Urban Legends Essay

Have you ever received a forwarded text from a friend about an urban legend? Well I have and I think that the majority of them are just to scare you. An urban legend is an apocryphal, secondhand story told as true and is plausible enough to be believed about some horrific, embarrassing, ironic, or exasperating series of events that supposedly happened to a real person. They are usually passed by mouth, e-mail and text. They are told and told again so it would be impossible to find the original source of the story. There are many urban legends but I am only going to write about three of them and they are, how coca cola used to contain cocaine, that eating pop rocks and drinking coca cola will cause an explosion in your stomach and kill you and also, that people put pins, needles and razors in children’s Halloween candy.

The first urban legend I am going to talk about is that eating pop rocks and drinking coca cola together will kill you. According to snopes.com this is false, but many people think it is true. They say that combining the two would cause an explosion due to too much carbon dioxide. After all these rumors they had taken it off the market in 1983 so nobody had access to it anymore, but they released it again in 1985 set up a telephone line that people with concerns could call so that they can be reassured nothing would happen if the candy was eaten. Rumors claimed that a little boy named Mikey that did cereal commercials was killed by this but on the website it says that Mikey is still alive and well and the rumors are false.

The second urban legend I know about is that people place sharp objects in children’s Halloween candy like, pins, needles and razors. It talks about how they insert these objects in candy and then give them away as either an attempt to injure the person who eats the candy, or as a joke. Since the site was last updated it said there had been about 80 cases of this since 1959 but I’m sure there has been many more since then. One case is that in 2000 a man named Joseph Smith was arrested for injuring a 14 year old boy by putting needles into a snickers bar. According to snopes.com this is true and really does happen.

And the third urban legend I am going to talk about is that coca cola used to contain cocaine. This is true, and in 1902 there was about 1/400 grain of cocaine in every ounce of the cokes syrup. They then made the drink completely cocaine free in 1929. Now coca cola is cocaine free and it is one of the top selling soft drink brands.

In conclusion there are many urban legends and most of them are false like eating pop rocks and drinking coca cola together will kill you. But many can also be true like, people put pins, needles and razors in children’s Halloween candy and that coca cola used to contain cocaine. If you hear about an urban legend and you want to know if it is true or just a lie go to snopes.com.

Violence in the media

One way that media violence affects real life is that little kids often play video games and think that it is okay to copy what they see in the games and that's how people get hurt because really young kids learning what guns, knives and bombs are, i mean who knows they might get a hold of a gun and try shooting people and think it is okay because they saw it in a game. Another way that media violence affects real life is that when there are school shootings on the news and stuff and a person that goes to school and is bullied or whatever may see it and copy them because they are unstable or something then its a reoccurring event, a circle of violence that is just going to continue to happen. And one more way that media violence affects real life is that they may show a certain city that has a lot of gangs and murders then people will be scared to go there because they are afraid that might happen to them too.

Hip Hop #1

The statement that i chose is "Hip hop is a creative art form and a form of expression." I agree with this statement because i think that people need a way to express themselves so that all the emotions that they have inside they won't have to keep them all bottled up. All they are doing is expressing how they truly feel, i do not believe that they are hurting anybody, they are just expressing themselves. Also i don't think it is bad because authors express themselves through books and poems and don't really get judged about violence or whatever. The quote that sort of relates to the statement i chose is by Dr.James Peterson and it says "The culture or energy that came from that was a very improvisational energy, a very sort of reclaiming energy that young folks, through dance, through rapping and deejayin' and so on and so forth, that is how the culture took hold. It was a willed response to systematic violence in the community. And when i say "violence," i mean like destroying homes...Imagine someone puttin' a highway through your neighborhood- then you can understand hip hop. '"

My opinion on killing us softly

Since i didn't see the second movie, my opinion on the movie killing us softly is that in the movie i believe that she was trying to say when it comes to the media, women are just objects and not real people. I agree with this because i have learned that none of those girls in the magazines, or television are real. They are made from a person that is real sometimes, but they are not a real person that you would find on the street. They are edited until they look absolutely perfect. I think that they need to stop retouching the models so much and just use them for how they already look. The media is basically saying that everyone looks perfect like that, when in reality they don't and they are sending the wrong message to many people. Especially younger girls because from the point that they start to grow up they are exposed to these images and they are going to think that to be pretty and accepted they are going to have to look exactly like that, when in reality they most likely are not going to. I think the media definatley needs to expand and show what people really look like instead of making up people that do not even exist.

Super bowl

Since i have been in media analysis class and going through super bowl commercials i have learned that the majority of the commercials are alcohol related and they should probably adjust that saying that everybody that watches the super bowl is not over the age of 21 and is being exposed to beer and other liquors. I guess that those companies are trying to target younger people so that when they are older they will want to buy their products if they are not already using them.

Key Concepts

I understand key concept number one the most because i had already known that all media messages are constructed. Its like all of the companies do whatever it will take to get people to buy their products. I think that consumers buy into that even though it may not always work the way that the company makes it look or sound and they need to learn to be more cautious before they go out and spend money on something they will later find to be stupid or a waste of money.