Urban legends didn’t just inspire a kickass ’90s movie starring the Noxzema girl.
They also gave way to an awesomely imperfect Wikipedia index of actual urban legends mixed in with weird stories and curiosities.
According to Jan Harold Brunvand, the professor and folklorist who popularized the concept of urban legends, they’re wild stories with a kernel of truth that get passed from person to person, usually carrying some sort of moral or warning. For instance, if you head out to Lover’s Lane late at night, you might end up with a dying Joshua Jackson’s feet grazing the top of your car. IYKYK. The classic “friend of a friend,” unverifiable method of transport creates so many different versions of the story that the original is lost in the sauce.
The “List of Urban Legends” Wikipedia page itself is a bit like this. Since Wikipedia is open to be edited by the public, the index has been added to and changed until its original intent, which one would imagine hewed close to the proper definition, is slightly bent. For example, as per the list, the story of the babysitter and the man upstairs? Totally an urban legend. The concept of cow tipping? That is not. And yet both are there, mildly vexing nitpicky podcasters who are going to cover them all, anyway.
Kristen and Will of Guide to the Unknown are going down the list in alphabetical order, researching each urban legend and not so “urban legend” until they’ve covered the entire thing. In their latest episode, they’re hitting the D’s: James Dean’s cursed car, the “dead children’s playground” of Alabama, which is as much of a bummer as you would think, the death ship of the Platte River, and the concept of dark watchers, who are outdoorsy shadow people.
This is Guide to the Unknown‘s 10th episode working down the Wikipedia page of urban legends, and they’re only on the 4th letter of the alphabet. Will they make it to the end before they reach their graves? Perhaps they, too, will become urban legends: the podcasters who tried to cover them all and died at ‘Y’ or something. Not exactly an urban legend as properly defined, which would make it just perfect.
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