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Grandpa in Wallmart, 87 year old Rose in a College and Kittens in Bottles


Remember the Grandpa who was tired of following his wife to the shopping at Wallmart and got banned from the supermarket because he - among other things - placed condoms in other people's carts and made a trail of tomato juice on the floor leading to the women's restroom. *

Image often attached to the Wall Mart hoax. A documentary photo kind of makes the story more valid?


Or perhaps you remember the story of a 87 year old Rose who fulfilled her dream to study in college - and died just one week after graduation? **
Photo of a 87 year old college student Rose is actually a photo of  Nola Ochsin who in 2007 got in to the Guinness Book of  Records as the olders college graduate (95) ever


Or a farmer who made gigantic table and chairs to his horses when he was denied construction permit by the local government? ***
These furniture are not constructed by an angry farmer.



Anatomy of an hoax



All these are good examples of the stories which have been circulating in the internet since its early days. Stories which are constructed like a true story - often accompanied with a photo "verifying" the story - and which people perceive so. Stories are often written in a way that they tell a good old-fashioned pedagogical history (do this and you'll succeed) or they are motivational, humouristic or horrible in their style. Horrible like the "Bonzai Cats" circulating in e-mail a decade ago.
Bonzai Kittens is very known meme around there. In a time they caused a storm of fury in the internet.


Stories are often wrtitten in a good urban legend style. The story has happened to a writer himself or s/he has heard it from his close friend - or his/her grandfather told the story for him/her. Somehow people are very weak for the stories written in "believe me, this story is true, it happened to me" -style.

Snopes.com

It is funny to receive sharings of these inspirational and motivational stories from Facebook friends. I would start to collect these great stories and put them to an internet site, but luckily I do not have to. Barbara and David P. Mikkelson have been collecting these modern (and older) urban legends circulating all over the internet already since 1995. Their Snopes.com -database has hundreds if not thousands messages of which the oldest ones have been circulating around for centuries - and still we believe them to be true.

So, please, next time you have an urge to share a great inspirational, humouristic, motivational, educative story which has been shared to you by your friend, check out whether you find it at the Snopes.com database. Remember, if the story seems too good to be true, it often isn't true.

What Tapio Rautavaara got to do with this?

Many of Finns have heard Tapio Rautavaara's great story from the Second World War, korttipakka (Deck of Cards). A soldier is accused to have played cards in the church and in the front of the military justice he starts to tell a story "When I see an Ace, it reminds that there is only one God..." and so on. In addition, the card deck proved also to be a very handy calendar too! Sorry to say, Finns, but this legend has been circulating around since 1788 - and not since the Continuing War from 1942.




Those little stars in the beginning

* The story is based to an old joke where someone was humouristically giving instructions for men, how to avoid going shopping with wives. Some brainer realised the story would be more effective if it was written as in the first person. And it started to fly.

** There has been a college students even older than that, but the story of 87 year old Rose is based on an American author Dan Clark's history of a fellow college students. Whether the story is true or not has not been verified but the one which is circulating in the internet is written, again, as in the eye-witness first-person style. Good story though.

***The photo of the table and the chairs was actual but the story written to it was fake. Gigantic furniture were just an advertisement for a furniture company in Germany.
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