Urban Legend and Rumors

   




     As Best and Horiuchi examine the concept of urban legends and the effects they have on society, they state in their article, “Urban legends, like collective behavior and social problems construction, are responses to social strain, shaped by the perception of the threat and social organization.” This type of fear and the outcome it has on the surrounding public took place on a smaller scale in my neighborhood when I was a young child. When I was around the age of ten there was a belief spreading through our neighborhood that an older man had been sneaking into peoples’ homes late at night and stealing personal items while committing deviant acts of behavior with female undergarments. I never learned how this rumor initially started but I do know that my friends parents as well as mine took it very seriously. Not only did my parents check all doors and windows before they went to bed each night but they would walk outside around the house as well check the bushes and other random places. These acts were actually suggested in the monthly bulletin our neighborhood has so most parents were believed to do the same before they went to bed also. It turns out around a month later that a group of pre-pubescent teens were arrested in the middle of the night for trying to break into someone’s car. They ended up admitting to other crimes such as breaking into garages to steal beer and the occasional bicycle never admitted to actually breaking into peoples’ homes. After the young boys were arrested no household reported the breaking of an entry for quite some time. It was believed that the rumor of the old man was finally put to rest and that the truth finally surfaced that is was only the young teenagers in the first place. Why was the undergarments and personal items involved in the rumor then? Did those events actually happen or was it just neighborhood gossip that spread like wildfire causing the occasional house mom to exaggerate? I guess I’ll never know the truth about the rumor but since then I am never one to believe any type of urban legend unless I witness it firsthand.  For me, I have to see it to believe it.