Faxlore
Encyclopedia
Achtung! Alles turisten und nonteknischen lookenpeepers! Das maschine-kontrol ist nicht für der gefingerpoken und mittengraben! Oderwise ist easy to schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparksen. Der maschine ist diggen bei experten only! Ist nicht für gewerken bei dummkopfen. Der rubbernecken sightseeren keepen das cottonpicken händer in das pockets. Zo relaxen und watschen der blinkenlights. |
| A common example of Faxlore is the mock German variation of the "Blinkenlights Blinkenlights Blinkenlights is a hacker's neologism for diagnostic lights on old mainframe computers and modern network hardware.The Jargon File provides the following etymology:... " poster |
Faxlore is a sort of folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
: humorous texts, folk poetry, folk art
Folk art
Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic....
, and urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
s that are circulated, not by word of mouth, but by fax machine. Xeroxlore or photocopylore is similar material circulated by photocopying; compare samizdat
Samizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
in Soviet-bloc countries.
"Photocopylore" is perhaps the most frequently encountered name for the phenomenon now, because of trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
concerns involving the Xerox
Xerox
Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
Corporation. The first use of this term came in A Dictionary of English Folklore by Jacqueline Simpson
Jacqueline Simpson
Dr. Jacqueline Simpson is a United Kingdom researcher and author on folklore and legend.She studied English Literature and Medieval Icelandic at Bedford College, University of London. Dr. Simpson has been, at various times, Editor, Secretary, and President of the Folklore Society. She was awarded...
and Steve Roud
Steve Roud
Steve Roud is the founder of the Roud Folk Song Index and an expert on folklore and superstition, resident in Maresfield, East Sussex, England. He was formerly Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society, whose Committee he later...
.
Material circulated in faxlore
Some faxlore is relatively harmless. CartoonCartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
s and joke
Joke
A joke is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices...
s often circulate as faxlore; the poor graphic quality becoming worse with each new person who resends the joke to the next recipient. Because faxlore and xeroxlore is the (mis)appropriation of technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
owned by the employer, much humorous
Humour
Humour or humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement...
faxlore is mildly subversive of the workplace and its values. Like email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
and chain letters
Chain Letters
Chain Letters was a British television game show produced by Tyne Tees Television. The show was filmed at their City Road studios in Newcastle Upon Tyne and broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom between 7 September 1987 and 25 April 1997. Three contestants competed to win money by changing letters...
, office technology has given new life to various forms of practical jokes, urban legends, and folklore. The items are often office-related, such as spoof agenda for meetings, spurious descriptions of ridiculous training programs that all staff will allegedly be required to attend, and so on. Names may be whited out and replaced with someone in the office, making it a joke on a particular person, or details may be altered making an item more topical.
The somewhat sexist
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
but now semi-traditional lists of reasons "why a cucumber is better than a man" or "why a beer is better than a woman" often circulate as faxlore, as has the well known mock German variations of the "Blinkenlights
Blinkenlights
Blinkenlights is a hacker's neologism for diagnostic lights on old mainframe computers and modern network hardware.The Jargon File provides the following etymology:...
" poster. Another commonly circulated text contains ethnic humor; a typical version goes:
- Heaven is where the police are British, the lovers French, the mechanics German, the chefs Italian, and it is all organized by the Swiss.
- Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, the police German, and it is all organized by the Italians.
Materials of this sort have existed from the beginnings of duplicating technologies. World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
era blueprint
Blueprint
A blueprint is a type of paper-based reproduction usually of a technical drawing, documenting an architecture or an engineering design. More generally, the term "blueprint" has come to be used to refer to any detailed plan....
s exist of drawings of female nudes with their body parts labeled as if they were the parts of airplanes. With the widespread adoption of photocopying, amateur duplication of this sort of material became available to a much larger social base. Cartoons and other amateur materials were distributed in the workplace, usually in violation of managerial restrictions on the use of office supplies, and often in disregard of copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
law.
Later, during the early 1990s, the widespread adoption of telecopiers made it possible to duplicate these materials remotely. The use of fax to duplicate these materials also changed the emphases of their subjects; various alarms and urban legends were propagated to distant readers over the telephone lines. This use of fax has been somewhat supplanted by email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
as that technology became more widely used and embedded in the culture; the sort of urban legends that once circulated by fax are now likely to appear as email hoaxes. Specific computer related alarms are the subject of virus hoax
Virus hoax
A computer virus hoax is a message warning the recipient of a non-existent computer virus threat. The message is usually a chain e-mail that tells the recipient to forward it to everyone they know.-Identification:...
es; email makes forwarding of texts relatively easy, and the frightening nature of the revelation makes it seem important to pass along, despite any doubts the sender might have.
Faxlore and urban legends
Blue star tattoo legend
The blue star tattoo legend frequently surfaces in American elementary and middle schools in the form of a flyer that has been photocopied through many generations, which is distributed to parents by concerned school officials. It has also become popular on Internet mailing lists and websites...
Acid
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide, abbreviated LSD or LSD-25, also known as lysergide and colloquially as acid, is a semisynthetic psychedelic drug of the ergoline family, well known for its psychological effects which can include altered thinking processes, closed and open eye visuals, synaesthesia, an...
" hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
is one well known example.
The "lights out" hoax, which claimed that people who were driving in the dark with their headlights out might be gang members, and that those who flashed their headlights at these drivers might be marked for murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
as part of a gang
Gang
A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen...
initiation, was another hoax that was widely circulated as faxlore. The poor graphic quality of the frequently re-sent faxes, which often were made out to appear to have originated with the police department of a distant city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
, only made these hoaxes seem more credible.
Legal aspects
In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, collections of supposedly sinister symbols have been circulated among school
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
administrators and police departments; in the 1980s these symbols were frequently alleged to be "Satanic
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
symbols", and in the 1990s they were alleged to be "gang symbols". Political
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
or religious
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
symbols, like the peace symbol
Peace symbol
A number of peace symbols have been used in various cultures and contexts, one of the most ancient being the olive branch. The dove and olive branch was used by early Christians and was later adopted as a secular symbol. It was popularised by Pablo Picasso in 1949 and became widely used in the...
, the Star of David
Star of David
The Star of David, known in Hebrew as the Shield of David or Magen David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.Its shape is that of a hexagram, the compound of two equilateral triangles...
, the Rosary
Rosary
The rosary or "garland of roses" is a traditional Catholic devotion. The term denotes the prayer beads used to count the series of prayers that make up the rosary...
, the ankh
Ankh
The ankh , also known as key of life, the key of the Nile or crux ansata, was the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic character that read "eternal life", a triliteral sign for the consonants ʻ-n-ḫ...
, or the pentagram
Pentagram
A pentagram is the shape of a five-pointed star drawn with five straight strokes...
were mingled with other cryptic or fanciful symbols in these faxed and recirculated sheets, and the entire collection was condemned with the same brush.
On the authority of these anonymous, hard to trace, and impossible to cross-examine
Cross-examination
In law, cross-examination is the interrogation of a witness called by one's opponent. It is preceded by direct examination and may be followed by a redirect .- Variations by Jurisdiction :In...
sources, school administrators sometimes acted to ban the wearing of Stars of David and similar symbols of minority religions. Typically, no compiler or author is given for the collection of symbols, though frightening descriptions are often given about their "secret meaning." A number of civil liberties
Civil liberties
Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...
lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
s were filed over actions taken by school administrators who took these anonymous sources seriously.
A similar claim that the Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....
logo was a "satanic symbol
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
" was linked in the 1980s to the activity of several Amway
Amway
Amway is a direct selling company and manufacturer that uses network marketing to sell a variety of products, primarily in the health, beauty, and home care markets. Amway was founded in 1959 by Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos...
distributors, Amway being one of Procter & Gamble's competitors; the hoax was spread by fax, photocopier, and later by voice mail and email. Another occasional hoax claims that clothing and memorabilia of various universities
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
or sports teams are "gang symbols".
Growing obsolescence
With the rise of the InternetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, media such as World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
, and social networking sites are now available to quickly and widely spread the sort of material that formerly circulated as faxlore. The hoax warnings of things such as dire and terrible computer virus
Computer virus
A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...
es that still occasionally circulate, carry on one tradition of the bogus cautionary tale
Cautionary tale
A cautionary tale is a tale told in folklore, to warn its hearer of a danger. There are three essential parts to a cautionary tale, though they can be introduced in a large variety of ways. First, a taboo or prohibition is stated: some act, location, or thing is said to be dangerous. Then, the...
that used to circulate as faxlore. However, people have become more familiar and in turn more wary of friend-of-a-friend and cautionary tales.
Faxlore, however, is not extinct; the fact that a fax that has been copied several times over, and that the original sender is someone the recipient has never heard of, gives certain kinds of friend of a friend
Friend of a friend
Friend of a friend is a phrase used to refer to someone that one does not know well, literally, a friend of a friend.In some social sciences, the phrase is used as a half-joking shorthand for the fact that much of the information on which people act comes from distant sources and cannot be...
tale additional stature and credibility. Besides, in spite of the sometimes declining credibility of some material, it is still spread and read purely for its humor.
Academic sources
- Brunvand, Jan, The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story (2000, Univ. Illinois: ISBN 0-252-07004-6) — collecting examples
- The Choking Doberman (Norton, 1984; ISBN 0-393-30321-7)
- Curses! Broiled Again! (Horton, 1989; ISBN 0-393-02710-4) — collecting examples, inc. "Blue Star Acid"
- Dundes, AlanAlan DundesAlan Dundes, was a folklorist at the University of California, Berkeley. His work was said to have been central to establishing the study of folklore as an academic discipline. He wrote 12 books, both academic and popular, and edited or co-wrote two dozen more...
and Pagter, Carl R.: Work Hard and You Shall Be Rewarded: Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire. (Rev. ed., Wayne State Univ. 1992; ISBN 0-814-32432-0) - When You're Up To Your Ass in Alligators. . . More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire (Wayne State Univ. 1997; ISBN 0-814-31867-3)
- Never Try to Teach a Pig to Sing: Still More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire (Wayne State Univ. 1991; ISBN 0-814-32358-8)
- Sometimes the Dragon Wins: Yet More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire (Syracuse, 1997; ISBN 0-815-60371-1)
- Ellis, BillBill EllisBill Ellis is a professor, author and researcher who contributes to the Journal of American Folklore .-Biography:William Ellis was born January 3, 1950 in Roanoke, VA and spent his childhood in Roanoke, as well as in Portsmouth, Ohio when his father was transferred to a section branch with the...
: Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media (Univ. Kentucky, 2000; ISBN 0-813-12170-1) - Hatch, Mary Jo; Jones, Michael Owen: "Photocopylore at work: aesthetics, collective creativity and the social construction of organizations", in Culture and Organization, vol. 3, no. 2 (July, 1997)
- Michael, Nancy. "Censure of a Photocopylore Display." Journal of Folklore ResearchJournal of Folklore ResearchThe Journal of Folklore Research: An International Journal of Folklore and Ethnomusicology is a peer-reviewed academic journal of folklore, folklife, and ethnomusicology.- History :...
, vol. 32, no. 2 (May–August 1995). - Preston, Michael J. "Traditional Humor from the Fax Machine: 'All of a Kind'", in Western Folklore, vol. 53, no. 2 (Apr., 1994)
- "Xeroxlore", in The Encyclopedia of American Folklore, Jan Brunvand, editor in chief. (Garland, 1996; ISBN 0-8151-3350-1)
Analysis
- Hofstadter, DouglasDouglas HofstadterDouglas Richard Hofstadter is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics...
: Le Ton beau de MarotLe Ton beau de MarotLe Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language , published by Basic Books in 1997, is a book by Douglas Hofstadter in which he explores the meaning, strengths, failings, and beauty of translation....
: In Praise of the Music of Language (ISBN 0-465-08645-4) — contains a linguistic discussion of the Blinkenlights text - Emery, David: Trademark of the Beast, byline June 10, 1998, accessed Nov, 9, 2007 — The Procter & Gamble logo hoax
- Bunch, Michael: "Technology Aided Spread of Terrifying Hoax", San Diego Union-Tribune, Oct. 4, 1993 — "Lights Out" gang initiation legend spreads by fax and copier.
Legal
- Chalifoux v. New Caney Independent School District, 976 F.Supp. 659 (S.D. Tex. 1997) — School board rule forbidding wearing of the rosary as a necklace, claimed to be a "gang symbol", struck down by court.
- Jeglin v. San Jacinto Unified School District, 827 F.Supp. 1459 (C.D. Cal. 1993) — School board dress code forbidding the wearing of sports logos, claimed to be "gang symbols", partially struck down by court.
- Roberts, Kesler T., Littrell, Elizabeth L., Weber, Gerald R.: Plaintiff's Memorandum of Law in Support of her Motion for Summary Judgment in Tillman v. Gwinnett County School District, (N.D. Ga., case no. 1:04-CV-01180-BBM). Apr. 9, 2005, accessed Nov. 9, 2007. — Brief filed on behalf of the American Civil Liberties UnionAmerican Civil Liberties UnionThe American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
Foundation for Georgia. Shows school administrators relying on anonymous printouts and rumors to condemn, among other things, University of North CarolinaUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel HillThe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
logos and clothing, and a patch reading EspañaSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, as "gang symbols."
External links
- Blue Star Acid at snopes.com.
- The Lights Out hoax at snopes.com
- Xeroxlore at everything2.com.
- Mississippi high school bars student's Star of David (Jewish News Weekly, August 29, 1999)