Urban Legends

[Lynnie]

When a friend or relative sends you something that you suspect is an urban legend, do you check it out on scopes, and then send them the entry basically calling what they sent you a bogus urban legend chain mail things ?? or do you let it slide.

I have sent a few snopes entries to one friend who always sends stuff like that out, and she put a disclaimer in front of the last one she sent me. (kinda like "I don't care if this is true or not, but I am sending it anyway")

Just curious. My mom just sent me one on glad plug-ins causing houses to burn down. (Urban legend)

[Emmas Mom]

I always check out Snopes because I find the vast majority of forwards are Urban Legends (at least the ones I get). Depending on who sent it I will ususally e-mail only that person back & reference the Snopes listing on whatever it is. A couple of times I've replied to everyone, mostly just to maybe make more people aware of Snopes & Urban Legends. I think if I had a friend like yours I'd probably ask her NOT to include me. Snopes is such a great reference site. :)

[elliput]

It depends on the person. My Mom now checks snopes when she gets chain email after I directed her to the site a couple of times. There is only one other person who keeps my email on their distribution list and luckily it is an old address I don't check but once a week or so.

[ellies mom]

It depends on the person. My mom can never remember the website so she will forward me things asking me to check it out.

As for my 17 year old cousin, I always send her the link because I'm trying to raise her "cynic meter". I do it nicely but I do feel a little bad because she must think I'm picking on her.

Everyone else, I just delete them. I figure, they are grown. They should have developed their "cynic meter" by now. And if they haven't, well shame on them for blocking the internet pipes with annoying forwards anyways.

[fauve01]

i reply with the snopes link to everyone, usually. sometimes i just send it to the person who sent it to me. fortunately, i don't get too many of these kinds of emails anymore! LOL

anne

[brittone2]

the only times I've replied with a link to snopes, etc. are when it is something health related that could pose a problem (I recall one being sent to me on self-CPR, and it was advocating doing this for a heart attack if I remember right).

[s7714]

Same here. :) With the exception of things my MIL sends out--I'll email her if things are UL regardless of what the subject is.

Jennifer
Mommy to
Miss Pure Energy 3/03
Miss Limit Tester 6/05

Our bones may be brittle, but our spirit is unbreakable.
Osteogenesis Imperfecta www.oif.org

[caheinz]

I look it up on Snopes and send the author the link. One friend eventually started to check for herself.

The one that got me was a nurse who sent out a medical urban legend. I corrected that one asap.

[cstack]

I basically just chuck everything "forwarded" as a group thing. I don't do any of the chain stuff.

[Fairy]

This is so hard. I really do not like getting jokes, surveys, or any of these urban legends in my email. I am a big SnopesShipper, and I check everything out on there. If there's something i can't find there, I send it to them, and usually it ends up getting posted. Nine times out of ten, I will find a way to politely reply beginning with a "thanks so much for thinking of me!" type sentence, saying that I found a listing on snopes for it. Oh, and by the way, just to let you know, I'm not supposed to get this stuff at work, so can you please actually leave me off the list from now on, cuz i don't want the email administrators to block stuff from you if they identify you as a spammer. That offended one person, but it worked for others.

Now, my mom. Yeah, she sends me alot of stuff. I have on rare occasion sent her the snopes. usually, i just engage my friend, Del, after I get her stuff and say nothing. Del as in "delete." It's a fine line with moms and some friends between offending them and just dealing with it to keep from hurting feelings.

There are on occasion some fun things I've gotten that I do admit were awesome. It's rare, but I will forward things a few times a year. You want fun? Go to Google maps, click on get directions and enter New York to London. Skip down to step 23. Have a laugh. Those guys at Google are a stitch!

[kcimato]

I usually check things out through snopes but I never reply back to the person that sent it to me. I think I will from now on though.

[kijip]

Actually, I will filter someone's email to junk if they keep sending me chain emails!

I have sent evidence disproving some but only if it was something I felt really mattered if people believed the fake story. Like the claim that picnic is a racially motivated term derived from the phrase "pick a nig***" for food and festivities around a lynching post civil war. That I had to respond to... picnic has a French root that long predates lynching in the United States. I have seen schools and organizations ban the use of the word based on this total fiction. I even had a manager who broke down in tears at a staff meeting because someone referred to the BBQ we were having as a staff picnic. Lynching is a serious enough issue to not need to be dramatized with fake word connotations.

[elliput]

I love the New York to London or Paris or where-ever in Europe directions. LOL!

[tylersmama]

>There are on occasion some fun things I've gotten that I do
>admit were awesome. It's rare, but I will forward things a
>few times a year. You want fun? Go to Google maps, click on
>get directions and enter New York to London. Skip down to
>step 23. Have a laugh. Those guys at Google are a stitch!

That's hilarious! Thanks for the laugh!

[vonfirmath]

Most of the times I'll check it out on Snopes and then send to the person that sent it to me, showing both where to go to check it out and the truth (mostly falsity) of the claim.

Most of the time, this seems to get me removed from their future forwards :) With one friend, she stopped forwarding them and now starts training her people who are forwarding things to her to check them out first!

[DebbieJ]

I am fond of the delete key.

~ deb
DS born at home 12/03
Breastfeeding After Reduction is possible! www.bfar.org

http://www.bfar.org/members/fora/style_avatars/Ribbons/18months-bfar.jpg

[denna]

Sometimes I look it up on Urbanlegengds.com for my own s.a. but i really dont reply to anyone or all and let them know its bogus.