We are all raised on the principle that if there’s something we don’t know, we just have to look it up. Everything that’s written down is fairly reliable, right?
However, books have become much less convenient than the dominant medium of the day: the Internet. You can find anything and everything there, from references to a host of trivialities.
The Internet has a double-sided virtue. It is a fully democratic place of free speech. Anyone can start a Web site and put up pretty much whatever they want. That means that people can put up information that is completely untrue, and they don’t have to tell anyone that it is untrue.
This wouldn’t be a problem if people weren’t generally gullible. Most people believe they have common sense, and that we live in a cynical world compared to any other time in history. And then most people send e-mail forwards.
E-mail forwards are the most prominent form of Internet scams. Even the ones that have religious overtones usually have another agenda in mind.
Recently one e-mail forward has been in circulation about Mel Gibson. The forward tells a story of an accident leaving Mel without a face. Apparently he worked in a circus for a while, and he was only saved through faith in the Lord and the charitable work of an ingenius plastic surgeon.
The forward claims that not only did this inspire Mel Gibson’s work in “The Man Without a Face,” but also his recent work “The Passion of the Christ,” as a way of giving back to the Lord.
This forward is touching. It’s a really neat story. It relates to faith in God and current events. And it cites the source of Paul Harvey.
However, it is completely falsified. The worst part in Gibson’s life involves him being a drunk when he was young, and then turning his life around when his sister encouraged him to go to acting school. And Paul Harvey never said any of it.
So why do we believe it? This type of forward falls under the category of urban legend. Urban legends are always neat stories that have an unexpected plot twist, a riddle or simply a dose of the supernatural. We all know of phantom hitchhikers, serial killers in the back seat, spiders laying eggs in you while you’re sleeping and green M&Ms.
Most of us eventually realize that all of these “legends” are fake. Yet they still thrill us and make for good story-telling. So why shouldn’t they be used in e-mail forwards?
Forwards may seem trivial, but they’re put out there for a reason. When you open up a forward you immediately have to scroll past a huge list of e-mail addresses. Such lists are very convenient for spammers. If you do send a forward, you may very well be on a list somewhere.
The not-so-innocent nature of forwards is especially apparent in forwards that act like chain letters. Once you receive one, you are immediately obligated to send the e-mail to a certain number of people. Sometimes the e-mail will promise to reward you with something popping up on the screen. Sometimes it will promise punishment through bad luck or even death. Sometimes it will merely say that you do not love God.
There is absolutely no way that an e-mail can miraculously make something pop up on the screen after forwarding to any number of people. And we won’t even get into the superstitions of chain letters and the state of a non-forwarder’s faith.
Yet most of the forwards are fairly innocent practical jokes. People send them out wishing to get a reaction out of people.
Even Web sites are known to do this. A fairly recent Web site has been getting extreme reactions out of people. It describes a supposedly Japanese phenomenon gaining ground in New York called Bonsai Kittens, in which you can raise kittens in a container to make them take the shape of the container.
Yet another urban legend. The problem is that the Web site never says that it is a joke. So how can you test the credibility?
There are a few Web sites that specialize in spreading the word about Internet scams and jokes. Scopes.com deals with Web sites, urban legends as a whole and forwards. Breakthechain.org specializes in all types of e-mail forwards.
But these are on the Internet. So how can you believe their credibility? These sites list their sources, a lot of which includes scientific studies and newspapers. And they are more believable than the joke sites and forwards.
We simply need to learn how to use our common sense and check our sources. Urban legends may be fun, but that’s all they are. Entertainment. Don’t get taken in.
Angela Adair is a junior English major. She can be reached at [email protected].