Metropolitan legends essay

Metropolitan legends have long been a part of modern day culture. There are many urban tales and there is certainly not anyone who has not really been touched in some way simply by an urban legend. Whether the person has told an urban star, heard a great urban story, or been influenced by simply modern day mass media or films like the 1998 Urban Stories. Urban stories have long since been around as part of the modern day history of a number of countries. They can be not frequent in one society but they carry out change according to which world they are an integral part of.

Urban legends have sufficient sides there is the “scholarly aspect, popular aspect and the commercial side which usually all could be looked at (Brunvand xxi-xxxiv). The scholarly side to downtown legends involves many facets including the fact that urban stories address problems of the times. For instance www. Snopes. com discusses that urban legends of modern moments often result from places like the mall and so they involve modern scares and worries like AIDS.

For example the urban legends of “AIDS Harry or “AIDS Mary which is when an individual is out on holiday having a excellent time and purposely spreading ASSISTS to those who they actually are out to cure in payback against the reverse sex on their behalf having AIDS in the first place. Many people have observed these testimonies however it can be doubtful that there include really been men or women with set out with a goal in their mind to infect numerous members with the opposite sex with AIDS as possible (Brunvand 5-7).

The scholarly side of this experience is that ASSISTS is a great epidemic that puts fear in the majority of those in modern day world. Therefore the thought of someone purposely trying to cause harm to others throughout the transmission of AIDS can be described as way in an attempt to control all those fears and to put aside the actual risks which have been involved with the AIDS outbreak. Not only is there a scholarly aspect to the downtown legend but there is also the favorite side for the urban star. The popular aspect to metropolitan legends is the fact nearly everyone features heard a great urban tale at some point in his life.

The idea that someone can think that they can go by untouched to this is known as a testament as to how popular some metropolitan legends genuinely are. For instance everyone has heard the city legend about the pregnant shoplifter. The main one where a girl is detained by law enforcement and it is after found out that she is not pregnant but camouflaging goods under her tee shirt. There include even been news articles or blog posts written about this and yet it can be all an urban star. When investigated it was not possible to find someone who had truly committed this crime (Brunvand 329-330, 332).

The urban legend is certainly popular and thanks to the popularity of the downtown legend they have also turn into marketable and for that reason urban tales have a commercial side. The commercial aspect of urban legends is the fact products which includes movies, books, television shows and so much more can be sold and marketed about city legends. There are many videos recently built about urban legends. In 1998 the movie Metropolitan Legend was launched and was the first in a 3 movie series that also contained the 2000 Urban Legends: Final Cut and 2003’s Urban Legends: Bloody Mary.

Generally there have also been a large number of books written on the matter of metropolitan legends and lots of newspaper content as well as articles or blog posts in magazines and journals (Brunvard). Just what is the fascination with city legends and modern-day culture? Urban legends are not going to always be going anywhere as they have already been around for some time. Urban tales give the reader/viewer/watcher a way to response a question and express a fear that has often plagued them. Exactly how urban tales originally started can not be answered as the original downtown legends were folklore and told by simply storytellers through word of mouth.

Today urban legends are able to be refined more quickly although media as well as the internet because modern day technology has offered many new helpful being able to distributed the word in questionable and hard to resolve events. The urban legend has many factors including the scholarly side, the favorite side and the commercial side.

Works Reported

Brunvand, January Harold. Encyclopedia of Downtown Legends. Ny: WW Norton and Company, 2001. Mikkelson, Barbara and David P. “What are Urban Tales?  Downtown Legends Reference point. 1995-2009. Snopes. 21 February 2009.

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