Urban Legends

In my book "Exalt of the Weird" I devoted a chapter to talking about how urban legends are pure plot, a lesson in distilled storytelling and allegory, and great fodder for magic and mentalism.  Today specifically, I want to briefly touch on using urban legends on a local scale.  If you can grab one of the Weird America series of your home state, there's plenty of material to work with.  For example, I'm still trying to think of a way to work the Ogua river monster into a routine.

When you stop to think of it, urban legends laid the groundwork for viral marketing.  It worked for The Blair Witch Project after all.  A lot of people actually believed that whole story about finding the camera of a missing film crew.  You may mock, but that doesn't change the fact that it worked.  And before that it was Cannibal Holocaust.  So many people were convinced that it was a real snuff film that the Italian police actually arrested director Rugero Diodato and wouldn't release him until he called in his cast to verify that they were still alive.  Spooky, no?

Just some food for thought.  Look into your local legends and myths and see if there's something you might be able to exploit.