Thoughts On 10 Scary Urban Legends

I was just checking to see what the current top scary urban legends are.

The list hasn't changed much at all in decades! These are the same scary stories that I first encountered as a kid, with the exception of #4 below.

About .com lists the following as the Top 10 Scariest Urban Legends

#1. "Aren't You Glad You Didn't Turn On The Light?"

#2. "The Boyfriend's Death"

#3. "Buried Alive!"

#4. "Skinned Tom"

#5. "The Fatal Hairdo"

#6. "The Hook"

#7. "Humans Can Lick, Too"

#8. "The Kidney Thieves"/Human Organ Harvesting

#9. "The Killer in the Backseat"

#10. "The Roommate's Death"

You'll note, if you're familiar with most of these tales, that they all involve things that almost all of us fear or are very anxious about. Some people never get over anxieties related to some of the themes in these tales.

These are all modern creations, too. Most of these tales would not be possible prior to around 1950 or so!

There weren't enough 'common' technological 'gadgets' around before the 50's for people to create stories like this from.

Notice how many of the top 10 involve automobiles? Or some kind of tech/medical knowledge or device? (surgery, telephone, automobile, electricity/lights, radio).

At least three of the modern urban legends (#1, #7, #10 or versions thereof) specifically involve electrical lights that are NOT turned on in the story. A character each of these stories purposely leaves the lights OFF (or, in some versions, the electricity fails) even though the gift of light to bring them out of the frightening darkness is right at their fingertips! Actually each of the versions of 1, 7, and 10 have alternate versions so that one version has a decision being made to leave the lights off and the alternate version has a technological/electrical malfunction as the reason why the lights stay off. The latter is evidence of a collective anxiety that technology will fail us when we most need it. This collective anxiety about technological gadgets would not have been as apparent prior to the 1900's.

Our current urban legends - our current favorites - will tell future generations about the nature of our anxieties once we are gone! A few hundred years from now, researchers will say "Oh, those people in the year 2008 were not at all trusting in the technological devices they had created up until that time."

The fact that some versions of urban legend are based around devices (light bulbs, automobiles, medical procedures/theories) invented about a hundred years ago - combined with the fact that these legends still frighten us - proves that we still don't trust some of the first devices that are considered 'remarkable' from at least a generation before us. Strangely, however, we use this technology and RELY on it every day, even though we don't trust it.

Notice how many of the top 10 involve some kind of sexual development or sexual activity theme?

Also, even in our purported age of 'gender equality,' each one of these stories shows men and woman as polar opposites, with men as mostly brave, sturdy individuals and women as 'the weaker gender.' The men in the stories are mainly perpetuating action while the women are usually waiting on the men or are attacked by males.

So much for 'gender equality' reaching far and wide.