Snopes Urban Legends
From SkepticWiki
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[edit] Definition
Snopes Urban Legends is a website whose authors exhibit and analyze urban legends, folklore, modern myths, and other similar meme complexes. The vast collection of popular legends, together with search capabilities make it a valuable tool for quick reference. With a few exceptions, much of the site is written and maintained by Barbara and David Mikkelson.
[edit] Discussion
[edit] Skepticism
While considered by many to be primarily a “debunking” site, it should be noted that Snopes.com reports on all current urban folklore, both true and false. The glossary emphasizes that “whether or not something actually happened has no bearing on its status as an urban legend”.
The site may be considered skeptical in that the claims of popular legends are examined through objective evidence. The analyses of legends often go beyond the truth of the claims, and include speculation into the origins and pervasiveness of the legends and their attendant beliefs.
Despite the site’s reputation as the authority on the truth of popular lore, the authors explicitly disavow this authority, and caution against accepting the judgment of authority without checking sources.[1] To underscore this, a set of deliberate hoaxes (“Lost Legends”) are published on the site, and given the same authoritative-sounding commentary as the real thing. [2] Any responsible fact-seeker clicking the “more information” link from these pages is directed to a page explaining the need to trust common sense and original sources over the trappings of authority.
[edit] Chain Letters
The availability of email has made forwarding chain-letters an almost effortless and thoughtless activity, and thus a powerful vector for urban legends. Snopes.com maintains an extensive collection of legends, warnings, missing persons alerts, etc., propagated by email.[3] It is quite common for those familiar with Snopes, upon receiving a dubious chain-email, to reply to the sender with a reference to the relevant Snopes article. (Ironically, such a reply takes only marginally more effort and thought than the original sender evidenced by forwarding the chain).
[edit] Snopes Community
Snopes.com maintains a forum with over five thousand registered users (who sometimes style themselves snopesters), from all over the world. The sometimes raucous message boards have evolved their own jargon and customs, a few of which have found currency in other parts of the internet. The use of elaborate internyms in a signature is common both in the forums and in the Snopes.com articles.
