Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 182
Featured commentary
Sticking forks in urban turkeys
I
had my kidney stolen by a
hooker in Las Vegas.
No, seriously. You can see
it happen every now and then
on TLC. It’s part of a series of
programs debunking urban legends,
and I was the “victim” in a reenactment of that kidney-stealing
deal — which never actually
happened, by the way, in Vegas or
anywhere else. I think I made $100
for the shoot, during which I did
some really bad acting, and nearly
lost my love handles to frostbite
after spending about a half-hour in a
tub full of ice.
Good times.
So, as we head into the week
of Thanksgiving, and I count my
blessings, I find I am not only
thankful for retaining my love
handles (I mean, what would be
the alternative, love indents?), but
I am also grateful for the existence
of the guardians of truth, such as
TLC. And, even better, there’s
Jim
WALKER
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
snopes.com, where you can very
quickly get the real scoop on the
latest turkeys in urban legends
and hoaxes and virus scares and
misrepresentations circulating in
the social media.
I was reminded of that this week
when that pesky urban legend
about Walmart selling “Chanukah
hams” resurfaced, as it apparently
has every holiday season since
2007. Having somehow never
heard this tale before, I was all set
to do a column on the big chain’s
bad taste, and wondering whether
I’d ever need Walmart money for
my presidential campaign, when
I tickled the keyboard and Snopes
slapped some sense into me.
It never happened.
Thank you, Snopes, for saving
me from the deep gully of
gullibility, where the bodies of so
many other rubes pile up, as our
accessibility to hoax-bombardment,
via the Internet, increases daily.
Now, there was a time, in the
pre-Internet world, when urban
legends were more refined. They
traveled much more slowly, via
word of mouth, and each teller of
the tale could add his own little
touches as he passed it on. And the
myths stayed around for decades.
Short of the story making the
nightly television news, there was
really no way to rebut it. I mean,
what were you going to do, go to
the library? So you either believed
or disbelieved, but you always
passed the story on because, well, it
was a good story.
This is how all those women came
to have black widows in their hairdos.
But there were always clues to
the authenticity of any hard-to-
believe story. First of all, there were
the degrees of separation.
As the tale got farther away from
the teller, the likelihood of its truth
was reduced.
Take, for instance, the old
kidney-stealing story. A letter that
promoted it had a line that read:
“Yes, this does happen. My sisterin-law works with a lady that this
happened to her son’s neighbor,
who lives in Houston.”
That’s four degrees of separation
and a (in this case) distant city —
all preventing fact-checking.
Also, back in the day, you could
consider the source of a story. If
your best friend told it to you, it
rode a little easier. But if you heard
it from Pathological Pete, you were
more skeptical.
These days, the attacks on
your good sense come swiftly
and in waves through email and
Facebook, and they can chase
you down anywhere via your
smartphone. They can come with
photos and video and even logos
and such that mimic reputable
news sources. And they are so
very easy for you to pass onto
multiple recipients, which you are
inclined to do, especially warnings
of dire situations — such as your
cellphone number being made
available to hordes of telemarketers
unless you register it on the “Do
Not Call” list in four days.
It all makes the truth a whole lot
less likely to come at you.
On the other hand, these days,
finding that truth is usually just a
Google away. So, before you forward
that thing about Gaddafi being seen
at the West Hollywood Halloween
Carnaval, do a little checking.
Oops, did I just start a rumor?
Either way, please forward this
to everyone on your email list.
Comment at jwalker@thesignal.com or Twitter http://Twitter.
com/DontSeriously.
