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Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
From: asb@media.mit.edu (Amy Bruckman)
Subject: Wired article about AFU
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 1994 16:06:56 GMT

A while ago I asked a few questions here about AFU for an article I was doing for Wired magazine. Folks asked me if I would post it here. So here it is. This is MY DRAFT as I submitted it, because that's what I've got in electronic form. This is not how it ran. (It was in Wired 2.02). But it's pretty close.

Enjoy.

• Amy

TRUTH OR LEGEND?

] In Chicago as part of a gang initiation ritual, new gang members drive ] around at night with their lights out. When a car flashes its ] headlights, they follow it home and kill the driver.

] In England, a young boy named Craig Shergold is dying of cancer. Before he ] dies, he wants to be in _The Guinness Book of World Records_ for receiving ] the most get well cards.

Is it truth or urban legend? Down in the trenches of USENET, the keeper of the fine line between fact and fiction is Terry Chan, maintainer of the FAQ (list of answers to frequently asked questions) for the USENET newsgroup alt.folklore.urban. Things aren't merely included in the FAQ, they're "enshrined" there. Does hot water freeze faster than cold? Does the toilet flush the other way around in the other hemisphere? Did Mikey from Life cereal commercials die from eating the candy "Pop Rocks"? Alt.folklore.urban (AFU) is the place to find out. Chan, a 31-year-old economist from Berkeley, California, took charge of the FAQ in 1991. Since then he has spent an hour per day reading messages (an average of over 130 per day) and deciding when there's enough information to declare a matter settled. Readers of AFU go to the library, search through databases, conduct experiments, and write letters to determine the truth of popular stories. Is there really a secret club that serves alcohol in Disneyland's New Orleans Square? One AFU reader "placed an ad in an LA newspaper asking members to contact him. He then persuaded one to let him dine on his account there!" recounts Peter van der Linden, author of the original version of the AFU FAQ. The document evolves over time as newsgroup members contribute new research. It is currently 23 pages long.

Although the "Lights Out" gang initiation story had a lot of people worried this past October, it's just a legend. The case of Craig Shergold is more complicated. Shergold did indeed ask for get well cards, and did make it into the _Guinness Book of World Records_. But long after the record was set, and long after Shergold's tumor was found to be benign, the cards kept coming--enough of them to pose a serious problem for the British postal service. The legend still floats around the network, in various mutated forms--some versions say he wants business cards, another says he wants UPC symbols. Craig himself is alive and well these days, and wants no more mail. His birthday, June 24th, is celebrated as a holiday on alt.folklore.urban.

"If this isn't true, then why do people believe it?" asks Chan, who enjoys speculating about why some stories become legends. An urban legend reveals a great deal about the culture that created it. People want to believe the Shergold story, because they want to help--they want to feel less powerless in the face of serious illnesses.

"We're not folklore professionals--we're hacks," says Chan. "We don't have any pretentions to really knowing a lot about folklore. But I think it's good to understand urban legends and have a skeptical attitude about things you hear." As information sources become more decentralized, it becomes harder to separate truth from legend--especially with computer networks to propagate rumors. "A lot of the knowledge we have about the outside world is actually quite frail," says Chan.

Side Bar:

                      From the Alt.Folklore.Urban (AFU)
             List of Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

THE MISAPPLIANCE OF SCIENCE
F. You can make as much ice faster by starting with warmer water. T. Boiled water freezes faster than ordinary water at same initial temp. T. Hot water evaporates while freezing, producing 75% of ice in 90% of time.

F. Bath water drains the other way round in other hemisphere, due to Coriolis. T. Coriolis force affects fluids if you take incredible pains to isolate it.

LEWD FOOD
F. Mikey (Life cereal) exploded from eating Pop Rocks with soda (You wish!)

p.s. They ran a nice picture of Terry.