Snopes - The Urban Legends Reference Site
Snopes describes itself as the net's premier Urban Legends Reference site. From dodgy Nigerian e-mail scams to hidden porn in Disney movies, Snopes dedicates itself to uncovering the truth. Or whatever passes for the truth in the murky world of humanity's collective imagination.
it must be true!
Let's face it, the internet is fantastic. But it's also bogged down with a fairly stupendous amount of utter bollocks. Nowhere is this more clearly evident than in the disease of e-mail born urban legends. They've probably existed since the dawn of civilisation, but the advent of the world wide gossip web have given the gullible hordes powerful new ways of spreading their dubious scare-mongering.
If only the internet's power could be harnessed for good, rather than evil...
That's the titanic mission Snopes sets itself. Basically, the site is a one-stop shop for debunking those tall tales that persistently squirm their way into your inbox. Worried about whether you really should be looking out for needles in the seats at the cinema, or whether bloodthirsty gangs really do shoot the first motorist who flashes their lights? Well, Snopes can help you cut through the cultural lip-gloss and find you those glinty nuggets of truth.
The site is the work of a couple, the Mikkelsons (Barbara and Dave to their friends) It grew out of a newsgroup where people had gathered to share and debunk some of the more ridiculous stories doing the rounds of email. This was back when newsgroups were cool, presumably.
From such humble beginnings it has grown to a site with nearly 3000 articles in dozens of categories. It's well worth a proper trawl through in your own time, but some of the fun highlights include:
Disney's "The Little Mermaid" and the erect penis
Jamie Lee Curtis is a hermaphrodite
The thoroughly believable story of an oil well punching through to Hell
...and many, many more.
Generally, Snopes is at its most interesting and entertaining when it's way out on the fringes, dealing with the weirdest and most outlandish rumours and allegations. However, there's also a fair bit of good research debunking some of the more mundane nonsense, such as the mistaken idea that we only use 10% of our brains, or that if you sneeze seven times you'll cum.
The more cynical among you might well be thinking that by actively seeking out the lunatic fringe of internet nonsense and using it to pull traffic onto their website (and its advertising) Snopes is hardly making headway in the name of truth and justice. But the fact remains that the research that goes into the articles seems pretty solid, and that Snopes is a genuinely useful reference.
So if you can make it past the annoying music and the grossly naff web design there's a million little gems tucked away to be found on the site. And as long as there are still eejits falling for Nigerian 419 scams it looks like it might just be serving a genuine need on the internet, too.
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