on fear and involve scary scenarios. i think these legends where passed around just to protect the youth and to let them know to be careful with who your with and to just not be so trusting to everyone.weather these legends actually happened or not the message still gets passed along.
questions
If people believe a legend does it matter if its true or not?
if a legend or folklore can not be proven is it not true?
NM510 Blog #1
| what is myth,is it a lie? No myth come frome the greek word mytho meaning story or word. myth is also a genre of a story set in the distant pass that paint the picture to our social norm or values. Most Often they explain how the world today came to be. myth comes from the commonly collected stores like folktales and legends So do where do the meaning of myth being untrue or a lie comes from? |
DM 658, Blog 3
| In the article “Did You Hear About the Girl Who…?” the author gives two examples of legends. Both give a message to teens to not have sex to early. I never heard of these legends by the word of mouth. I did watch a movie that depicted that particular scene of the two teens who end up leaving and in the end it turns out there is a hook attached to the door. And as the author said, the Internet and media in general, are powerful tools in spreading different information. The second legend where the boyfriend is hanging by the feet from the branch, we have read in this class before. This legend was mentioned in he article about children and their storytelling. I did notice that this version of the story is different from the article on children and storytelling. This only proves how stories, legends, and rumors get altered depending on who is telling it, when, and why.
I also did notice that in the article the author defines contemporary legends very similarly to folktales. It as if the two are the same thing. In addition, I noticed that when the author was talking about folktales she used the word legend interchangeably. This further implied to me that legend and folktales are the same thing.
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SS422 blog 3
| The story “Did you hear about the girl who…?” discusses about a lady named Murphy how a lady was fried from the inside of her from tanning before her wedding and end up dying. Which I think that crazy, I feel sorry for her. Also talks about contemporary legend is a narrative about usual or weird plots. Its also points out as true stories. Folklore is defined as true stories and narratives to. Both of the contemporary and folklore are similar. It seems like both folklore and legend are the same but I was told they have some differences.
The article is a bit confusing it seems like they get off top and talk about several different things. Some of the example stories relates to real life things. It seems like the article warns you about particular situations that happens when it talks about folklore meaningful purposes it remind me of how back in our country and even here in America there is a saying for example is “what goes around comes around”, meaning you do something either bad or good for someone then you’ll get the same later. And that has happened to me and I know to a lot of people also. And my mom always would tell me if I don’t listen to her is “ believe me or you’ll regret it” or “I told you so”. ots like she knows better. 1. Its both folklore and legend similar to myth? 2. How did Murphy get her insides fried from tanning? |
AP523, Blog 3
Reading the article “Did you hear the girl who..” confused me because in the article legends and folktales are defined in a way that they both are similar. It made me feel that legends and folktales were the same. At first I thought legends were more modern and had to do about the present while folktales maybe something from back then and teaches you a lesson or conveys some kind of message to learn from, but in the article it says that folktales can be made to fit the present. I always thought that a folktale was something like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs because it teaches a lesson and reaches to a certain group which in this case would be younger children. Snow White teaches our kids that they should not take food from strangers and be more responsible on who they contact with. But the example in the article about legends also sent out a message to women and vanity, the one about tanning. That story’s message was not to be so indulged in the outside, but the inside.
One thing I found interesting were the stories about beehive hairdo and hairspray and spiders eating out the brains of a girl because I am assuming she put too much hairspray for her beehive hairdo? The message that it supposedly conveyed to girls in particular was about hygiene/cleanliness, but I would think that someone who put so much product in their hair and actually takes the time to make their hair look good would have taken good care of their hair and actually washed it. But I see how folktales reveal a groups fear through a story to try to prevent these fears from happening like the dating and exploring sexuality story. I think maybe folktales go more into detail than legends though because in the tanning story it just said that she tanned too much and died but then the exploring sexuality story they added more details into it to scare the listeners or groups that they are actually targeting.
Questions:
1. Are legends and folktales the same?
2. What legends/folktales have you heard that you believe in?
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