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Though urban legends and hoaxes have been around for as long as humans have told tales, I always date them back to the first one I remember: the Neiman Marcus cookie recipe (which was preceded by a similar tale of a cake recipe from the Waldorf). Long before the days of email, this bad boy traveled by fax.
A myth started adapted by some unknown person and passed on so many times that the copy my mother received was marred with splotches from random fax scanning beds and the text was fuzzy around the edges because it was a copy of a copy of a copy. Being a Dallas girl, the birthplace of NM, it didn’t ring true from its first read for a few reasons:
1. At the time, Neiman’s didn’t sell cookies
2. They didn’t (and I believe still don’t) take VISA. Hard to charge a $250 recipe charge to a card they didn’t accept.
Even though the cookie recipe is pretty darned good (I’m talking the original, not the one NM created later after getting tired of fighting the fight, I haven’t tried that one yet) it started my lifelong skepticism of things that are passed around.
I have heard about some pretty amazing hoaxes from history: the Cottingly Fairy photos (I love those girls), the Cardiff Giant, and Orson Welles frightening the masses with the Halloween broadcast of The War of the Worlds and in a way I can understand believing those more than the things that go around today. Technology was not as advanced, education levels were lower, there was no Internet so people could quickly google something. But today. . .?
This week, my Facebook newsfeed was blowing up with legal sounding jargon about copyright notices, privacy issues, million dollar lottery giveaways and “everyone who likes this post will get a $100 gift card” posts. None of which are even remotely true. I have received emails about the dangers of eating Pop Rocks while drinking soda, the ongoing false warnings that poinsettias are poisonous to humans (they’re not), and that power companies are fining people for leaving their lights up too long (again, they’re not.)
Perhaps I am a true skeptic. Or maybe I learned long ago from my dad, a true hoaxster, to not take everything at face value (I still double check almost every answer he gives me, he is the King of Balderdash.)
So I get bent out of shape when these hoaxes and urban legends take off. It drives me batty. Though it may make me obnoxious, I tend to send a “not true” note in a one-woman crusade to stop the madness.
Thus far my success in the cause is barely noticeable.
Of course, this skepticism has not made me immune to falling for them from time to time – especially those tales I have heard my whole life. I always feel a little silly when I discover that something I have held true for many, many years is another urban legend.
So what about you, fellow goddesses?
Have you been fooled by an urban legend? Do you have a favorite hoax or urban legend you’ve heard? Are you like me and double check most everything that sounds “too good or too crazy to be true”?
39 Comments on “But I heard it on the Internet”
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As a sick and twisted teenager away on a camp, a group of girls and I decided to tell ghost stories one night before going to sleep. At this age I knew of a few and so decided to tell my favourite which was (and still is) Have You Checked The Children (which was adapted into the movie When A Stranger Calls). It was suitably scary and I told it well enough that I scared the crap out of all the girls in that room and it fed even more when a shadow (most likely a cloud passing over the moon or something) darkened the window and several girls had to check which is when they saw a car they didn’t recognize which led them to freaking out even more while I just laid there in bed and laughed to myself. Like I said, I was a sick and twisted teen . . .
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 3:46 am.
lol I can respect that.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 11:43 am.
I generally have my feet firmly planted on the ground, so I’m not one to believe so readily.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 4:53 am.
good for you! I wonder what makes it easy to believe some things. It would be an interesting study.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 11:44 am.
I usually check snopes whenever I read anything that sounds to weird. I rarely share anything on facebook. I am so tired of getting emails from strangers wanting to share money with me. My mom almost fell for one of those phone calls telling her that she had won a lottery. She ended up getting a private phone number.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 8:15 am.
sadly, my dad HAS fallen for a scam. I try to monitor what he does somewhat now in hopes it will prevent it from happening again.
and thank the urban legend gods for snopes.com!
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 11:46 am.
Two sayings come to mind when I read this. “There’s a butt for every seat,” being one. The other is, “If it sounds to good to be true…”
Now with that being said I believe I have that Nieman Marcus cookie recipe in my emails. I could forward it to you if you have misplaced yours!
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 8:43 am.
ha! I have to look it up from time to time when I misplace it. It makes me giggle that it STILL goes around.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 11:46 am.
Well…now I have to reveal that I myself…am an urban legend. Yep. I’m Elvis and Marilyn’s love child. Thank you…thank you very much.
Jest kidding.
Now I’m off to meet the Prince of India who needed my help. So I gave it to him. Let him have all my bank information. He sent me a Thank You and now I’m off to meet him at the airport. We’re besties now.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 9:02 am.
Pesky, I’d join you, but I just won TWO TRILLION dollars in the British Lottery, so I’m going to be busy.
Wonder why they’d give that to ME when I haven’t been to England in over 10 years and aren’t there people there who might like it? Oh well. What can I do?
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 9:58 am.
Those English, gotta love em. Huge fan of their language. 2 Trillion you say? Awesome!
Posted on December 2, 2012 at 3:34 pm.
have fun! Make sure he gets you a tiara!
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 11:47 am.
Tiara, sweetie, he’s gonna get me the entire crown jewels. So I can wear them when I’m doing dishes. You think My Guy will notice?
Posted on December 2, 2012 at 3:35 pm.
I’m that lone voice with you crying, “No way!” so maybe if we get a few more we can be a chorus?
The first ‘trick’ I heard was at the age of about 9 and it was “if you eat watermelon seeds a watermelon will grow in your belly.” Even at 9 I wondered why the same wouldn’t be true of potatoes and apple pips and orange seeds. What is the stomach doing if stuff can grow down there? And isn’t it completely dark? What about my stomach acids?
That was the first time I went, “Huh? Wait a minute . . . ” Now I just go, “Nope. Don’t believe a word of that.”
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 9:53 am.
I remember the watermelon seed one! I think it backfired on my grandpa a bit when he told us.. my brother and I just took it as our “okay” to spit them at each other more.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 11:49 am.
Claudia, when I was little I was always told that apple pips would make a apple tree grow in your stomach!
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 4:11 pm.
I usually end up forwarding all the stuff like “don’t use your electronic key fob to lock your doors or someone could get your code and get in your car” and then I check it on SNOPES and find out its false, so I try to look stuff up too.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 9:57 am.
I think those types are so successful because we all want to be sure our friends and family are safe. I’m glad most of those things are false or people would just stop leaving their houses all together.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 11:51 am.
Thank goodness the internet has been around for a while..because it seemed like everytime someone I knew got started on the internet and email… my email would fill up with this kind of stuff.. and everything had 4 ‘FW:’ in the subject line. I quit trying to educate them about SNOPES because it just didn’t take.. so I continued to delete anything with over 2 ‘FW:’ from people I knew were new to the email/internet…
I love the State Farm Insurance commercial about ‘found it on the interent so it must be true’…ending with the French Model…
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 10:05 am.
haha I like that commercial, too.
I actually marked a few people as spam senders when they would not quit the constant forwarding.
A cousin (that I was not very close to) got FURIOUS with me because I hit REPLY ALL on a BS email she sent and cited the “not true” sources. This was after a whole slew of them and she wouldn’t take me off her list.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 11:53 am.
I first heard of the NM cookies in college, and as a teenager just out on my own, it never occurred to me that someone would hoax like that. I have a few more street smarts, now.
My favorite was if you swallowed your gum, it would clog up your tummy.
A friend, who is a retired cop, tried to lure the Nigerians into revealing themselves when they got ahold of her email address. She called the FBI, and we cheered her along in her quest, but nothing ever came of it, and she ended up having to change email addresses. I guess it was too small potatoes for them to be concerned with.
SIL got a letter from the Philippines. Someone claimed to be her husband’s love child. She was going along with it (she knew her husband was a true sailor and had a girl in every port before they got married) until she got to that person’s age. Nope, they were too old. She threw the letter away and said “if you’re going to hoax me, at least get your dates right.” Go SIL.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 11:05 am.
HAHA! to this day I still have a moment of “what if it’s true?!?” if I am in a situation where I have to swallow gum. It’s not often, as I don’t chew it all the time, but it happens.
I have a friend who has a “spam” email he uses to sign up for things.. he likes to play along with the scammers and sometimes will post the exchange on his Facebook page.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 11:55 am.
absolutely. anything that sounds too good to be true always makes me suspicious. but too crazy to be true? it get my automatic judgement as hoax.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 11:17 am.
Good rule of thumb in my book!
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 11:56 am.
I do check things that seem a little “off”. I used to forward these emails until I kept getting them back from my daughter with the Snopes link. We have one person at work who sends anything and everything no matter how far fetched. I kept getting the one about the moon being the closest it’s ever been so often that I finally sent her the snopes link.
I remember the NM cookies legend. I even made the cookies but couldn’t say where the recipe went. I guess I wasn’t that impressed
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 12:54 pm.
I like the cookies in that recipe, but does that recipe make a LOT of cookies!
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 5:15 pm.
I got that first as a chain letter…
Posted on December 2, 2012 at 11:51 am.
Oh girl, I’m right there with you. Quite frankly, I’m almost more angry at people that get scammed in this day and age because there are stories EVERYWHERE about creeps who claim you won a lottery you never bought a ticket for, or you have a relative, recently deceased of course, that was a prince in Zimbabwe… I don’t believe much of anything anymore. The politically charged ones drive me nutty. If you’re a Democrat, they are sending all kinds of inflammatory stuff about Republicans hoping you will forward it to everyone in your address book, and vice versa–and most of the time there is only a 1/2 grain of truth in the whole of it.
I play contests ALL the time. And, because of that, I get a ton of spam e-mails along with it. That being said, I also keep a copy of the official rules, so if someone DOES happen to call, e-mail or mail me something claiming I’m a winner, I can verify with the Official Rules that clearly states the people handling the contest and I can compare the information to make sure it’s legit. I actually won an AMAZING 6 burner stainless steel gas grill a few years ago, and I was able to look back and find the company that was putting on the contest to verify the info–I don’t want to send my tax id info to someone that shouldn’t have it.
I just truly wish that the people that use all of their energy and obvious intelligence being a jack ass and trying to steal things they didn’t earn would actually use that energy and intelligence for something constructive…imagine what a better place the world would be.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 3:17 pm.
true that.. and sometimes I don’t feel as bad that someone got scammed nowadays because it’s so EASY to verify things. Harsh of me, but there ya go.
It would be impressive if all those scammers used their powers for good.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 5:21 pm.
I grew up around strange places that had their own stories, from finding the ghost of Poe wondering the street and graveyard on certain nights to the soliers from the battlefield continuing to fight. I have been to the hill that if you put your car in neutral and power the trunk the car will go up hill and you will have prints of those marching soldiers on your trunk.
I am and have been the girl that would take her friends down a dark wooded area, make up a horrible story, only to scream Oh My God there it is and slam on the brakes, watching my passengers scream and even run out into the darkness to avoid the evil I saw in front of the car.
When it comes to the computer – I have won the lotto in so many countries, even ones I have never heard of, I have been contacted by the IRS in Canada?? and told by the FBI if I send money I can release my relative. Anything like that is never opened and trashed. The craziest internet things are when celebs are “dead” only to respond to the accusation.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 3:39 pm.
I kind of like those ghost story hoaxes
I think those are in a class by themselves and should remain intact.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 5:22 pm.
I don’t know how many times I get that “Luck of the Irish” email. I mean really I am Irish. Don’t you think I already have it..
But you did give me a lesson from the Nieman Marcus hoax. I find it hard to believe that they don’t take Visa..
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 3:49 pm.
yup.. and still didn’t as of last year when I forgot and went in to buy something… NM card or Amex only. I had enough cash on me to get the item, luckily. I had not been in one in so long I had completely forgot.
I just google.. as of Nov 1 last year, they started taking Visa and MC. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204505304577000103355671444.html
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 5:25 pm.
Man, I hate it when I forget to hit “submit comment” GRRRRR.
I’ve got a loved one who emails his entire contact list those urban myth safety warnings, then I’m sad and embarrassed for him when his more Snopes savvy friends expose his naivete in a reply all message.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 4:46 pm.
It’s tough love and sometimes needs to be done.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 5:25 pm.
I don’t get those kinds of emails anymore. I’m not sure it’s because I never forwarded anything, or if I replied all with snopes. Although, once I replied all with a snopes, and one of my sisters crazy friends responded with, ‘You can’t trust peer reviewed science.’ Huh, like we’re supposed to believe everything that the crazies say on the net? I don’t think so. Born skeptic.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 10:35 pm.
Generally, if it sounds too good to be true, it’s just that. I’m a very skeptical person.
Posted on December 1, 2012 at 11:16 pm.
I always knew that I was gullible, but I always thought the poinsettia one was true. In my defense, I was told that they were poisonous if you ingested the sap. There are several local flowers that we make into flower leis that smell nicely and also contain a milky substance at the base of each flower that is mildly poisonous if ingested. Am I really that much of an idiot for believing the one about poinsettias??
Apparently I am. Sorry, I’m a bit touchy. The childhood game at my school was getting me to believe something, and then laughing at me about it. Yes, I fell for everything. Luckily I didn’t have pocket money until I turned 16, or I would have probably lost tons of it to my classmates’ made up schemes.
Posted on December 2, 2012 at 9:08 am.
so, really late to weigh in but that cookie recipe?
I adapted it for my tastes and omitted the chocolate bar and nuts and it is now a fav recipe of my family and the families I’ve nannied over the yrs! I get calls to come back just to bake the cookies.
Posted on December 2, 2012 at 9:42 am.