Newslore

This page intentionally left blank

Russell Frank

Newslore
Contemporary Folklore on the Internet

University Press of Mississippi / Jackson

www.upress.state.ms.us
The University Press of Mississippi is a member
of the Association of American University Presses.
Copyright 2011 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Frank, Russell, 1954
Newslore : contemporary folklore on the Internet /
Russell Frank.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60473-928-2 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN
978-1-60473-929-9 (ebook) 1. American wit and humor
History and criticism. 2. FolkloreUnited States. 3. Folklore and the Internet. 4. Social psychologyUnited States.
I. Title.
PS439.F73 2011
818.607dc22
2010038815
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

Contents
vii Preface
Greetings from a Desk Chair Traveler
3 Introduction
Tiny Revolutions
31

1. Where Is the Humor?

Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

45

2. I Could Throw All of You out the Window

The Democrats
63

3. When the Going Gets Tough

Newslore of September 11
96

4. Got Fish?

Newslore of Hurricane Katrina

107

5. It Takes a Village Idiot

Bushlore
128

6. You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey

Newslore of Commerce
151

7. Not-So-Heavenly Gates

Newslore of the Digital Age

166

8. Dianas Halo

Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

189 Conclusion
Attention Must Be Paid, but for How Much Longer?

vi

Contents
197 Appendix A
A Week in the Life of My In-Box: A Newslore Miscellany
209 Appendix B
Collecting and Analyzing Newslore
231 Notes
245 References
255 Index

Preface

Greetings from a Desk Chair Traveler

In some ways, this book is the culmination of my entire work history to date;
in other ways it is a departure. For sophomoric reasons having to do with
what I thought would best prepare me for a career as a professional poet (I
considered just living in the world, but that seemed too scary), I joined the
tiny band of scholars who pursue advanced degrees in the study of folklore.
My idea was to study ancient myths and texts so that I could lace my poems
with learned allusions, the way my heroes, Pound and Eliot, did. To my dismay, the graduate program in folklore and mythology at UCLA had little
to do with mythology and much to do with folklorefolktales and ballads,
principally, but also folk art and craft and belief and custom. Folklorists, we
learned, were collectors, primarily: they tromped through the countryside
asking folks if they knew any old stories or songs. And if they could coax
an affirmative reply to that question, they set up their tape recorders, took
the lens caps off their cameras, and got down to business. If we graduate
students wanted to be folklorists, we would have to do the same, though for
reasons Ill get to later, we no longer had to journey to the southern mountains to find folklore. We could do fieldwork right in Los Angeles.
I was not at all sure I wanted to be a folklorist, but I was at least committed to finishing my degree, so I embarked on a field research project not
in Los Angeles but three hundred miles north, in Californias Mother Lode
country, where I hoped to record the folklore of late-twentieth-century gold
miners. This was a far cry from learning Sumerian and producing a close
reading of the Epic of Gilgamesh, but once I found the informants I was
looking for, I so enjoyed interviewing live human beings that after finishing
my masters thesis and working for a couple of years, I went back to school
to get the Ph.D.
After two years of coursework at the University of Pennsylvania, I
returned to California to renew my acquaintance with and write my dissertation about my gold miner friends. I was down to my last $100 when I
applied for a job at the Union Democrat, Leading Newspaper of the Mother
Lode. I had no experience and no training, but the owner took a chance on
vii

viii

Preface

me because I aced his editing test. (I even knew how to spell ukulele.) I
loved being a reporter for the same reason I loved being a folklorist: I got to
ask people to tell me stories.
I worked at newspapers for thirteen years. I thought I had found my lifes
work. But just when I had given up on an academic career, an opportunity
arose to finally put my Ph.D. to use. As a tenure-track professor of journalism, I was expected to do research, and since my only research experience
was as a folklorist, I began looking for ways to bridge the gap between seemingly disparate areas of inquiry. Topical folklore, or newslore, is quite literally the perfect marriage of news and folklore.
My only misgiving about doing this book stemmed from my low tolerance for Web surfing and my reluctance to commit to a project that would
rely so much on staring at a computer screen and so little on field research.1
After years of trotting around with a reporters notebook in my back pocket
or a portable tape recorder dangling from my shoulder, I worried about
turning into one of those academics whose idea of an adventure is leaving
the office to hunt for a book in the library stacks. A critic of my column in
the local newspaper once wrote a letter to the editor that began, Russell
Frank needs to get out more often. I agreed. I taped the letter to my office
door as a reminder.
To spend so many hours in cyberspace, though, is to visit many strange
lands and to return bearing wondrous tales. I hereby invite armchair travelers to relive my desk chair travels.
But first the thank-yous, which, though pro forma, are heartfelt. First theres
my editor, Craig Gill, who was beyond patient with me. Two years into this
project, I told him that as a former newspaperman, I was never going to get
it done if I didnt have a deadline. Fine, said he. When would you like it
to be? I thought Labor Day was realistic. Okay, he said. Get it to me by
Labor Day. So I did.
Help in the form of forwarded e-mail came from many quarters: from
my mother, Nettie Frank, my sister, Meryl Harari, and my brothers-in-law,
Andy Franklin and Marty Harari; from old friends Michael Yonchenko,
Rich Appel, and Witt Monts; from Penn State friends, colleagues, and students past and present Ken Yednock, Bill Mahon, Kate Delano, Ron Bettig,
Wayne Hilinski, Tim Molnar, Michael Horning, Michael Hecht, Lee Ahern,
Dan Walden, Steve Herb, Jeremy Wright, Kevin Hagopian, Dave Swanson,
Bill Nickerson, Jes Gregoire, Alison Kepner, and Zach Ludescher; and from
faithful readers Betty Grudin and Judith Frankel.

Preface

Then there were those whose company, on walks, at meals, as hosts and
guests, kept me feeling stimulated and cared about: Dorn Hetzel, Gabeba
Baderoun, Heidi Evans, Josh Getlin, Lea Bergen, Michael Yonchenko.
Thanks also to the dean of my college, Doug Anderson, associate deans
John Nichols and Anne Hoag, and my department head, Ford Risley, for
their support.
Above all, thanks to Sylvie, Rosa, and Ethan for fifty-plus wonderful parent-years, and to Han, for the past four years and for all the years to come.

ix

This page intentionally left blank

Newslore

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction
Tiny Revolutions

It was the first day of school and a new student named Suzuki, the son
of a Japanese businessman, entered the fourth grade. The teacher said,
Lets begin by reviewing some American history. Who said, Give me
liberty, or give me death?
She saw a sea of blank faces, except for Suzukis. He answered, Patrick Henry, 1775.
Very good! Who said, Government of the people, by the people, for
the people, shall not perish from the earth?
Again, no response except from Suzuki, Abraham Lincoln, 1863.
The teacher snapped at the class, You should be ashamed of yourselves. Suzuki, who is new to our country, knows more about its history
than you do.
She heard a loud whisper, Screw the Japs.
The teacher screamed, Who said that?
Suzuki put his hand up. Lee Iacocca, 1982.
At that point, a student in the back said, Im gonna puke.
The teacher glared and demanded, All right! Now, who said that?
Again, Suzukis voice was heard, George Bush to the Japanese Prime
Minister, 1991.
Now furious, another student yelled, Oh yeah? Suck this!
Suzuki jumped out of his chair, waving his hand and shouting to the
teacher, Bill Clinton to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!
Now, with almost a mob hysteria, someone said, You little shit. If you
say anything else, Ill kill you.
Suzuki frantically yelled at the top of his voice, Gary Condit to
Chandra Levy, 2001.
The teacher fainted. And, as the class gathered around the teacher on
the floor, someone said, Oh shit, now were in BIG trouble!
Suzuki said, Arthur Andersen, 2001.
Get it? Not if you dont read the papers, you dont. To get a joke isnt to
laugh at it, or to think its funny, necessarily, but to understand why its a joke,
3

Introduction

which is to understand why somebody thinks its funny even if you dont.
To get that, you first have to get the references.1 Here is what one needs to
know to understand this version of Suzuki (there are many, including one
that ends with the Taliban, 2001, thats in BIG trouble and another with
Americans in Iraq, 2004):2
Lee Iacocca: Iacocca ran the Chrysler Corporation from 1978 to 1992. At the time referred to
in the joke, the so-called Big Three American automakersChrysler, Ford, and General Motors
were losing customers to Toyota and Nissan, Japanese car makers whose products were perceived
to be more reliable and more fuel efficient than Americas gas-guzzling behemoths. Iacocca
became the most public face of the American automakers aggressive response to Japanese
encroachment.

BushJapanese Prime Minister: The president we now refer to as George H. W. Bush

became ill and vomited during a dinner in his honor in Japan in 1991.

ClintonLewinsky: In 1998, news that President Clinton had had a sexual affair with a
White House intern nearly toppled his presidency. Clinton apparently was able to truthfully deny
that he had sexual relations with Lewinskyif by relations we mean sexual intercourse. It later
came out that Lewinsky had performed oral sex on the president.

ConditLevy: Chandra Levy was an aide to California congressman Gary Condit. When Levy
disappeared in 2001, it was rumored that she and Condit had been having an affair and that
Condit had murdered her. In 2009 a twenty-seven-year-old undocumented immigrant from El
Salvador was charged with Levys murder.

Arthur Andersen: Arthur Andersen is the name of the auditing firm that aided and abetted the Enron Corporation in defrauding stockholders in 2001.

Knowing who these players are, one can understand how Suzuki would
connect them to his classmates comments. What makes the joke funny is
that Suzukis identifications of Iacocca, et al., as the speakers of the quotes
are apt: his identifications encapsulate what the jokes dramatis personae
are best known for. What makes the joke funnier is that though Suzukis
answers are apt, theyre wrong. In fact, theyre doubly wrong. Theyre wrong
because the jokes dramatis personae did not actually say the words that
Suzuki is attributing to them, and theyre wrong because he has failed to
notice that the quiz frame with which the class began no longer applies: his
classmates are not contributing additional quotations but commenting on
his know-it-all responses. The teacher is no longer asking for the names of
the sources of the quotations; shes asking for the names of the sources of
the inappropriate remarks.

Introduction

The disconnect between Suzukis knowledge of American history and

current affairs and his lack of knowledge of the social situation in which
he finds himself in the classroom would be enough to make the joke funny.
But as is so often the case with jokes, theres also a latent element that maybe
isnt so funny. Just as the Japanese automakers are making the Big Three look
bad, so Suzuki is making his classmates look bad. Is America falling behind
educationally? Does the performance of Asian companies in the American
marketplace and Asian students in the American classroom foreshadow a
changing of the guard in the arena of world dominance? Perhaps so, but the
joke alleviates that anxiety by giving young Suzuki his comeuppance. Hes
smart, but hes also maladroit.
Another joke from my collection asks, Why did the chicken cross the
road? In the traditional version, the answer, which any child raised in
America knows, is To get to the other side. This is a classic example of
a riddle joke. The question sets up the expectation of some clever or trick
answer. The joke resides in subverting that expectation by making the
answer entirely obvious and logical. The version I received by e-mail from a
friend in February 2006, which she apparently received in May 2003, offers
a list of answers from twenty-eight well-known personages. Here are a few
of the highlights:
George W. Bush
We dont really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to
know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is
either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here.
Colin Powell
Now at the left of the screen, you clearly see the satellite image of the
chicken crossing the road.
Rush Limbaugh
I dont know why the chicken crossed the road, but Ill bet it was getting
a government grant to cross the road, and Ill bet someone out there is
already forming a support group to help chickens with crossing-theroad syndrome. Can you believe this? How much more of this can real
Americans take? Chickens crossing the road paid for by tax dollars, and
when I say tax dollars, Im talking about your money, money the government took from you to build roads for chickens to cross.

Introduction

Jerry Falwell
Because the chicken was gay! Isnt it obvious? Cant you people see the
plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the other
side. Thats what they call it: the other side. Yes, my friends, that chicken
is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we
boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal
media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like the other side.
Ralph Nader
The chickens habitat on the original side of the road had been polluted by unchecked industrialist greed. The chicken did not reach the
unspoiled habitat on the other side of the road because it was crushed
by the wheels of a gas-guzzling SUV.
Barbara Walters
Isnt that interesting? In a few moments we will be listening to the
chicken tell, for the first time, the heart-warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting and went on to accomplish its life-long
dream of crossing the road.
Bill Clinton
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by
chicken? Could you define chicken, please?
To understand this joke, you have to have paid enough attention to the
news to know the following:
President Bush made similar statements in response to hesitation on the part of some of Americas
allies about joining what Bush referred to as the Coalition of the Willing in the invasion of Iraq
in 2003.
Former secretary of state Colin Powell used satellite images to make his now-discredited case for
invading Iraq when he appeared at the United Nations in January 2003.
The conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh routinely delivers tirades against liberalism.
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and political maverick who speaks against corporate
malfeasance.
Jerry Falwell was a gay-bashing televangelist.
Barbara Walters is known for her sob-sister television interviews.
President Clinton issued similar denials about his sexual liaison with Monica Lewinsky.

Introduction

The Suzuki joke and the chicken joke are examples of what I call newslorefolklore that comments on, and is therefore indecipherable without
knowledge of, current events. Newslore takes multiple forms: jokes; urban
legends; digitally altered photographs; mock news stories, press releases, or
interoffice memoranda; parodies of songs, poems, political and commercial
advertisements, and movie previews and posters; still or animated cartoons
and short live-action films.3 Before I discuss where and how I obtained this
material or why I think it is worthy of our consideration, I would like to situate newslore in the world of folklore scholarship.
Without recapitulating the entire history of the study of folklore (though
its a short history; the word folklore itself has only been around for 160
years), I think it is fair to say that in the earliest conceptualizations of folklore, the folk were rural people whose lore was passed down from generation to generation and circulated via face-to-face interaction. Verbal genres
were synonymous with oral tradition. Crafts were learned through informal
apprenticeships rather than from schools and books. Newslore possesses
none of these attributes: its longevity can be measured in presidencies rather
than generations, and it circulates remotely rather than face-to-face, among
people who are likelier to live in an urban apartment or a suburban house
than on a family farmstead.
To understand how newslore comports with the way the definition of
folklore has evolved, we need to break the compound word into its constituent (and originally hyphenated) parts: Who are the folk? What is lore?
(Folklorists, who, according to the professions own folklore, used to be able
to hold their conferences in phone booths back in the days of phone booths,
can skip this part, but they wont, because theyll want to see if I know what
Im talking about, and if I do, whether I express any of these familiar ideas
in felicitous ways.)
The old equation of folk and peasants held up only as long as people mostly
stayed put. Nineteenth-century folklorists were interested in the survival of
ancient beliefs and customs into the modern world. They believed that such
vestiges were likely to persist among people whose lifeways changed little
from one generation to the next. Literacy and in- and out-migration would
muddy the pure stream of tradition with external cultural influences.
Inevitably, though, folklorists had to reckon with the mass migration
of workers from the farm to the factory, and mass immigration from the
Old World to the New. Did country people immediately slough off their
old ways when they came to the city? Did immigrants abandon Old World

Introduction

beliefs and customs when they came to the New World? The answer to both
questions was, of course not. The first shift, then, might be thought of as a
reconceptualization of the folk from peasants to proletarians.
This was a particularly welcome change in the United States, which lacked
a peasant population who had worked the land for generations. Accordingly,
American folklorists were drawn to the traditions of cowboys, miners, loggers, and merchant sailorsisolated occupational groups that were thought
to be the best laboratories for the study of tradition in its unadulterated
state.4 In the 1960s and 1970s, even as researchers continued delving into
the folklore of fishermen,5 firefighters,6 and Pullman porters,7 folklore and
anthropology began coming to grips with the lingering classist-colonialist
implications of studying down,8 as well as the blurring of status and wage
distinctions between blue- and white-collar jobs.9 The folklore of all occupational groupsmedical doctors, rocket scientists, even folklorists10began
to be viewed as a fertile field of inquiry. The expansion of the concept of folk
was complete when Alan Dundes redefined the term to mean any group
of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor and offered
examples of the folklore of families, localities, religious and ethnic groups,
hobbyists, and occupational groups.11 Another way to think about folk is
that it refers less to a kind of group than to a kind of informal or spontaneous or homemade communication in which members of all groups engage
at least some of the time.
Dundes, for his part, began paying attention to the volume of handdrawn cartoons, parody memos, and written jokes circulated by office
workers. He decided that this material, though printed rather than orally
communicated, bore enough of the hallmarks of folklore to warrant collection and analysis: it exhibited variation, and it expressed the same anxieties
and frustrations with modern life as orally transmitted jokes and narratives.
If old-fashioned rural folklore reflected rural American values and worldview, Dundes wrote, then it is equally likely that common urban folklore
will reflect themes of importance in contemporary urban American life.12
Removing longevity and orality as defining parameters of folk tradition
leaves us with a definition of folklore as the forms of artistic behavior that
express a groups values and worldview, regardless of how they are circulated
or how long they are circulated.
Dundes and Pagters first collection of folklore from the paperwork
empire acknowledges the role of the photocopier in the dissemination of
this kind of folklore but refers to the data as folklore by facsimile, whitecollar folklore, and folklore of bureaucracy.13 The second collection,

Introduction

published in 1987, introduces the term office copier folklore.14 The third,
published in 1991, mentions that fax machines, too, may be contributing to
the worldwide proliferation of office copier folklore.15 The fourth volume,
published in 1996, favors the term photo-copier folklore while noting the
role that personal computers, the Internet, and e-mail have begun to play in
the creation and dissemination of the material.16 A fifth volume, published
in 2000, observes that the Internet, which connects myriads of individual
Personal Computers, further accelerated the exchange . . . of many items of
folklore.17 Now, with so much folklore being created and transmitted on
computers without ever being printed at all, the folklore of the paperwork
empire has become the folklore of the paperless empire. Faxlore has given
way to netlorewhich brings us to yet another once-essential element of
folklore that has become less salient: variation.
The existence of multiple versions of the same joke or cartoon helped
Dundes make the case for the inclusion of office folklore in the folklore
canon by so neatly paralleling the variation folklorists were accustomed to
finding in the texts of ballads and folktales. Variation, however, is the hallmark of the handmade object and the performance, whether the differences
are by design, because tradition allows for creativity, or inadvertent, because
perfect reproduction is impossible. In the world of computer-mediated
communication, variation, too, ceases to be essential. One could create ones
own version of a joke, legend, or composite image one has received via
e-mail, but nothing could be simpler than to pass it on as is. It is therefore
not uncommon to find identical versions of a joke in multiple locations on
the Web.
Netlore, then, is not oral, is not communicated face-to-face, is not passed
from generation to generation, and does not exhibit much variation. It is
nevertheless folklore because as expressive behavior it is a form of subversive play, circulating in an underground communicative universe that runs
parallel to and often parodies, mocks, or comments mordantly on official
channels of communication such as the mass media.18
The newslore I will present and analyze in this book was all obtained electronically, either via e-mail or from Web sites.19 Since topical folklore may
be communicated face-to-face or passed from hand to hand, not all newslore is netlore. Since netlore may include material that does not respond in
any obvious way to whats going on in the news, not all netlore is newslore.
In fact, only a fraction of netlore is. An e-mailed priest-minister-and-rabbi
joke without any topical references would be an example of netlore that isnt
newslore.

10

Introduction

Why devote a book to newslore? Three reasons: (1) the phenomenon is

widespread, (2) the phenomenon is revealing of widely held attitudes and
widely shared preoccupations, and (3) the phenomenon is largely ignored
and shouldnt be, given the first two reasons.
1. The phenomenon is widespread. It is easy to assume, if everyone you
know uses a computer at home and at work, that everybody everywhere is
similarly plugged in. Its worth keeping in mind, in terms of ongoing inequalities of access to technology and information, and therefore to money and
power, that this is not so. Writing in 1993, Nancy Baym noted that the people
who dominate the Internet are an overwhelmingly American, generally
well-educated, predominantly white, economically comfortable substrata of
the population.20 I dont think much has changed in the new millennium.
The latest Pew Internet and American Life Project survey (updated in 2009)
found that 74 percent of American adults use the Internet, but a breakdown
of that number by age, education, and race/ethnicity showed that only 39
percent of people with less than high school educations and 38 percent of
people over sixty-five described themselves as Internet users.21
That said, I am going to assume that anyone who picks up this book uses
a computer at home and at work and uses e-mail much as I do: to exchange
information, to make plans, and to chat with friends. And part of that chatting, for many of us, is the exchange of netlore.
There are, broadly speaking, three types of netlore users: the forwarders,
who read whatever flows into their in-box, then pass it along to members of
their own network of e-mail buddies; the spikers, who have decided theyre
too busy for such foolishness and delete all forwarded material along with
the commercial spam; and the readers, who are willing to look at the forwards but are reluctant to add to anyone elses online waste stream. I belong
in the reader category, and if I am at all representativea daily computer
user with friends and relatives all over the country, if not the world, who are
also daily computer usersI can attest, from personal experience, that there
is a lot of netlore circulating in cyberspace.22
In most of the newslore that is forwarded to me by friends or family,
my name is one of many on a list of addressees who are linked only by our
relationship with the sender. In some cases, the body of the e-mail includes
lists of the addresses of one or more previous rounds of recipients. From
these glimpses at the history of any given item, I inferred that any folklore
text that lands in my in-box must land in a lot of other peoples in-boxes
as well. There are also countless Web sites devoted to netlore of one kind
or another (mostly jokes), and for reasons I will explain in appendix B, I

Introduction

augmented the in-box material with newslore I found in my wanderings

around cyberspace.
2. The phenomenon reveals widely held attitudes and widely shared preoccupations. The basic premise of this book is the basic premise of all folklore
studies: as Alan Dundes put it, No piece of folklore continues to be transmitted unless it means somethingeven if neither the speaker nor the audience can articulate what that meaning might be.23 The task I have assigned
myself here is to trace the individual items of newslore back to the news
that precipitated them and then to ask Elliott Orings open-ended question
of each: What does this joke [or legend] communicate?24 Such a question
does not bind me to a single, invariably reductive theory, but the idea I will
return to again and again is that newslore is subversive. It violates the rules
of deference and discretion when it comes to authority figures, bodily functions, and social conflict in a way that may appear anarchic, even nihilistic,
but is, at bottom, quite moralistic: its target is hypocrisy. Its mood is grimly
amused exasperation with false piety, with speaking respectfully of those
who deserve no respect, with euphemism, with all attempts to ignore the
eight-hundred-pound gorillas in the room. In Mary Douglass words, the
joke is an image of the leveling of hierarchy, the triumph of intimacy over
formality, of unofficial values over official ones.25 Orwell wrote that every
joke is a tiny revolution.26
Of course, it is easy to defy the conventional pieties when the room is
virtual. As a newspaper columnist, I have been flamed by readers who I am
quite sure would not have spoken so harshly to me face-to-face or even on
the telephone. Electronic communication is like strong drink: it gives courage to timid souls. Or, to switch similes, its like paintball, a harmless way
to vent aggressive impulses. Those who take offense at nasty Web content
assume the rules of ordinary social interaction apply. They may not. If cornered, posters of the nastiest comments would probably say they mean no
harm; its all in fun.
Functionally, the material in this book does all the things that philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and folklorists say humor
and urban legend are supposed to do. Its cathartic, its expressive, it engenders feelings of solidarity, of superiority, and ultimately, perhaps, of sanity:
if people can recognize and agree on the absurdities of modern life, it might
be the world thats mad, not them.
The real question is, does the exchange of newslore do any good beyond
offering, like an over-the-counter medication, some small and temporary
relief from anger and frustration? Some scholars say no: lacking the power

11

12

Introduction

to effect real change, newslore forwarders are doing little more than grumbling about the state of the world.27 Newslore, like a sneer, is the weapon of
the weak.28 The urban-legend Web site Snopes.com likes the term slacktivism as a descriptor of those whose social or political engagement is limited
to the forwarding of e-mails.29 Gregor Benton writes:
But the political joke will change nothing. It is the relentless enemy of
greed, injustice, cruelty and oppressionbut it could never do without
them. It is not a form of active resistance. It reflects no political programme. It will mobilize no one. Like the Jewish joke in its time, it is
important for keeping society sane and stable. It cushions the blows
of cruel governments and creates sweet illusions of revenge. It has the
virtue of momentarily freeing the lives of millions from tensions and
frustrations to which even the best-organised political opposition can
promise only long-term solutions; but its impact is as fleeting as the
laughter it produces.30
Others say that newslore highlights social and political problems. It is
absolutely imperative to note, writes Steve Jones, that these same users are
not simply consuming news but are engaging in its critical analysis as well
as passing it along.31 Critically examining problems is obviously not the
same as solving them, but it is a crucial first step. I side with those who take
the view that newslore is a form of empowerment rather than an expression of powerlessness. I think back to when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, after
he had lived in the United States for a while, admitted that he missed his
native land. Aware that Solzhenitsyn had been persecuted in the Soviet
Union, I didnt understand him at the time, but I think I do now. He wasnt
just homesick for people and places. He missed his fellow citizens passion
for talking about politics. American life was so comfortable and stable, he
said, that Americans can afford to ignore politics. The lack of civic engagement, of everyday political discourse, drove him crazy, just as my students
ignorance of politics and world affairs drives me crazy. These are journalism
students, whom one could reasonably expect to take a greater interest in
the news than their peers do. So when I examine newslore, what strikes me
again and again is how much background knowledge is necessary to make
sense of it. The people who forward these e-mails are paying close attention to the news.32 And their oppositional reading of the news suggests, as
Joshua Gamson puts it, that commercial culture is not nearly as powerful,
and those consuming it not nearly as powerless, as the critics propose.33

Introduction

3. The phenomenon has largely been ignored and shouldnt be. More than
twenty-five years after Dundes and Pagter made their case against orality
as a defining feature of verbal folklore,34 and more than ten years after personal computers became widespread, despite Jan Brunvands acknowledgment that the Internet is the latest great conduit for the transmission of
folklore,35 studies of netlore remain scarce.36 The problem, as John Dorst
noted, is that folklorists remain wedded to Robert Redfields little community, both as a concept and as a fieldwork site.37
In fact, the advent of netlore came at an awkward time in the history of
folklore studies. Beginning in the 1960s and culminating in a special issue of
the Journal of American Folklore in 1972, the dominant paradigm for folklore
research shifted from collecting and comparing folkloric texts to observing
and describing when, how, and why those texts emerged in specific social
situations. Text was inextricable from context; to study folklore was to watch
it being performed and thereby to gain insight into folklores function in
everyday life.
The shift in research methods was wholly consistent with long-standing
conceptualizations of the folk as members of small communities whose
interactions with each other are mostly face-to-face. But what do you do if
youre a student of netlore? Writing in 1990, Dorst insisted that those who
communicate electronically constitute communities that, though dispersed,
display attributes of the direct, unconstrained, unofficial exchanges folklorists typically concern themselves with.38 At the same time, he conceded that
these exchanges are not readily susceptible to the conventional methods of
performance analysis and ethnography of speaking.39 Similarly, Bill Ellis
wrote that the existence of virtual communities challenges our assumption
that folklore is the property of small, localized groups, while acknowledging the difficulty of gathering contextual information.40
Yet Ellis,41 Nancy Baym,42 and Jan Fernback43 have gone a long way
toward showing the possibilities of virtual ethnography44 by focusing on
online discussion groups. Whether they are members of a discussion group
devoted to daytime television soap operas, as are Bayms informants, or contributors to an assortment of message boards, as are Elliss and Fernbacks
sources, these people are doing more than exchanging items of folklore;
they are conversing, and their conversations include their reactions to the
folklore.45
Still, just as virtual relationships are no substitute for the real thing (for
most of us), so virtual ethnography cannot possibly have the texture of an
account of actors, scene, and setting.46 Doubtless many people in this great

13

14

Introduction

land have the freedom to play at being political cartoonists. For each item
I examine in this book, it would be lovely to know who created it, when,
under what circumstances, and for what purpose, but such information is
almost as hard to track down as the authorship of a centuries-old ballad.47
The other half of the folklore-as-performance equation is the audience.
We can, as Ellis has done, identify start dates and winding-down dates
for each of the items, and we can ask receivers and forwarders what they
thought of the item, but we cannot reconstruct their facial expressions,
body language, and verbal responses, if any, at the moment they opened the
e-mail. Even if it were feasible to do an ethnographic study of this shadowy
community, I confess I am less interested in the behavior and pronouncements of the people who create and actively seek and know where to find
this material than I am in what might reasonably be inferred from the material itself about how people feel about the news.
Beyond the academic study of folklore, biases against folklore, especially
humorous folklore, run deep. It is considered inane, offensive, and unimportant. In fact, the whole teeming mess that is the Internet, writes David
Weinberger, is the elites nightmare of the hoi polloi, the rabble, the mob.48
Certainly some newslore is inane, just as some movies, books of verse, and
newspaper stories are inane. But some of the folklore we are going to look at
is wickedly clever. Some of our material is certainly offensive, but what of it?
Hate speech is offensive, but as Alan Dundes wrote when he defended the
study of Auschwitz jokes, we need to know as much as we can about it if we
are to combat it.49 Where I make my stand on newslore is that it is important: more than any other instrument for sampling public opinion we have,
it tells us about what people think about what is going on in the world.50
Yet the Pew Internet and American Life Project almost totally ignored
netlore in its 2002 study of Internet use. The study, Getting Serious Online,
measured the usefulness of e-mail for communicating with family and
friends, and its use in communicating with family members about problems
or to solicit advice. The possibility that people might use e-mail playfully
seems not to have occurred to the authors. In a section on online amusements, the report measured use of the Internet for hobby information, game
playing, downloading or listening to music, video or audio, and unspecified
browsing just for fun. And in a section on spam, the study limited its discussion of unwanted e-mail messages to sales solicitations and adult content, overlooking chain letters, virus warnings, jokes, and legends.51
The mainstream news media, as they have come to be called in this age
of news-and-comment hybrids, which both take themselves more seriously

Introduction

than other communications media and are more loath to risk giving offense,
also pay little attention to newslore.52 In this I think they do their audiences
a disservice, though the anonymous producers, consumers, and distributors
of newslore may prefer operating under the mainstream medias radar and
are averse to co-optation. Though I define newslore as the news in folklore,
I also intend to look closely at folklore in the news.
The few remaining defenders of the objective tradition in journalism say
that the purpose of journalism is not to tell citizens what to think but simply to tell them whats going on so they can decide what, if anything, they
want to do about any of it. But then what? Critics of the objective tradition
complain that telling people whats going on is not enough; news organizations should help the communities they serve respond to whats going on.
The logical next step after telling people whats going on is finding out how
they react to what they have been told. Newslore may be a poor sort of
activism in itself, but reporting on newslore is one of the ways journalists
can bring those anonymous reactions to the attention of the people who are
most often the targets of newslore.53
Would President Bushs handlers have continued to dress the set with slogans (see chapter 5) if they knew how much ridicule was heaped on them
in cyberspace? Probably: the handlers werent worried about persuading the
cynical few, only the gullible many. But reporting on the parody versions of
the slogans might have reached not just Bushs handlers but members of the
public who hadnt seen the e-mails, which might then have increased the
number of cynical respondents to the point where the slogans were no longer
viewed as an effective marketing tool. Its impossible to predict just how such
reporting would play out. The results are not really the point, which is simply
that if newspapers are truly going to show us the way we live now, to quote
both the Trollope novel and, more to the point, the grab-bag section of the
New York Times Magazine, they are going to have to get over their squeamishness and plunge more deeply into the world of newslore. So why dont they?
For all the lip service paid to the role of advocacy in journalism, to the
project of afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted, study
after study has shown that the news is dominated by official sources. The
journalistic defense of the prevailing sourcing practices is that the primary
determinant of newsworthiness is impact: decisions that affect many people
are more newsworthy than decisions that affect few people. People in positions of power in the worlds of government and business are more likely
than the proverbial man in the street to make decisions that affect large
numbers of people.

15

16

Introduction

Journalists might also point out, correctly, that the news is less dominated by movers and shakers than it used to be. If, before the 1970s, folklorists
and anthropologists mostly studied down, journalists mostly studied up.
Human-interest stories tended to consist of man-bites-dog oddities, society
news at one end of the socioeconomic spectrum, and the criminal behaviors
of the lower classes at the other end.54 Incremental but significant changes in
the ways ordinary Americans lived and worked were largely ignored. A story
the former newspaper publisher Michael Gartner likes to tell is instructive.
An old-time newspaperman is showing a cub reporter the ropes. I want you
to remember that theres 2 million people in this town, and every single one
of em has a story tell, the old-timer says. The thing for you to remember is
that most of those stories are really shit!55
Anthropology and folklore studies have contributed to a democratizing
trend in journalism. The stance of cultural relativism, arising from professional ethnographic research and reinforced by the crises of confidence in
the prevailing ideologies and power structures brought on by the horrors
of two world wars, the dislocation of the Great Depression, and the racial
and social upheavals of the 1960s, eventually made its way into American
newsrooms. Part of the problem with keeping the focus on the centers of
power,56 as reporters learned again and again in covering the Cold War, the
civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War, was that official sources were
not always trustworthy.57 While the press scurried to pseudo-events58 such
as the press conference, the speech, and the photo opportunity, the voices of
people most affected by the pronouncements and policies of those in power
went unheard.
Just as the study of folklore invites researchers to listen on the margins
and to give voices to muted groups in our society,59 so the 1995 iteration of
the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists renewed the
call to journalists to give voice to the voiceless.60 Editors urged their beat
reporters to assess the impact of the news on ordinary citizens:61 If youre
writing a budget story, dont just bombard your readers with percentage
increases. Tell them what the proposed budget will mean in peoples lives.
Ask citizens which municipal services they would be willing to pay more for.
The weak news story is general and abstract. The strong story is specific and
concreteand it gets its specificity and its concreteness from the stories it
tells about the people behind the statistics and the legislation.
An increased focus on the lives of unknowns also boosted the status of
feature writers. Once a backwater of rewritten press releases touting community and arts events, and puff pieces extolling local heroes and volunteers,

Introduction

the feature pages now brimmed with trend and slice-of-life storiesstories
that had long been staples of magazines but were seldom the stuff of daily
journalism.
Literary journalisma term that has come to seem less problematic than
new journalismtook the slice-of-life story a step further. Given a little
extra time and space by an indulgent editor, the reporter melded the narrative techniques of the fiction writer with the meticulous observation and
information gathering of the investigative reporter in crafting stories on
the lives of people at work, in love, going about the normal rounds of everyday life.62 Without doing violence to the connotation of the term, write
Myerhoff and Ruby, it is possible to see new journalists as folk or naive
ethnographers.63
In writing these kinds of stories, reporters rely on a combination of
observation of what is going on in their sources lives in the ethnographic
present and interviews that elicit personal-experience narratives of events
that preceded the reporters arrival on the scene. The story follows an individual or set of individuals over time. Something happens. Change occurs.
We learn enough about the characters to care about them as individuals.
The advent of the twenty-four-hour electronic news cycle has lent new
urgency to the storytelling turn in journalism. The front page of the morning
paper offers little news that one does not already know from having watched
television or browsed the Internet the night before. One thing the newspaper can provide that the electronic media cannot, however, is a satisfying
reading experience. And so, like folklorists who entered the field hoping to
increase their own repertoires of stories or songs, reporters are becoming
more zealous story collectors in their zeal to become better storytellers.64
Yet one journalistic sourcing bias remains: the quintessential American bias toward the individual over the group. When big news happens,
the media have no time to execute any sort of scientific or comprehensive
survey of public reaction. So reporters hit the streets and obtain a small
but what they hope is a representative sample of the range of reactions out
there. Ultimately, though, representativeness is less important than particularity. The assumption is that hearing or reading the words of a named individual, who works at a particular job and lives in a particular place, is more
compelling than a summary of what masses of people are thinking.
Eventually a news organization may conduct its own survey or avail itself
of a polling service to complement the anecdotal snapshot with a statistical
one. Newslore is neither fish nor fowl: its anonymous, like survey data, but
qualitative, like the person-in-the-street interview. A search for newslore

17

18

Introduction

yields texts rather than quantifiable opinions, and in the world of journalism, texts that cannot be attributed to a named source are less valuable than
texts that can be attributed to a named source.
This is not to say that journalists ignore newslore altogether. Sometime in
the 1970s, well before I became a folklore student, I saw a short wire story in a
Denver newspaper about a woman who put her shivering dog in the microwave for a quick warm-upwith explosive results.65 Since then, journalists
have gotten more savvy about urban legends: one is less likely to see such a
story reported as straight news than to see an urban legend debunked or to
see a true story, like the finger in the Wendys chili, compared to an urban
legend. (The story turned out to be half-true: yes, there was a finger in a bowl
of Wendys chili; the customer who found it put it there.)66 Even folklorists
not named Jan Brunvand will get an occasional call from a reporter seeking confirmation that warnings about Blue Star acid67 or gas pump handles
booby-trapped with AIDS-infected needles68 or, as we will see in chapter 3,
terrorists targeting shopping malls on Halloween69 are groundless.
In January and February 2006, I did a number of searches for feature stories and columns about jokes and urban legends. For each search, I selected
the fifty largest-circulation English-language newspapers in the LexisNexis
database and went back five years. The total number of newspaper days
when there could have been a story about any of these topics was 91,750 (50
papers x 5 years x 365 days). Here is what the searches yielded:

Stories mentioning David Emery, keeper of the About.com urban legends site: 34

Stories mentioning About.com and urban legends: 81

Stories mentioning Barbara or David Mikkelson, keepers of the Snopes.com urban legends site: 81

Stories mentioning Snopes.com: 435

Stories mentioning online humor: 37

Stories mentioning e-mailed jokes: 20

The numbers tell us two things: journalists do not pay much attention to
online folklore, and they are more interested in urban legends than they are
in jokes. Why?

Legends in the News

Journalists are ambivalent debunkers. On the one hand, they seem to love
learning that some juicy morsel of information that everyone believes to

Introduction

be true, isnt. After all, part of the function of journalists is to do the legwork that their readers dont have time to do. Just as its a public service to
report on the borough council meeting so that citizens do not have to go
themselves, its a public service to disabuse people of their misapprehensions. Indeed, one of the columns I found was written by the newspapers
consumer affairs reporter.
On the other hand, journalists seem to get exasperated with how gullible
their readers are. Part of what is at stake is the franchise: to the extent that
readers suspect that the mainstream news media are withholding explosive information or spinning the news for propagandistic purposes, readers
begin to believe information of unknown provenance that they get by e-mail
or read on a Web site of unproven reliability. Thus we often see columnists
exhorting readers to be skeptical and do a little homework. It doesnt matter if you got the e-mail from your boss, your best friend or your motherin-law, writes Margie Boule of the Oregonian. Before you pass along the
rumor, the warning, the political dirtjust check the facts. And Boule lists
several Web sitesAbout.com, Snopes.com, and Scambusters.orgto get
people started.70
Another columnist, Winda Benedetti of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
wants readers to back up a step. The best course of action when you receive
a forward, she writes, is to assume its false and spike it rather than clutter
up your friends in-boxes. They have become a plague, Benedetti writes, a
loathsome cyber-scourge spreading misinformation, fear and panic across
a country already more jittery than a caffeine junkie hepped up on a quadruple latte.71
Benedetti does a nice job of identifying the telltale signs that we have
entered the realm of netlore. Beware, she says, of forwards that are attributed to friends of friends, of capital letters and exclamation points and vouchers such as I dont normally forward these kinds of e-mails, but . . . or I
dont want to scare you, but . . . or This is NOT a hoax.72 To that list, Shannon Beatty of the Columbus Dispatch adds spelling and grammar errors and
anecdotes or news stories that lack details and dates.73
If all of that is not enough to persuade you not to hit that forward button, Benedetti provides the names of the debunking Web sites, including
the Urban Legend Combat Kit, which comes with a stock response one can
copy and paste: Thank you for forwarding me the most recent send this
e-mail to all of your friends and something great will happen story. Unfortunately, the story you sent me is yet another in a long string of Internet
hoaxes.74

19

20

Introduction

Photoshops in the News

The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics makes clear that the
profession frowns on deception.75 During the early days of the war in Iraq,
Brian Walski, a photographer for the Los Angeles Times, transmitted a photo
of an armed British soldier, standing and gesturing toward a group of Iraqi
civilians, all but one of whom, a man holding a child, were seated on the
ground. Somebody at one of the Times sister papers, the Hartford Courant,
took a close look at the image and noticed that some of the civilians appeared
twice. Inquiries were made, and Walski confessed that the photo was actually a composite of two photos.76 A day after the composite appeared in the
Times, the paper reprinted it along with the two original images and a note
explaining what Walski had done and announcing that he had been fired.77
The Walski incident was the latest in a series of embarrassing episodes
involving digitally altered photos in newspapers. The Society of Professional
Journalists Code of Ethics calls for doctored images to be labeled as such,
but even disclosure is not enough. Consider the case of a front-page image
published in Newsday on the eve of the 1998 Winter Olympics that showed
Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding skating side by side. The text made it
clear that the photo was a phony. Tonya, Nancy to Skate, said the headline
at the bottom of the page. The future tense suggested it hadnt happened
yet. In smaller type, the caption explained that the rivals appear to skate
together in this Newsday composite illustration. Doubtless whoever was in
the newsroom when they put the paper to bed that night thought they had
done an adequate job of disclosing that the scene had not taken place. But
according to Steve Knowlton, the author of a journalism ethics textbook,
when Newsday editor Anthony Marro picked up his paper the next morning, he looked at the front page and thought, Uh oh.78
Marro was concerned because he knew that image can overpower text.
Many people would glance at the front page, not bother to read the words,
and, knowing the history (Tonya hired thugs to bust Nancys kneecaps), say
to themselves, These women hate each others guts. What must be going
through their heads? In other words, despite the newspapers best efforts,
it probably misled at least some of its readers into believing that a tableau
created on a computer screen had in fact occurred. And when readers learn
that they were duped into thinking a fake image was real, editors fear that
readers will start thinking that real ones are fake; thus the credibility of all
news photos is undermined.79

Introduction

Knowing that printing a fake photograph may lend credence to it

Hey, I saw it in the papereven in the context of debunking it, we should
not be surprised at the rarity of photoshops in the news. A notable exception appeared in the New York Times along with a story aptly headlined
Another Big Fish Story Comes Unraveled. Seeing is not believing, wrote
the reporter Dylan Loeb McClain. Again. The story described the image of
a great white shark going after a diver on a helicopter ladder, then quoted
the accompanying e-mail text: Although this looks like a picture taken from
a Hollywood movie, it is in fact a real photo, taken near the South African
coast during a military exercise by the British Navy. It has been nominated
by the National Geographic as the photo of the year.80 The story about
the shark-diver encounter ended by citing another example of a doctored
photograph: the shot of President Bush holding a book upside down at an
elementary school (discussed in chapter 5).
While newspapers are reluctant to print fake photographs, they have
been quick to defend the integrity of authentic news photos against the
fraudulent claims of pranksters or propagandists. A notorious example of
real images that were rumored to be fakes were the photographs of Palestinians celebrating the September 11 attacks that appeared in many newspapers
around the world. An e-mail immediately began to make the rounds challenging the authenticity of the photos. One claimed that the photos were
recycled images taken in 1991. Another claimed that a woman shown celebrating in Jerusalem had been bribed by the photographer. Some quoted
a BBC executive: Its simply unacceptable that a superpower of communications as CNN uses images that do not correspond to reality in talking
about so serious of an issue.81 The story took hold because it reinforced
widespread suspicions that the news media are not independent sources of
accurate information but organs of government propaganda. Images of celebrating Palestinians put a face on a faceless enemy and suggested an obvious target for retaliation.
Then the debunking of the debunkers beganin the news media. The
cameraman denied bribing anybody. CNN and Reuters denied recycling
old material. As the reporter Felicity Barringer pointed out in the New York
Times, the diction in the accompanying message was rather poor for a BBC
higher-up. The author of the original e-mail confessed to perpetrating a
hoax.82 The 9/11 celebration photos echoed the persistent rumors that images of the 1969 moon landing were faked to further the U.S. governments
propaganda goals of appearing to have beaten the Soviets in the space race.83

21

22

Introduction

As the (London) Guardian columnist Owen Gibson wrote of the 9/11 hoaxthat-wasnt, Everyone loves a vaguely plausible conspiracy theory.84
Another September 11 hoax legend concerned an Associated Press photo
of the smoke billowing from the World Trade Center. While some viewers
saw the face of Satan in the smoke, more skeptical types concluded that
the face of Satan appeared in the smoke because the photographer put it
there. Not so, AP executive photo editor Vin Alabiso told Kenny Irby of the
Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank: Readers were reacting to natural
indentations in the smoke clouds. AP has a very strict written policy which
prohibits the alteration of the content of a photo in any way. . . . The smoke
in this photo combined with light and shadow has created an image which
readers have seen in different ways.85
While to those with an apocalyptic turn of mind, the devil in the smoke
may have conformed to and confirmed their view of the world, the skeptics
thought the photo could be neither Satan nor a trick of light and shadow.
It had to be a photographers trick. As with the photo of the celebrating
Palestinians, this legend gives voice to the view that the news media are no
longer to be trusted to tell the truthwhich is exactly why the news media
try to nip such stories in the bud.

Jokes in the News

To the extent that the press mirrors the society it serves, we can learn a
great deal about American mores from what is and is not considered fit to
print in American newspapers. Three anecdotes from my own newspaper
experience:
I once wrote a profile of the owner of a small-town diner. I tried to include
a bit of xerographic lore I noticed tacked to a wall of the kitchen. Our boss,
it said, 51% sweetheart, 49% bitch. Dont push it. An editor cut the 49%
bitch part: some of our readers would be offended.
In 2006 I wrote a column about some preachers who came to the Penn
State campus wearing T-shirts that said Homos Go to Hell. That passed
musterboth at the university and in the newspaper. But I wondered, in the
column, whether the university would have been as tolerant if the T-shirts
said Niggers Go to Hell. A university spokesman assured me that freespeech considerations would trump university conduct codes calling for
civility and discouraging harassment and intolerance. But an editor changed
nigger to N-word (a coinage I find offensive with its implication that we

Introduction

adults are no better able than schoolchildren to distinguish between use of

a slur and discussion of use of a slur).
In another column, I described what the streets looked like after a thaw
had exposed all the refuse hidden under the snow. The town, I wrote, looked
like hell. That comment was printed as written. But the next day I got a call
from a woman who found the word hell offensive. It particularly bothered
her that her son was of an age when she had begun to encourage him to read
the paper, and she did not want him to be exposed to that kind of language
or to have to screen the paper for inappropriate content before allowing him
to look at it.86 When it comes to the use of the word hell, which is surely
among the milder oaths in common use in our society, hers was clearly a
minority view, but the encounter sheds light on attitudes about the unique
status of the newspaper in peoples lives.
However crass the culture, it is out there, in the theaters and the bookstores and the newsstands. One may partake of it, out there, while maintaining the home as a world apart, a place where one should be able to prevent or
at least limit ones exposureand, more important, ones familys exposure
to unsavory influences. Newspapers and television are different. They are
guests in the home. They bring news from the world out there, but they are
expected to wipe their feet before they come in. John Soloskis 1989 study of
newsroom policies showed how seriously reporters took the idea that they
were working for a family newspaper. A junior editor told him, Nothing of
bad tastesex, immoral, bodiesgets in unless it is really necessary.87
The obscenity-profanity-vulgarity entry in The New York Times Manual
of Style and Usage sheds further light on mainstream newspaper standards
in this area. The entry helps us understand how people at the Times interpret
their unsettling motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print. Adolph S. Ochss
rather quaint promise that the news would be presented in language that
is parliamentary in good society,88 the authors of the style manual declare,
remains the standard more than 150 years later.
Except when it doesnt: Profanity in its milder forms can on some occasions be justified. By way of example, the manual cites some of the expressions that appeared in transcripts of taped White House conversations about
the Watergate scandal, published in the Times because of the light they shed
on news matters of utmost importance.89 The entry goes on to explain, in
effect, that when the president or some similarly august personage curses,
its news; when anybody else curses, it isnt. On the subject of describing
sexual activities and sexual organs, the 1976 manual is mum. But here is
what the Los Angeles Times stylebook says on the subject:

23

24

Introduction

It can be roughly said that phrases with a sexual connotation are considered obscene, those with a religious connotation are considered
profane, and those with an excremental connotation are considered
vulgar. . . . No words or phrases in these categories are to be used
casually, gratuitously or merely for shock effect.90
In his introduction to the 1989 edition of the Washington Post Deskbook on Style, editor Ben Bradlee quoted Eugene Meyer, who, shortly after
he bought the paper in 1935, declared: As a disseminator of the news, the
paper shall observe the decencies that are obligatory upon a private gentleman. What it prints shall be fit reading for the young as well as for the old.
To which Bradlee added: These principles are re-endorsed herein.91 But
there are exceptions: We shall avoid profanities and obscenities unless their
use is so essential to a story of significance that its meaning is lost without
them.92
Bit by bit, obscenity, vulgarity, and profanity that do not necessarily have
anything to do with august personages have gotten into the paper, mostly
via increased coverage of health issues. Describing how one could and could
not be exposed to the AIDS virus in particular seemed like no place for
euphemisms. Then came the Lewinsky scandal. Special prosecutor Kenneth
Starrs report on his investigation contained stunningly graphic descriptions
of who did what to whom in the Oval Officewhich put editors in a bind.
On the one hand were the traditional family newspaper constraints. On the
other, members of Congress were going to decide whether to impeach the
president based on the information contained in this document; shouldnt
the American people also be able to see it so they could let their representatives in Congress know what they thought?
A secondary rationale for printing the report was that it revealed more
about Ken Starr than it did about President Clinton. To some readers, including this one, I must confess, Starrs interest in the details of the assignations
seemed more prurient than legalistic. Ready as some of us were to believe
the worst about the special prosecutor, we were tickled to learn, via forwarded e-mail, that Starr said the following during a 60 Minutes interview
in 1987:
Public media should not contain explicit or implied descriptions of
sex acts. Our society should be purged of the perverts who provide
the media with pornographic material while pretending it has some
redeeming social value under the publics right to know.

Introduction

All of which proves that even folklorists get taken in sometimes: the
quote was a fake.93 In any case, many papers printed excerpts from the Starr
report that read like passages from a pornographic novel, accompanied, to
be sure, by an editors warning and explanation so that parents could, if they
chose, shield their children from the salacious material. If editors were also
motivated by the distinct possibility that people would buy the paper to be
titillated rather than merely well-informed, they werent saying.
In each instance where the prohibitions against vulgarity or profanity
were set aside, it was, arguably, really necessary. It is much harder to make
that case where humor is involved. Naughty words aside, newspapers make
little room for humor, apart from the funnies. When a humor columnist I
know was trying to self-syndicate, editors told him again and again that they
didnt need another humor column because they had Dave Barry. Did newspapers have a humor quota? he asked. Clearly, humor is dangerous. Even
the gentlest satire is sure to offend people who take themselves or their preoccupations seriously. As my correspondence over a newspaper column I
wrote about Hillary Clinton jokes will make clear in chapter 1, when people
are offended by jokes, they dont consider them to be jokes at all. They were
attacks, according to one writer, hateful comments parading as jokes,
according to another. (I consider it a minor moral victory that in the course
of my exchange of views with the latter writer, he stopped putting quotation marks around the word jokes.) The outpouring of Muslim rage over
cartoonists depictions of the prophet Mohammed in the winter of 2006 is
perhaps the most extreme case of how much trouble the news media can get
into when they traffic in humor.
The uproar began with a Danish newspaper editor challenging cartoonists to take on the Prophet without censoring themselves. The results were
offensive on two levels. First, any representation of the Prophet is anathema
to devout Muslims. Second, some of the depictions were insulting, particularly one where the Prophets turban is a bomb. After a slow start, the controversy spread, first to other European newspapers, then to Islamic countries,
where protests against the cartoons turned destructive and violent. Few
American editors, I believe, would dare provoke such a response. They learn
to pick their battles. If theyre going to take guff from readers, they want it to
be over a serious story, not a silly one.
But once the protests started, the cartoons became newsworthy. So now
what were editors to do? The Philadelphia Inquirer justified printing the turban-bomb cartoon thus: But when a use of religious imagery that many find
offensive becomes a major news story, we believe it is important for readers

25

26

Introduction

to be able to judge the content for themselves.94 The Inquirer claimed to be

running the cartoon discreetly on an inside page, an odd characterization
given that the inside page was the continuation from the front page, where
the cartoon story was the lead item. The inside page also included a box
directing readers to the papers Web site to see the rest of the controversial
cartoons. But most papers took a middle path of describing the content of
the cartoons, but not reprinting themwhich suggests a strategy for dealing with newslore. If photoshops are deemed unfit to print, why not just
describe them?
The attitudes and sentiments expressed toward current events in folklore are clearly news themselves, but much of the material, apparently, is not
considered fit to print. Despite the omnipresence of profanity and vulgarity
in the movies and on cable television and a loosening of entrance requirements at mainstream newspapers, it is hard to imagine newspaper gatekeepers abandoning their posts altogether and allowing any and all scatological
and sexual humor onto their pages. And yet it seems a dereliction of duty for
newspapers to ignore this material.
As I began to write this book, I started noticing a few encouraging signs
of a thaw at the New York Times. The Sunday Week in Review section now
routinely runs a sampling of news jokes by televisions late-night comedians. The Times also took note in separate stories of an explosion of parodies
and parody posters for the movie Brokeback Mountain.95 In February 2006,
coverage of Vice President Cheneys accidental shooting of a quail-hunting
partner in Texas included sidebars about the jokes that immediately sprang
up on both broadcast television and the Internet.96 Elsewhere in the paper,
the technology section has begun to pay more attention to the news from
cyberspace, and in October 2007 the New York Times Magazine began running a regular column on online culture called The Medium, by Virginia
Heffernan. Its a start.
Mostly this book will be an annotated compendium of newslore that has
been in circulation during the brief time that personal computers equipped
with e-mail programs have become fixtures in many American homes and
offices, a period bridging the last years of the twentieth century and the first
years of the twenty-first. Given how full of incident our times are, and how
prolific people are in generating newslore in response, this book can be little
more than a snapshot of what was circulating up until the time of its writing. (As I embarked in January 2006, the hot new items on About.com were
spoofs of New Orleans mayor Ray Nagins ill-considered comments about

Introduction

keeping post-Katrina New Orleans a chocolate city, and send-ups of the

disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff s relationship with President Bush, which
Bushs aides said was nonexistent. A month later that material had been supplanted by jokes about Vice President Cheneys hunting accident.) By the
time the book goes to press, new material will doubtless have appeared, and
the material that was new as I was writing will long since have dropped out
of circulation: though new folklore is almost always recycled from old, it has
a short shelf life. No matter. We journos make a distinction between timeliness and currency that may apply here.
Timely stories are breaking news: when Hurricane Katrina made landfall,
the dailies had to have the story the next day (the same day, on their Web
sites). In contrast, the urban poverty that came to the fore at the Louisiana
Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center was a story that could
haveand should havebeen told before Katrina. It remains a story that
could and should be told as I write and as you read, however wide the temporal gap between my writing and your reading, and, I fear, it will remain a
story for some time to come. That is what we mean by currency. Though the
e-mails I cite here may have long been spiked and the Web links broken, my
hope is that the enterprise of examining and interpreting this material is a
worthy enough one for my snapshot to continue to be of interest.
I briefly considered devoting each chapter to a different genre of newslore before deciding that a topical approach made more sense for the simple
reason that the news that gets a rise out of people often inspires folklore
across genres. If the topic is, for example, President Bushs lack of intelligence, we are likely to see urban legends, jokes, and photoshops that all
express that idea. The weakness of this approach is that it can obscure links
between similar content adapted to different events. Online folklore exists
in fewer versions than oral folklore, but it spawns just as many variants
closely related material adapted to different situations. We have been seeing
some of the same jokes told about every president since Jimmy Carter. We
also see variants of the same jokeparodies of the Got milk? advertising campaign are particularly popular at this writingapplied across topics.
The solution, unsatisfactory though it may be, is to cross-reference recycled
material as it arises.
We begin, in chapter 1, with jokes about Hillary Clinton, for three reasons. First, some of the jokes date to the earliest days of electronic newslore.
Second, my having written a newspaper column about the jokes offers a
window into how dangerous it can be for the news media to wade into these
waters. And third, the volume and persistence of nasty jokes about Hillary

27

28

Introduction

Clinton are simply astonishing. No other candidate in history has ever

inspired a similar cottage industry of angerWeb sites, books, and movies,
wrote Jason Horowitz in a 2008 article called The Hillary Haters.97 Chapter
2, in turn, examines the overlapping folklore about Bill Clinton, as well as
the material prompted by the men who followed him as the Democratic
Partys standard bearers, Al Gore and John Kerry.
Chapter 3 examines the newslore of September 11. Since the September
11 attacks were among the most cataclysmic events in American history, it
is hardly surprising that they triggered one of the largest folk responses in
the short history of computer-mediated communication. In my own experience as an e-mail recipient, the week following the attacks was a time for the
expression of raw anger and sorrow. The spirit of play apparent in so much
newslore was wholly absent during this period, which may explain why
most of the material came from identified sources and can be thought of
only as a sort of proto-folklore. Here is what I mean: A newspaper column
would not be considered folklore by anyones definition. But if it perfectly
expresses what many people are feeling, as did the syndicated columnist
Leonard Pittss column on September 12, 2001, it takes on a life of it own.98
Functionally, we might say, the newspaper column is acting like folklore,
and if it had been in circulation before what Walter Benjamin calls the age
of mechanical reproduction,99 we might expect to see the sort of variation
we see in folklore texts.
The joking about September 11, when it began, was limited in scope. As if
by tacit agreement, there was no joking about the victims as there had been
with the Challenger disaster. The only jokes were really just defiant gestures,
humorous only by virtue of their clever vulgarity. Quickly, though, what
the Bush administration called the war on terror began, which provided a
focal point for American anger and fantasies of revenge. As soon as there is
an enemy, that enemy can be cut down to size through humor.
Chapter 4 addresses the next cataclysmic event in our troubled times,
Hurricane Katrina. As with September 11, there is little focus on the victims. Most of the joking comes at the expense of the public officials, from
the president down, who were perceived to have so thoroughly botched
the preparations and evacuations. Chapter 5 follows the Hurricane Katrina
chapter with more jokes about President Bush. Here the material is tied not
to his handling of specific events but to an overall perception of his lack of
competence and intelligence.
The next two chapters shift from politics to news from the worlds of business and technology. Chapter 6 deals with the sudden collapse of the Enron

Introduction

Corporation. Shameless profiteering by the companys executives confirmed

some of our worst fears about corporate America, which had long provided
fodder for urban legends. This chapter also examines parodies of MasterCards long-running Priceless advertising campaign. Chapter 7 looks at
newslore of particular interest to netizens: the folklore that has attached
itself to the person of software mogul Bill Gates and the response to business and government warnings of economic upheaval in the event of computer failures on January 1, 2000the so-called Y2K problem. Chapter 8
covers the jaundiced folk response to media reporting on celebrity deaths.
The books conclusion looks to the most current material up to the date of
publication for clues about the future of newslore.
Before we proceed, a word or two about the writing, and about my source
material: When I submit papers to scholarly journals, whether they give the
work the thumbs-up or thumbs-down or ask me to revise and resubmit,
reviewers complain that the writing is too journalistic or too informal or
too conversational. Well, thats what happens when you write for newspapers for twelve years. In fact, Ive always written that way, which is to say that
I try to write in such a way that I prove to my peers that I know what Im
talking about while also entertaining them and anyone else who should walk
in on the conversation. I believe we have a solemn obligation not to bore each
other to death. Or as I tell my journalism students, quoting longtime Wall
Street Journal editor Barney Kilgore, The easiest thing for the reader to do
is to stop reading.100 Its especially easy when we use locutions like the data
seem to suggest. The data dont do anything but lie there like loxes, as my dad
would say. I will make a special effort to avoid passive-voice constructions
like it will be shown that . . . Im going to be doing the showing. Read this
book, and for better or worse, youre stuck with me as your chatty guide. My
approach, I think, is particularly well suited to the subject matter of this book.
Much of the material is outrageous, ridiculous, sophomoric, and mean-spirited. But I think we should take it seriously. So yes, there are endnotes, as you
have already seen, but I hope no one will say of this book, as Mary Douglas
said of her fellow anthropologist A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, that he wrote on the
subject of joking in a very desiccated perspective.101
As for the material: First, netlore is notorious for shoddy spelling and
punctuation. Though it pains me, as a journalism professor, to say so, I have
not cleaned up the errors in my source material. Second, I cannot vouch for
the continuing viability of all my Internet citations. Like the listings in an
old phone book, some of the places listed will have moved away.

29

This page intentionally left blank

1
Where Is the Humor?
Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

Just how indicative of public opinion are jokes? Judging from the number
of Hillary Clinton jokes I had collected over the years, I predicted that the
former first lady would not be elected president in 2008. (On the other hand,
there were enough George W. Bush jokes out there before 2004 to suggest
that voters were ready to send him back to Crawfordand we all know
how that turned out.) I turned out to be right about Hillary, but much as
Id like to ascribe all this power to folklore, I must acknowledge that Barack
Obamas emergence as the Democratic Party nominee may have had more
to do with his strengths as a candidate than with the animus toward Hillary
expressed in the jokes.
I first learned of the Hillary jokes from a student in a folklore class
I taught at UC Davis in the summer of 1995. In keeping with the thesis
of this book, the compendium of Internet folklore this student submitted recalls the times. Among the in-the-news celebrities the jokes invoke:
David Duke (the Ku Klux Klan leader who ran for governor of Louisiana
in 1991), Jeffrey Dahmer (a serial killer arrested in 1991), David Koresh
(leader of a religious cult, the Branch Davidians, whose compound in
Waco, Texas, was destroyed in a government raid in 1993), Lorena Bobbitt (cut off her husbands penis in 1993), Michael Jackson (charged with
child molestation in 1993), Dan Quayle (left office in 1993), Tonya Harding (arranged an attack on her Olympic skating rival Nancy Kerrigan in
1994), O. J. Simpson (accused of murdering his ex-wife and friend in 1994),
Newt Gingrich (led Republicans to midterm election victory in 1994 and
was at the center of a budget impasse with President Clinton that led to
a government shutdown in 1995), Rush Limbaugh (his popularity and
31

32

Where Is the Humor? Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

influence soared in the mid-1990s), Hugh Grant (caught with a prostitute

in 1995), Jerry Garcia (died 1995), Christopher Reeve (paralyzed as a result
of an equestrian accident in 1995), Bill Gates (topped Forbes magazines
list of the worlds richest men in 1995), and, of course, Bill and Hillary
Clinton. Compare this list to the Associated Press list of the top ten stories
of 1995:
1. The bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, allegedly by two U.S. Army buddies.
2. The ongoing crisis in Bosnia, a situation brought closer to home by President Clintons decision
to send twenty thousand U.S. troops into the Balkans.
3. The O. J. Simpson case, which delivered a daily dose of race, wealth, fame, and drama into
Americas living roomsuntil the Heisman Trophywinner-turned-murder-suspect was
acquitted of killing his wife.
4. The assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, gunned down shortly after speaking
to a pro-peace rally in Tel Aviv.
5. An earthquake in Kobe, Japan, that killed more than six thousand people and reduced a city of
1.4 million to rubble.
6. The Washington showdown between Newt Gingrich and President Clinton, a yearlong struggle
for control that eventually led to a partial government shutdown.
7. The nerve gas attack by a doomsday cult on the Tokyo subway.
8. Downed Air Force captain Scott OGradys escape from behind enemy lines in Bosnia.
9. A killer heat wave that left more than seven hundred dead in Chicago.
10. A jurys decision on Susan Smith: guilty of murdering her two sons, but spared the death
penalty.

If my students compendium is a reliable guide to what was circulating

online in the summer of 1995, then eight of the APs top ten were not considered joking matters. (Just to make sure, I did a Google search for jokes about
the Oklahoma City bombing, the war in Bosnia, the Rabin assassination,
and so on. There werent any. Or at least there didnt seem to be any jokes
circulating in the United States. Bosnians were telling war jokes, apparently,
and Israelis were telling assassination jokes.) The most newsworthy stories
of the year are not necessarily the most talked-about stories (see appendix
B). For example, Mike Tysons biting Evander Holyfields ear makes the category of most talked-about, but not the category of most newsworthy. Were
there Mike Tyson jokes? Of course. Heres my favorite:
Q: What did Mike Tyson say to Van Gogh?
A: You gonna eat that?

Where Is the Humor? Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

But to return to Hillary jokes: I thought back to my students selection of

these jokes when people began talking her up as a presidential candidate.
And when she formally announced her candidacy in early 2007, I devoted
my Sunday column, Frankly Speaking, in the Centre Daily Times to them.
I reprint the column in full here:
Hillary Clinton doesnt stand a chance in 2008, and Ive got the jokes to
prove it.
Some of them go all the way back to 1993, when computer users were
just beginning to discover what an efficient grapevine an online network can be. The printable ones are of two types: those that express the
idea that Hillary is more powerful or more power-hungry than her husband, and those that express the corollary idea that a powerful woman
must be a lesbian (and her husband must be gay).1 Heres a sampling:
Q: What happened when Bill Clinton got a shot of testosterone?
A: He turned into Hillary.
Q: What do you get when you cross a lesbian and a gay?
A: Chelsea.
Q: How did Bill and Hillary Clinton meet?
A: They were dating the same girl in high school.
Q: Why does the Secret Service guard Hillary so closely?
A: Because if something happens to her, Bill becomes president.
The idea that Hillary was the real power behind the throne also
turned up on bumper stickers:
IMPEACH CLINTON!
And her husband, too!
I DONT TRUST PRESIDENT CLINTON
OR HER HUSBAND . . .
It doesnt take a brilliant analyst to figure out what these jokes are
about. Even before Bill Clinton was elected, it was clear that his wife was
not going to be a traditional first lady, content to serve as White House

33

34

Where Is the Humor? Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

hostess and to limit her causes to womens issues such as child welfare
or funding for the arts. She was as much of a policy wonk as her husband,
and the new president had every intention of putting her talents to use.
This, apparently, freaked a lot of people out. Women burning their
bras, demanding equal wages, and muscling in on male domains such as
the truck cab and the construction site was one thing; a woman helping
to run the country was more feminism than they could handle. Hey,
Hillary, shouted one bumper sticker. Shut up and redecorate!
Then Mrs. Clinton was tapped to lead the deliberations that would
culminate in the administrations proposed overhaul of Americas
healthcare system. Even now it is unclear whether the proposal was shot
down because it was bad policy or if any proposal would have been shot
down because of who was in charge of the process.2
Consider this 1993 rant against liberal hypocrisy: Would you
abduct and possibly shoot your neighbors if they refused to buy their
health insurance through the same company you do? The IRS will, more
so if President Clinton has her way.
Realistically, even if Hillary Clinton exercised more power than any
first lady in history, she was still far less powerful than her husband. But
the jokes suggest that a man cannot cede any power to his wife without
emasculating himselfor that a woman who succeeds in wresting any
power from her husband must, perforce, be stronger than he. In the
world of these jokes, an emasculated or feminized man is, inevitably,
gay; so is a strong woman.
But theyre only jokes, right? They dont really mean anything.
Theyre just funny. Or, theyre just stupid attempts at being funny. Well,
here is a folklorists advice to the Democratic Party: Take these Hillary
Clinton jokes seriously. Yes, 15 years is a long time in American politics,
but if you want to take back the White House, dont count on those who
sniggered at Hillary jokes in 1993 to vote for her in 2008.3
I hope Im wrong about this, by the way. Think how galling it will be
for Hillarys enemies if those snide old bumper stickers turn out to have
been prophecies.
The column incurred the wrath of a number of readers, who responded
with e-mails of two types. One set of respondents mistook my presentation
of Hillary Clinton jokes as an endorsement of them. (My first exposure to
this kind of thinking occurred after I wrote a profile of Huey Newton during

Where Is the Humor? Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

his stint as an inmate of the local state prison. I thought my treatment of

Newton was evenhanded; those who believed the Black Panthers were thugs
chastised me for glorifying him.) The other set of respondents understood
I was not endorsing, but as far as they were concerned, I might as well have
been: by retelling the jokes, I was keeping them in circulation. Here is a
sample of an exchange of e-mails of the first type:
I read your article in the Sunday CDT and I must say that I was
appalled. In several short paragraphs, you managed to defame a young
lady, insult the gay and lesbian community, attack the dignity of a past
President, cast aspersions on a sitting Congressperson and fire off the
initial round of gutter trash politics.
As a fellow writer, I tried to understand your motivation for this piece.
Were you trying to create a diversion to change focus from our current Presidential failings? Were you trying to fire-up the anti-Clinton
bashers in Centre County? Were you trying to get a reader response to
provide you with as the paper put it grist for your mill . . . or are you
threatened by women in power? What exactly was your motivation?
I realize that we live in a country where anything and everything is possible including having a biased hate piece published by a local newspaper. If this article is any indication of the content of your book, then my
advice to you is to be self published and keep the production run a low
as possible.
My response:
Im sorry you have taken my writing about these jokes as an endorsement of them. My attitude is this: Like it or not, the jokes are out
thereand the attitudes that underpin them. Thats an important thing
to know, especially if youre a Democrat hoping to see your party take
back the White House in 08. Hillarys not my first choice for the Democratic nomination, as it happens, though Im sure Id vote for her over
any Republican nominee. But I worry about her electability, given the
antipathy toward her that is expressed in these jokes. This is not to say,
by the way, that the country isnt ready for a female president. Its Hillarys supposed baggage that I worry about.RF

35

36

Where Is the Humor? Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

At this point, my correspondent switched from chastising me for the

views he had mistakenly thought I held to chastising me for perpetuating
the views of the Hillary haters:
My 1941 edition of Websters Comprehensive Encyclopedic Dictionary
defines a joke in part as something said for the sake of exciting a laugh.
You keep referring to these statements as jokes. Where is the humor
when people who are gay, lesbians, aggressive or who challenge the considered norm are attacked by simple minded individuals? What can
the readers of the CDT expect for your next column....restatement of
attacks on blacks using the N word....blind or handicapped.....war vets
missing arms or legs how about Jews or Pols? We all hear these quote
jokes however most of us choose not to perpetuate them or add credibility by restating them.
My response:
The definition of a joke isnt contingent on whether you or the group of
people at whose expense its told think its funny. Im quite certain that
the people who share this material think its funny. Its also possible that
people who are not in sympathy with the message of the material still
think some of its funny or clever on some level. In any case, I think its
valuable to shine a light in the dark corners of our culture. You, apparently, disagree.
Another writer bypassed me and my editor and went straight to the dean
of my college, who then forwarded this missive to me, prefaced with a brief
note and followed by the deans response to the unhappy reader, whose name
I have changed:
Russ: Fyi.
Happy New Year!
Dear Sir,

If you did not read Mr. Franks column in the 1/28/07 edition of the Centre Daily

Times then please do. It is by far the most disgusting piece of trash I have ever read in the
CDT. IT sickens me and I am not even a Democrat. Are you proud of this? My wife and
I sent two sons to Penn State and I really do not feel that this is representative of the true
Penn State. What do you think? Best to you in the new year.

Where Is the Humor? Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

Thanks for your e-mail, Mr. Black.

As you likely know, Mr. Frank writes a regular column for the CDT
and his arrangement for doing so is with the newspaper, independent of
his teaching here.
Russ, like most opinion columnists, is an engaging man, and, I presume,
would welcome feedback from readers.
Thanks again for passing along your thoughts to me.
I hope your new year is off to a good start.
Im glad my dean thinks Im engaging. Now here are the e-mails I received
that chided me for giving new life to the Hillary jokes:
Dear Russell,
I am very angry and deeply disappointed by the article citing Hillary
jokes. The article was in very poor taste and nasty because you were
reminding people of the jokes and it is people like you who will keep
them alive. Hillary is an extremely intelligent woman whose biggest
mistake probably was falling in love and marrying her husband . . .
Please stay out of politics in future articles.
Dear RF.
Shame on you! I am REALLY surprised at the childishness of this
column. Its not funny; its not helpful in any way; and it is so dumb in
reviving old jokes that maybe people have forgotten or maybe are too
young to know . . .
With love to you and yours, a devoted fan otherwise,
Finally, there was an exchange I had with another faculty member:
I am reminded of what Ohio Senator Howard Metzenbaum used to write
to constituents who wrote bizarre letters to him, something to the effect of:
Sir: Some crackpot has been writing me letters and signing your name.

37

38

Where Is the Humor? Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

Someone wrote a column in Sundays CDT that began in an appalling

way and signed your name.
Though I do not read your column regularly, I have done so from time
to time and I have found them to be quite good.
I could not believe that you would repeat the hateful comments parading as jokes about Senator Clinton.
You could have made your point effectively, which I take it is that there
is deep-seated hostility toward women like Hillary Clinton that threaten
her electability, without repeating them. By doing so, you put yourself in
the service of the right wing hate machine. I can (and even sometimes
do) listen to Rush Limbaugh to get a taste of what the latest right wing
party-line hate machine is peddling. It does not need to appear in the
CDT at the hand of a literate and intelligent columnist. Whatever were
you thinking? They are no more appropriate than similar jokes about
Bush, which also would have no place in your column.
This is not just my reaction. At lunch this noon, a distinguished emeritus professor asked me if I had read it and volunteered that he was
appalled. That very word characterized my wifes reaction.
This column goes way beyond Frankly Speaking.
You owe your readers an apology and much better judgment in the
future.
The urge to mock my correspondents invocation of the distinguished
emeritus professors reaction was powerful. I resisted and culled what I
thought were Alan Dundess most persuasive quotes on the subject of offensive jokes instead:
Here are a few excerpts from what the late folklorist Alan Dundes wrote
in response to objections to an article he wrote about contemporary
Holocaust jokes in West Germany (in the 1980s):
Censorship, whether imposed from without or self-imposed,
is unthinkable in an academic environment of free inquiry and

Where Is the Humor? Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

expression. Auschwitz jokes exist and continue to be told in contemporary West Germanywhether or not a sample is published in an
American folklore journal . . .
For those who find Auschwitz jokes offensive (we include ourselves in
that group), we ask: Do you really think it would be better not to report
on the popularity of such jokes? Do you honestly think that evil, left to
its own devices, will somehow disappear? World history suggests otherwise. Prejudices, stereotypes, gross inhumanity, and even ethnic genocide do not appear to be on the wane. Folklorists with a sense of social
responsibility have an obligation to do what they can to fight injustice.
Folklore does not create society; it only mirrors it. If the mirror is unattractive, does it serve any purpose to break the mirror? The ugly reality
of society is what needs to be altered, not the folklore that reflects that
reality.4
I think of it this way: Keeping the lights off doesnt make the cockroaches go away. It just keeps you from seeing them.
Respectfully, RF
His response:
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my email regarding your
column.
This is not a question of censorship at all. It is a question of judgment. To
argue otherwise is to say that no one has a right to criticize someone elses
words, no matter what its content, because that would be censorship.
There is also a difference between what occurs in the academy and in
public journalism. In journalism, there is censorship, both formal and
self-induced. Indeed, you exercised it when [you] indicated that some of
the jokes going around about the Clintons could not be printed in the
newspaper.
When you say, Do you really think it would be better not to report
on the popularity of such jokes? you are mischaracterizing my point.

39

40

Where Is the Humor? Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

I said, You could have made your point effectively, which I take it is
that there is deep-seated hostility toward women like Hillary Clinton
that threaten her electability, without repeating them. It is one thing to
report that these jokes exist, and quite another to repeat them. Yes, the
mirror of folklore, as you put it, is sometimes not pretty. I agree that
the ugly reality of society needs to be exposed and altered. But repeating
the jokes does not further that goal, especially since (as I recall) your
column did not denounce the ugliness of these jokes.
By your reasoning, a column discussing the real and deep seated prejudice against Mexican illegal aliens ought to repeat jokes about wetbacks,
and one about mistrust of Muslims anti-Muslim jokes.
It might be convenient to cast criticism of your column in terms of censorship, of keeping the lights off, but it is not the issue here. I can understand how it might be difficult to face up to the fact that your decision
to repeat the hate jokes of the right wing was a mistake. But the fact that
you damaged your reputation and furthered the right wing agenda is
itself something that should not be kept in the dark.
You probably dont regard this as a friendly communication, but in an
important sense it is. The fact that I wrote you personally rather than a
letter to the editor signifies that I was disappointed in your decision and
that I wish for you to exercise better judgment in the future. I hope that
you will acknowledge, if only to yourself, that your repeating (multiple)
those jokes was a mistake.
My response:
I may have damaged my reputation. I doubt I furthered the right-wing
agenda. (They dont need help from the likes of me.) Most people, Ill
wager, found these jokes stupid. Perhaps awareness of them will make
some of them more vigilant or proactive. Those who did not find them
stupid are already Hillary haters.
I confess that as a folklorist, I find this kind of materialwetback jokes,
anti-Muslim jokesinteresting. For better or worse, they are my data.
It would be odd to discuss the data without presenting the data. I admit

Where Is the Humor? Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

I dont have much patience for those who are too tender-hearted to confront this stuff.
So no, I dont feel like I made a mistake. I do regard this exchange as
friendly.RF
My friendly correspondents point about censorship and the distinction between academic and journalistic contexts deserves to be addressed at
some length. Sharing the jokes with other scholars in a journal article is one
thing, he said; sharing them with impressionable newspaper readers is quite
another. Hes right about censorship. I have argued elsewhere that journalists
(and critics of journalists) ought to be more careful in their use of the word.5
Remove the threat of government suppression of news, and censorship or
self-censorship does not look much different from the exercise of news
judgment. Express some misgivings, as I did, about publication of the Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Huis multi-media manifesto (I questioned
whether the negligible amount of understanding we gained from seeing
Cho brandishing his weapons outweighed the risk of those images inspiring
copycat crimes),6 and you get taken to task for paternalismwithholding
information from the people for their own goodjust as I could take my
friend to task for academic paternalism: scholars like him and the distinguished emeritus professor would understand my point about those Hillary Clinton jokes; newspaper readers might not. Or does it depend on who
those newspaper readers are? My column was published in a newspaper that
circulates in a college town. Leaving aside the question of whether journalists should ever talk down to their audience, I have never felt the need to talk
down to this audience. Indeed, some of the readers who complained about
my column did so not because they werent sophisticated enough to understand it but because they were perhaps too implicated in the universitys
culture of sensitivity: oppressed groups must be protected from hate speech
in the same way children must be protected from media representations of
sex and violence. More paternalism. Still, I concede my friends larger point:
journalists decide what people need and do not need to know all the time.
For better or worse, thats the job. And I concede his smaller point that even
I, a defender of journalists sharing all that they know, withheld the most
offensive Hillary jokes. I could argue that an editor would have spiked them
anyway, but I didnt even try to sneak them into the paper. Of course, theres
nothing to stop me from including them here:

41

42

Where Is the Humor? Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

Reporter: Ms. Co-president, what are your views on capital

punishment?
Hillary: I like it when women are hung like men!
Why doesnt Hillary Clinton wear miniskirts?
Because her balls would show.7
The key to understanding these jokes is knowing the folk belief that a
mans courage, or at least his audacity, resides in his testicles. When women
behave audaciously, they are seen as behaving like men, and therefore, at
least metaphorically, possess the same anatomical equipment as men. Size
matters here as well: the larger the testicles and, by extension (so to speak),
the penis, the greater the audacity. According to the first joke, the kind of
woman that a ballsy lesbian like Hillary Clinton finds attractive, curiously,
is one built like a man. All that and a double entendre on the word hung as
well. The next joke takes an unkind swipe at Hillarys looks:
Bill Clinton was out jogging when he passed by a street walker. She
called out Fifty dollars! Bill laughed and called back, Two dollars! A
week later, Hillary has decided to jog along with Bill. They wound up
jogging past the same streetwalker who called out, See what you get for
two dollars?
I also withheld a number of Hillary jokes from my column for the simple
but implacable reason that I couldnt fit them in. My column was allotted
about six hundred words at the time. Here are a few of those jokes I might
have included if I had more space, beginning with another jibe about Hillarys appearance:
When Bill Clinton was President he once walked off of Air Force One
carrying a Razorback piglet. One of the secret service agents said,
Interesting animal you have there, Mr. President. Bill replied, Thanks,
I got it for Hillary. The Secret Service agent responded, Nice trade sir.
Several more jokes suggest that Hillary, as the stronger one, was the real
president:
Q: Why were there two presidential limousines in the inaugural parade?

Where Is the Humor? Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

A: The first one held the real president while the second one contained
the presidents spouse, Bill Clinton.
Q: What is the first thing that President Clinton says after waking up?
A: Good morning, Bill.
Q: Why did the IRS recently audit Bill Clinton?
A: Because he filed as head of the household.
Q: Why is Chelsea Clinton growing up a confused child?
A: Because dad cant keep his pants on and mom wants to wear them.
Bill, Al, and Hillary all die in a plane crash. Upon reaching Heaven, they
are escorted as important personages directly to see God. God looks at
Bill and asks, Bill, youve sinned a great deal. Why should I allow you to
enter into Heaven? Well, gee, God, replies Bill, Im the Pres-ee-dent
of the United States. Ive been trying to help peopleyou know, give
them universal health care and protect them from those mean-spirited
Republicans who want to starve their children and throw sick old people out into the street.
God considers this a moment and says, Oh, okay. Sit over here on
my left. He turns to Al. Al, why should I let you into Heaven?
Well, Lord, Im the Vice President of the United States. Ive tried to
protect the environment from abuse by those mean-spirited Republicans and even wrote a very important book about it.
God thinks a moment and says, All right. Sit over here on my right.
Now, Hillary, tell me why I should let you into Heaven.
Well, God, its like this. Im the First Lady, the Co-President and, by
the way, I think youre sitting in my seat. (In a variant, Bill Gates, a primary joke target in his own right, as we shall see in chapter 7, gets Hillarys lines.)
Where my friend and I continue to disagree over Hillary jokes is on the
question of harm. My friend thinks making people aware of the jokes does
more harm than good. The harm is of several kinds: to the jokes supposed
victims (homosexuals and feminists, principally; even trying to see this
issue from my detractors point of view, its hard to get too worked up about
the jokes impact on the Clinton family); to Hillarys supporters, who worry

43

44

Where Is the Humor? Anti-Hillary Jokes in the News

that I have given fresh ammunition to her detractors; to readers impressionable enough to be influenced by the jokes; and possibly to political discourse
itself, which these jokes coarsen. I obviously believe otherwise. I took some
satisfaction in seeing that in his online column in the New York Times, published almost a year after my column, Stanley Fish remarked on his hesitation to write a column about Hillary hatred because of a fear that it would
advance the agenda that is its target.8
Jason Horowitz described Hillary Clinton as an empty vessel into which
they [her detractors] can pour everything they detest about politicians,
ambitious women, and an American culture they fear is being wrested from
their control.9 The nastiness of the Hillary jokes contrasts sharply with the
admiring tone of many of the jokes directed at her husband, as we shall see
in the next chapter.

2
I Could Throw All of
You out the Window
The Democrats

Slick Willie
Bill Clintons was the first Internet presidency. Yet for all his talk about
building a bridge to the twenty-first century, he and his supporters, including the famously Internet-savvy Al Gore, made far less use of the information superhighway than their detractors did. The irony here is that the Internet, which began as a tool for intragovernmental communication, wound
up being used for political purposes much more quickly by government
outsiders than by government insiders. American politics, one supposes, is
a tradition-rich system, slow to adapt. Campaigns did not begin to realize
the Internets potential as a mechanism for reaching voters (and donors)
until 2004. In the 1990s, the dominant voices were the ones coming from
the peanut gallery.
The most irresistible target, not surprisingly, was Clintons sexual appetites. The history is well known, but to summarize: During his first run at
the presidency, Clinton had to answer questions about his alleged involvements with Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones while he was governor of
Arkansas. During his second term in the White House, he had to answer
questions about Monica Lewinsky. If 1998 and 1999 were not favorable
years for the person of William Jefferson Clinton, writes Elliott Oring,
they were exceedingly favorable for humor about him.1 The humor, as it
happens, was also surprisingly favorable to him. The censorious jokes are

45

46

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

mildly so; others might be considered admiring. Some of the jokes are at
Lewinskys expense; others, at Hillarys. Perhaps the least-Clinton-specific
jokes allude to the idea that a promiscuous person is one who cant keep
his pants on:
A little boy wanted to be Bill Clinton for Halloween, but he couldnt get
door-to-door with his pants around his ankles.
Q: Did you hear about the Bill Clinton sale at clothing stores on Presidents Day?
A: All pants half off.
Q: Why Does Bill Clinton wear boxer shorts?
A: To keep his ankles warm!
(During a televised Rock the Vote on MTV in 1994, an audience member
asked Clinton: Mr. President, all the worlds dying to know. Is it boxers or
briefs? The joke has it wrong: the presidents answer was briefs. Here is a
Bob Dole version of the joke: Bob Dole was invited to be interviewed on
MTV, much as Bill Clinton was four years ago. They asked him the same
question: Do you wear boxers or briefs? Depends, Dole said. Depends, of
course, is the name of a brand of adult diapers. This was one of a number of
jokes alluding to the possibility that at seventy-three, Bob Dole was too old
to be running for president.)
Needless to say, Bill Clinton is not the only politician who became a victim of his own sexual appetites. I found one pants-down joke about Gary
Condit, the California congressman who admitted to having an affair with
an intern named Chandra Levy but denied any involvement in her death
(someone else was eventually charged):
Q: What will the FBI say when they go to Gary Condits house to arrest
him?
A: Mr. Condit, come out with your pants up!
In this next joke, Clinton is overtly linked to an older generation of philandering politicians, Ted Kennedy and Bob Packwood, and distinguished
from Dan Quayle, whose intellectual failings were summed up in his widely
publicized misspelling of the word potato during a visit to a school spelling bee in 1992.

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

Q: If Ted Kennedy, Dan Quayle, Bob Packwood, and Bill Clinton all had
a spelling contest, which one would win?
A: Dan Quayle. Hes the only one who knows that harass is one word.
And while were on the subject of nudity, who better to come up with the
perfect plan to foil hijackers than the former president:
Subject: Suggestions
Federal Aviation Agency
800 Independence Avenue S.W.
Washington D.C. 20591
Dear Sirs;
I have the solution for the prevention of hijackings, and at the same
time getting our airline industry back on its feet. Since men of the Muslim religion are not allowed to look at naked women we should replace
all of our female flight attendants with strippers.
Muslims would be afraid to get on the planes for fear of seeing a
naked woman, and of course, everyone in this country would start flying again in hopes of seeing a naked woman. We would have no more
hijackings, and the airline industry would have record sales.
Now why didnt Congress think of this?
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton
A photographic version of this joke (I found it at JibJab.com) goes a step
further: everyone on the plane is nude. A May 2008 New Yorker cover shows
a naked passenger going through airport security. Here, though, the spoof,
heading into the summer travel season, is of the ever-more-draconian airport security measures rather than of Islamic prudery.
Next we have a set of whats-the-difference jokes, the humor of which
is predicated on what seems to be the distinguishing feature of one of the
contrasted entities turning out to be the distinguishing feature of the other.
The first couple focus on Clinton; the next five, on Lewinsky:
Q: Whats the difference between Bill Clinton and his dog Buddy?
A: One tries to hump the leg of every woman in the White House, the
other is a chocolate Lab.

47

48

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

Q: Whats the difference between Clinton and a screwdriver?

A: A screwdriver turns in screws, and Clinton screws interns.
This one appears to be a Lewinsky joke but is really another Clinton joke:
Q: Whats the difference between Monica Lewinsky and the rest of us?
A: In order for us to get some dick in the White House, we had to go out
and vote.
Q: Whats the difference between Watergate and Zippergate?
A: This time we know who Deep Throat is.
A variation:
Q: What is Lewinskys code name in the FBI?
A: Deep Throat.
The thing thats interesting about these last two is the way Deep Throat
began as the title for a 1972 pornographic film about oral sex, then was
applied to the primary source for Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward in
their reporting on the Watergate scandal for the Washington Post. (The identity of Woodward and Bernsteins source was not revealed until 2005, when
former FBI deputy director Mark Felt came forward.) The Watergate scandal, in turn, has served as a template for all subsequent -gate scandals in
Washington. Zippergate permits the merger of Deep Throats sexual and
political meanings.
The flip side of the whats-the-difference joke is the what-do-X-and-Yhave-in-common joke:
Q: What do Monica Lewinsky and soda pop machines have in
common?
A: They both have slots which say Insert Bill Here.
Q: What do Monica Lewinsky and the Buffalo Bills have in common?
A: They both blew the big one several times.
The Bills lost four consecutive Super Bowls from 1991 to 1994. The big
one can refer both to Clinton as the most powerful man in the world and to
his penis. Is there a connection between political power and sexual potency?

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

There is this sense that a powerful sexual appetite goes hand in hand with other kinds of power, and perhaps a folk belief that phallic power is a source of
political poweror at least explains Bill Clintons power over women. Probably the other reason the Lewinsky scandal lent itself to jokes is that our endless euphemisms for sex and sexual parts make it so easy to pun on the literal
and figurative meanings. Note the clumsy pun in this next riddle joke:
Q: What was the first thing Monica saw in government?
A: The Executive Branch.
Inevitably we come to the lightbulb jokes.2 Note the inversion of responsibility from the first joke to the second, which may reflect the view that, far
from being the victim of a power-abusing boss, Lewinsky was the aggressor
and wound up causing no end of trouble for poor old Bubba:
Q: How many Bill Clintons does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Zero. He only screws interns.
Variation:
Q: How many White House Interns does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: None, they are too busy screwing the President.
Some other riddle jokes:
Q: What does Clinton say to interns as they leave his office?
A: Dont hit your head on the desk.
Q: How do you know Bill Clinton is done having sex?
A: You have to wipe the White-Water off your blouse . . .
[Whitewater is a reference to the Clintons investment in a shady Arkansas real estate deal.]
Q: What does Bill Clinton say to Hillary Clinton after having sex?
A: I will be home in 20 minutes, dear.
Q: How will history remember Bill Clinton?
A: The President after Bush.

49

50

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

Q: Why is Clinton so interested in events in the Middle East?

A: He thinks the Gaza Strip is a topless bar.
Q: What did Clinton say when asked if he had used protection?
A: Sure, there was a guard standing right outside the door.
In contrast to Bill Clintons own hair-splitting definition of sex, the jokes,
as a cycle, dont seem to make any meaningful distinction between screwing around and screwing. If sex between Clinton and Lewinsky was limited
to her performing oral sex on him, he would have had little interest in her
bush or slot (except, perhaps, as a place to put his cigar) and did not need
to worry about protection against an unwanted pregnancy.
The next set of story jokes is less interested in the presidents sexual
immorality than in his sexual prowessand his brazenness. In these jokes,
Clinton becomes a trickster of Herculean sexual appetites (and in a remarkable turnabout, Hillary becomes a sympathetic dupe). The logic is this: if
the Flowers, Jones, and Lewinsky dalliances are the ones we know about,
might there be countless others that Clinton got away with? If so, more
power to him.
When Bill and Hillary first got married Bill said, I am putting a box
under the bed. You must promise never to look in it. In all their 30
years of marriage Hillary never looked.
However, on the afternoon of their 30th anniversary, curiosity got
the best of her and she lifted the lid and peeked inside. In the box were 3
empty beer cans and $81,874.25 in cash.
She closed the box and put it back under the bed. Now that she knew
what was in the box, she was doubly curious as to why.
That evening they were out for a special dinner. After dinner Hillary
could no longer contain her curiosity and she confessed, saying, I am
so sorry. For all these years I kept my promise and never looked into the
box under our bed. However, today the temptation was too much and I
gave in. But now I need to know, why do you keep the cans in the box?
Bill thought for a while and said, I guess after all these years you
deserve to know the truth. Whenever I was unfaithful to you I put an
empty beer can in the box under the bed to remind myself not to do it
again.
Hillary was shocked, but said, Hmmm, Jennifer, Paula and Monica. I
am very disappointed and saddened but temptation does happen and I
guess that 3 times is not that bad considering the years.

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

They hugged and made their peace.

A little while later Hillary asked Bill, So why do you have all that
money in the box?
Bill answered, Well, whenever the box filled up with empty cans, I
took them to the recycling center and redeemed them for cash.
The details make this an odd joke. Using beer cans seems a peculiar way to keep count of ones extramarital affairs (apart from the beer
cans conformity to Clintons bubba image) until we learn that there are
enough of them to recycle. Why that dollar amount, apart from the verisimilitude lent by exactitude? And how likely is it that the occupant of
the White House would do his own recycling (though it would make an
excellent photo opportunity) or go out to dinner? Somewhat endearingly,
the joke does not recognize the uniqueness of the Clintons positions in
the world but portrays them as Everycouple, celebrating their anniversary
and doing routine household chores just like everyone else. Here is a less
successful version, updated for the next presidential election cycle and
reflecting the belief in some quarters that Al Gore tended to exaggerate
his achievements:
Al Gore was entertaining Joe Lieberman and decided to show off his
new home. Upon entering the bedroom, Joe noticed a very large wooden box with 5 empty beer cans and about $1500.00 in cash.
Out of curiosity, Joe asked Al, I see youre a beer drinker, I am too!
you see, we DO have something in common
With a condescending voice, Al quipped, yes, of course we do Joe
Joe then asked Al, why the 5 empty cans and all that cash
Al gladly told Joe about his new program. Joe, since last month, I
have decided to turn a new leaf and become a more accountable person,
while at the same time rewarding myself for my efforts. Whenever I tell
a lie, I drink a beer and put the can in this box
Thats really impressive, Joe replied, only 5 beer cans in a whole
month, but tell me, where did all that cash come from?
Without missing a beat, Al responded, Whenever the box gets full
of beer cans, I take it down to the recycling center, you know how concerned I am about environmental issues.
The next joke is predicated on the happy linguistic coincidence whereby
we use the same word to mean both a notice of payment due and a draft
piece of legislation:

51

52

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

President Clinton looks up from his desk in the Oval Office to see
one of his aides nervously approach him. What is it? exclaims the
President.
Its the Abortion Bill, Mr. Presidentwhat do you want to do about
it?
Just go ahead and pay it.
The flip side of congratulating Bill Clinton for getting so many women
to have sex with him is blaming Hillary Clinton for being an inadequate
partner:
Chelsea had the most exciting news. She burst into the room shouting,
Dad! Mom! I have some great news! Nick asked me to marry him. He
is like the biggest hunk in Washington. We are supposed to get married
next month.
Bill took Chelsea in the back and said, Chelsea, youre mother,
although an ideal administrator and public speaker, has never had much
to offer in the sack, so, as you might have heard, I have been known to
fool around with other ladies on occasion. Your boyfriend Nick happens
to be the product of one of my love making sessions. He is my son and
thusly, he is your half-brother.
Chelsea ran out of the office screaming, Not another brother!
The next joke, referencing the 1997 movie about the sinking of the Titanic, covers most of the titillating details of the Lewinsky scandal, including
the semen stain on Monicas dress, the cigar Clinton inserted in her vagina,
and his lying under oath about the affair, and concludes with a dig at poor
Hillary, whose sexual frigidity must be the cause of her husbands philandering, as the earlier half-brother joke suggests.
PROBLEM: Two Videos are for saleWhich to Buy? Titanic or the
Clinton Video?
TITANIC VIDEO: $9.99 on Internet.
CLINTON VIDEO: $9.99 on Internet.
TITANIC VIDEO: Over 3 hours long.
CLINTON VIDEO: Over 3 hours long.

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

TITANIC VIDEO: The story of Jack and Rose, their forbidden love, and
subsequent catastrophe.
CLINTON VIDEO: The story of Bill and Monica, their forbidden love,
and subsequent catastrophe.
TITANIC VIDEO: Jack is a starving artist.
CLINTON VIDEO: Bill is a bullshit artist.
TITANIC VIDEO: In one scene, Jack enjoys a good cigar.
CLINTON VIDEO: Ditto for Bill.
TITANIC VIDEO: During ordeal, Roses dress gets ruined.
CLINTON VIDEO: Ditto for Monica.
TITANIC VIDEO: Jack teaches Rose to spit.
CLINTON VIDEO: Lets not go there.
TITANIC VIDEO: Rose gets to keep her jewelry.
CLINTON VIDEO: Monicas forced to return her gifts.
TITANIC VIDEO: Rose remembers Jack for the rest of her life.
CLINTON VIDEO: Clinton doesnt remember Jack.
TITANIC VIDEO: Rose goes down on a vessel full of seamen.
CLINTON VIDEO: Monica . . . uh, never mind.
TITANIC VIDEO: Jack surrenders to an icy death.
CLINTON VIDEO: Bill goes home to Hillary . . . basically the same
thing.
Compare this quickie:
An official Gallup survey polled over 1,000 women with the question:
Would you sleep with Bill Clinton?
1% said, No
2% said, Yes
97% said, Never Again.

53

54

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

This joke is more ambivalent than the previous ones. On the one hand,
President Clinton managed to charm his way into a thousand beds. On the
other hand, his partners apparently didnt enjoy it much. Perhaps as the
details of Clintons encounters with Lewinsky emerged, and we learned of
his reluctance to go all the way, or even to allow himself to climax during
oral sex, he started to sound oddly priggish, and not all that much fun. On
the other hand, it may be that the joke takes the female point of view, while
some of the more appreciative jokes about oral sex take the male view that
oral sex is preferable to intercourse insofar as the entire focus is where men
would prefer it to be, and they dont have to worry, at least for the moment,
about their partners pleasure. From this point of view, its a feather in Clintons cap that he got Monica to pleasure him without his having to reciprocate. Implicit also, perhaps, is an appreciation of the way Clinton, by limiting
his relations with Lewinsky to oral sex, was later able to say that (technically)
he did not have sex with her. One might say he grew into his nickname, Slick
Willie, with its double-double meaning (slick = shrewd/slippery; Willie =
diminutive of his name/penis).
This next set of jokes clearly came later, insofar as each references Hillarys election to the Senate:
Hillary Clinton goes to her doctor for a physical, only to find out that
shes pregnant. She is furious. Here shes in the middle of her first term
as Senator of New York and this has happened to her. She calls home,
gets Bill on the phone and immediately starts screaming; How could
you have let this happen? With all thats going on right now, you go and
get me pregnant! How could you? I cant believe this! I just found out
I am five weeks pregnant and it is all your fault! Your fault! Well, what
have you got to say?
There is nothing but dead silence on the phone.
She screams again, Did you hear me?
Finally she hears Bills very, very quiet voice. In a barely audible whisper, he says, Who is this?
The next joke takes the blaming of Hillary a step further: Bill cheats on
her because she is a lesbian. As with many letter jokes, the punch line is the
identity of the writer, withheld until the end.
Dear Abby,
My husband is a liar and a cheat. He has cheated on me from the
beginning, and when I confront him, he denies everything. Whats

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

worse, everyone knows he cheats on me. It is so humiliating. Also, since

he lost his job four years ago, he hasnt even looked for a new one.
All he does is buy cigars and cruise around and bullshit with his pals,
while I have to work to pay the bills. Since our daughter went away to
college, he doesnt even pretend to like me and hints that I am a lesbian.
What should I do?
Signed, Clueless
Dear Clueless:
Grow up and dump him. For Petes sake, you dont need him
anymore.
Youre a United States senator from New York. Act like it!
This joke has Hillary taking far more drastic action:
Senator Hillary Clinton snuck off to visit a fortuneteller of some local
repute. In a dark and hazy room, peering into a crystal ball, the mystic
delivered grave news.
Theres no easy way to say this, so Ill just be blunt: Prepare yourself
to be a widow. Your husband will die a violent and horrible death this
year.
Visibly shaken, Hillary stared at the womans lined face, then at the
single flickering candle, then down at her hands. She took a few deep
breaths to compose herself. She simply had to know. She met the fortunetellers gaze, steadied her voice, and asked her question.
Will I be acquitted?
Our last joke neatly wraps up the Clinton years, suggesting, rightly, that
the real harm of the Lewinsky scandal was that defending himself prevented the president from dealing with far more pressing problems, while also
summarizing Hillarys image problem:
Bill Clinton was walking along the beach when he stumbled upon a
Genies lamp. He picked it up and rubbed it and lo-and-behold, a Genie
appeared. Bill was amazed and asked if he got three wishes.
The Genie said, Nope . . . Due to inflation, constant downswing, low
wages in third world countries, and fierce global competition, I can only
grant you one wish. So . . . Whatll it be?
Bill didnt hesitate. He said, I want to be remembered for bringing
peace to the Middle East, instead of that other stuff with Monica, and

55

56

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

Jennifer, and the rest of those women. See this map? I want these countries to stop fighting with each other.
The Genie looked at the map of the Middle East and exclaimed, Jeez,
Fella! These people have been at war for thousands of years. Im good,
but not THAT good. I dont think it can be done. Make another wish.
Bill thought for a minute and said, You know, people really dont like
my wife. Even though she got elected, they call her a carpetbagger. They
think shes mean, ugly, and pushes me around. I wish for her to be the
most beautiful woman in the world and I want everybody to like her.
Thats what I want.
The Genie let out a long sigh and said, Lemme see that map again.
It should be noted, parenthetically, that there are several variant forms
of the genie-with-a-map joke, which is itself a subgenre of the enormous
corpus of genie-grants-three-wishes jokes. The versions of the map joke I
ran across are, in turn, examples of the even larger corpus of jokes about the
war between men and women. In one, a woman is seeking the right man,
one thats considerate and fun, likes to cook and help with the house cleaning, is great in bed, and gets along with my family, doesnt watch sports all
the time, and is faithful. In the other, a man wants to understand women.
In both cases, the genie decides it might be easier to bring about peace in
the Middle East after all. The Y2K (see chapter 7) problem gave rise to yet
another variation:
An executive is vacationing on the beach. A bottle washes up. He picks
it up and uncorks it. A genie oozes out and says, Look. Its been a tough
week and Im all tuckered out. I can only grant you one wish.
The exec thinks for a moment and says, Well, Ive always wanted a
bridge from California to Hawaii.
Genie says, Gimme a break. No can do a bridge. Try again.
The exec says, OK. Tell me everything I need to know to keep my
business from failing in the Year 2000.
Genie sighs and says, Alright. Do you want that bridge two lanes or
four?
And returning to our earlier jokes about Monica Lewinsky performing
oral sex on President Clinton, theres this genie joke:
Monica Lewinsky was walking on the beach when she found a lantern
washed up on the shore. She started to rub it and out popped a genie.

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

Oh goodie, now I will get three wishes! she exclaims.

No, said the genie, You have been very bad in recent years, and
because of this, I can only give you one wish.
Lets see, says Monica, I dont need fame, because I have plenty of
that due to all of the media coverage. And I dont need money, because
after I write my book, My TV show, and do all my interviews, Ill have
all the money I could ever want. I would like to get rid of these love
handles, though . . . Yes, thats it, for my one wish, I would like my love
handles removed.
POOF!!!!
And just like that . . . her ears were gone!

Gore Lore
Years from now, if one wanted to know why the 2000 election finished in
a virtual dead heat despite Al Gores being the more experienced and intelligent candidate and his having been the vice president during an era of
peace and prosperity, one could do worse than to look at the more popular
jokes about him. The jokes represent distillations, however unfair, of what
became the conventional wisdom about him: First, Gore was considered
boring, wooden, and stiff, attributes that do not play well on television.3 Second, as we saw earlier, he was thought to have a penchant for overstating his
contributions, an idea that took hold after an interview in 1999 with CNNs
Wolf Blitzer where Gore said that as a member of Congress he took the
initiative in creating the Internet. Gores defenders say that what he clearly
meant was that he took the lead formulating policies that made the Internet
possible. His detractors said he was claiming to have invented the Internet.4
The Gores-a-stiff jokes:
A man died on a subway train in New York City and his body rode the
train for five hours before anyone noticed it. Apparently they thought it
was just Al Gore in town to campaign for Hillary Clintons Senate bid.
Baseball great Ted Williams is endorsing George W. Bush for president.
However his bat is endorsing Al Gore.
News Flash: Al Gore was admitted to a hospital yesterday in Washington. Sources tell us that termites thought that Al Gore was an old bed
post.

57

58

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

Q: Whats the difference between Al Gore and a slab of formica?

A: Absolutely nothing.
On July 8, 1947, witnesses claim a spaceship with five aliens aboard
crashed on a sheep-and-cattle ranch outside Roswell, an incident they
say has been covered up by the military. March 31, 1948, nine months
after that day, Al Gore was born.
That clears up a lot of things.
[This is the most plausible version of this implausible joke. In more
grandiose versions, every leading Democrator Republicanwas born
nine months after the UFO landing, which is patently false. Too bad. It
would be a fine explanation for why the people who lead our country
arent up to the taskbecause theyre not people at all but the progeny
of extraterrestrials and sheep.]
More bad news for Al Gores quest to become president in 2000. Paula
Jones claims he exposed himself to her in a hotel room and he has no
distinguishing characteristics whatsoever.
This joke is a sly reference to Joness sexual harassment lawsuit against
President Clinton, which included the lurid tidbit that she could prove Clinton exposed himself to her by describing distinguishing characteristics of
his penis.
Researchers at Stanford University say they may have found the gene
that causes narcolepsy, the disease where people suddenly fall asleep at
odd times. If they can find a pill that cures it, the Gore campaign promised to buy the entire supply to spike the punch at his next campaign
dinner.
A list of the worlds thinnest books had Gores The Wild Years in thirteenth place. (Clintons My Book of Morals took the top spot.) On to the
invention jokes:
Vice President Al Gore is supporting a $7.8 billion rescue plan for the
Florida Everglades that is being studied by Congress. Al has a special
attachment for the Everglades. He didnt invent them, but he does claim
to be the first person to ever say, See you later, alligator.

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

Vice President Al Gore has a campaign ad showing him and his son
Albert Gore III climbing Mount Rainier last year. A mountain-climbing
expert in the ad says the qualities needed to climb mountains are the
same ones needed in a president. However, when interviewed later, he
wouldnt verify Gores claim that he invented yodeling.
Vice President Al Gore and Hillary Rodham Clinton shared the stage in
New York at a rally held by the Young Mens Hebrew Association. They
both have personal connections to the members of this organization.
Hillary says she has some Jewish ancestors and Al claims he invented
bagels and lox.
Hillary Clinton is trying to appeal to Jewish voters in New York by
revealing that the second husband of her grandmother was a Russianborn Jew named Max Rosenberg. If that works for her, Al Gore plans to
announce he invented the matzo ball.

Hanoi John
Four years later, John Kerry was also perceived as wooden, which prompted
this joke:
The sci-fi thriller I Robot, starring Will Smith was a box office hit this
summer with its stunning tale of how stiff, but somewhat lifelike automatons try to take over the world. Of course, half the people paying to see
the film thought it was about the Kerry campaign.
But most of the newslore about Kerry took the form of photoshops. One
of the ways his foes sought to discredit him was by belittling his service in
Vietnam and emphasizing his opposition to the war after his return from
Vietnam. One of the best ways to cast his opposition in the worst possible
light was to link him with other antiwar activists who were thought to be
subversives or even traitors. Little wonder, then, that two photos of Kerry
with Hanoi Jane Fonda were so widely circulated during the campaign. In
one photo, Fonda is sitting in the foreground at an antiwar rally, and Kerry is in the background. In the other, Kerry and Fonda share the speakers

59

60

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

John Kerry and Jane Fonda appear to share a speakers platform at an

antiwar rally in 1971. In fact, the photo is a fake. Jane Fonda was added by a
photoshopper to discredit Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign.

Ken Lights original photograph of Kerry at the rally in Mineola, New York. Jane
Fonda did not attend. Photograph Ken Light, 2004.

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

platform. The photo appears to have been clipped from a newspaper with
headline and caption, including photo credit, attached.5
After watching all this Internet traffic, the photographer Ken Light had
seen enough. He wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post in which he
explained what he knew about the speakers platform photo. Which turned
out to be quite a lot: Light had shot it. He was still in his teens at the time, just
getting started as a photographer. He attended the antiwar rally in Mineola,
New York, and took a photo of Kerry on the speakers platform. He didnt get
Jane Fonda into the frame for one simple reason: Jane Fonda wasnt there.
Light had the negative to prove it. A photo thought to be true turned out to
be a fake.6 Also fake, therefore, were the headline, cutline, and photo credit.
The photo was not a joke but a hoax: it was meant to be believed. Given the
belief in some quarters that Fondas trip to Hanoi in 1972 was treasonous,
this was photoshopping at its most pernicious.
Naturally, Lights photo cast doubt on the authenticity of the other KerryFonda photo. Naturally, that photo turned out to be the real deal. Unfortunately for Kerrys opponents, the real image wasnt nearly as effective as the
fake one. A photo of Kerry and Fonda sitting several rows apart didnt prove
they were two peas in a pod. It just proved what everyone already knew
that both Kerry and Fonda strongly believed that the United States needed
to bring its troops home from Vietnam. Unfortunately for Kerry, the challenges to his record as a war hero stuck.
A good way to end this chapter is with jokes about the phenomenon that
came to be known as Clinton fatiguethe feeling that after eight years of
Bill and Hillary and Monica and Paula and Gennifer, the country was ready
to turn the page.
A Marine Colonel on his way home from work at the Pentagon came
to a dead halt in traffic and thought to himself, Wow, this traffic seems
worse than usual, nothing is moving.
He notices a police officer walking back and forth between the lines
of cars, so he rolls down his window and asks, Excuse me, Officer, what
seems to be the hold up?
The officer replies, The President is just so depressed that Hillary has
moved to New York, and may leave him altogether that he just stopped
his motorcade in the middle of the Beltway, and hes threatening to
douse himself in gasoline and set himself on fire.
He says his family absolutely hates him and he doesnt have the $33.5
million he owes his lawyers for that whole Monica and Paula thing.

61

62

I Could Throw All of You out the Window: The Democrats

So Im walking around taking up a collection for him.

Oh really? How much have you collected so far?
So far about three hundred gallons, but Ive got a lot of folks still
siphoning.
[This became a Hillary joke during the 2008 presidential campaign.]
Bill looks at Al, chuckles and says, You know, I could throw a $10,000
bill out the window right now and make one person very happy.
Al shrugs his stiff shoulders and says, Well, I could throw ten $1,000
bills out the window and make 10 people very happy.
Hillary tosses her perfectly sprayed hair and says, Of course, then, I
could throw one-hundred $100 bills out the window and make a hundred people very happy.
Chelsea rolls her eyes, looks at all of them and says, I could throw all
of you out the window and make the whole country happy.
This joke was later updated as a Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld joke, with the
pilot of the plane theyre on playing Chelseas part. But you have to love the
detail about Al Gores stiff shoulders. If we look back at the catastrophic
presidency of George W. Bush and wonder how such a lightweight could
have served not one but two terms in the White House, the Gore and Kerry
jokes remind us that the two Democratic nominees, for all their intelligence
and experience, were two singularly ungifted politicians.

3
When the Going
Gets Tough
Newslore of September 11

It Raised My Spirits So Im Passing It On

A premise of this book is that we can learn more about how ordinary
Americans respond to national and world affairs from the mass e-mails
they exchange than we can from the news media. In this chapter, I would
like to illustrate this point via a chronological look at the e-mails I received
in the days and week following the suicide attacks of September 11, 2001. The
e-mails suggest that after a brief period of stunned and perhaps respectful
silence in the aftermath of the attacks, cybercitizens resumed joking. Most
of the jokes played it safe by targeting the Muslim world in general and
Osama bin Laden in particular. While some of these jokes were straightforward fantasies of by-the-sword revenge, in the darkest ones, not even
obliteration was enough: bin Laden needed to be scatologically and sexually humiliated. The jokes subversiveness, then, lay not in the challenge they
posed to the Bush administrations response to the attacksif anything, the
jokes suggested that a substantial number of citizens supported a military
responsebut in the challenge they posed to the dispassionate language of
the news reports. The hegemony of journalisms objective tradition has been
challenged precisely on the grounds that the affectless tone of news reports
gives the public the impression that reporters and the news organizations
they work for are disengaged from the communities they cover.
The first e-mail I received on September 11 was a forwarded MESSAGE
FROM DR. SPANIER from the dean of my college. Penn State president
63

64

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Graham Spaniers message to the faculty urged us to stand together and

do our utmost to provide mutual support and comfort, to meet with our
classes as scheduled, to report safety-related concerns, and to apprise our
students of the counseling services available to them. I also received a message from a colleague who knew I grew up in New York and wanted to know
if I was OK.
Then came the mass e-mails, most of which were forwarded to me by my
mother. The first of them came with the subject line Fwd: [Fwd: FW: TRIBUTE TO AMERICA], the three forwards providing the first indication of
how widely distributed the messages were. I was one of twenty people who
received my mothers forward. (I could see, from the other e-mail addresses,
that I was related to at least eight of these people.) But my mother is one of
those forwarders who pass a message along as is, without trimming any of
the redundancies. So after her group of addressees came the group she was
part of, which consisted of another forty-two people. Beneath that group was
a third layer of 22 addressees, followed by a fourth set of 15, and a fifth group
of 3. Thats 102 people, but theres no reason to think it either began or ended
with the first group or the fifth. If any of these 102 people forwarded in turn to
their own set of e-mail correspondents, we can only guess at the exponential
growth in the number of recipients. This is what I mean by a mass e-mail.
Tribute to America, by the Canadian radio commentator Gordon Sinclair, extolled Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth.1 It included lines that sounded, given the
timing, as if they were alluding to the September 11 attacks: They will come
out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to
thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.
In fact, though, another Tribute e-mail forwarded by a friend explained
that Sinclairs commentary was originally broadcast in 1973. Its opening
sentence, deleted from the first version I received, made clear what had
occasioned it: The United States dollar took another pounding on German,
French, and British exchanges this morning hitting the lowest point ever
known in West Germany. Not terribly earth-shaking compared to 9/11.
In any case, an anonymous link in the long chain of forwarders added the
following peevish postscript:
This is one of the best editorials that I have ever read regarding the
United States. It is nice that one man realizes it. I only wish that the rest
of the world would realize it. We are always blamed for everything and
never even get a thank you for the things we do.

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

I would hope that each of you would send this to as many people
as you can and emphasize that they should send it to as many of their
friends until this letter is sent to every person on the web. I am just a
single American that has read this.
One of the e-mails I received ended there. The other continued, I am
just a single American who has read this, but I SURE HOPE THAT A LOT
MORE READ IT SOON, which suggests that this tag end was inadvertently
cut off the other version.
The second mass e-mail I received from my mother on September 13 was
essentially a condolence card to America from the assistant manager of a
hotel in Baja California. This note Ive forwarded can be viewed as a clever
marketing tool, a forwarder named Karen wrote. I choose, however, to feel
warmed, moved and refreshed by the thoughts shared here.
My mother received the next mass e-mail from my sister, who commented, This ones intense! The message, authored by a Floridian named
Charles Bennett, was a paean to Americas freedom and Americans spirit.
The accompanying note, from someone preceding my sister in the chain:
i received this early this morning........it raised my spirits a bit so im
passing it on.
xoxo
jo-anne
The Bennett piece bore some resemblance to one written by Leonard Pitts
in his popular 9/11 column. Here are the last lines of Bennetts essay: Wait
until you see what we do with that Spirit, this time. Sleep tight, if you can.
Were coming. And here is how Pittss column ends: You dont know my
people. You dont know what were capable of. You dont know what you just
started. But youre about to learn.2 If the twenty-six-thousand e-mails Pitts
received in response to the column are any indication, the column reflected
a widespread thirst for vengeance that provided political cover for the Bush
administrations subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
The next day, September 14, I received a rather more scholarly forward
from my wife with the subject line Sources of Terrorism Against the US.
Attributed to Steve Niva, a professor of international politics and Middle
East studies at Evergreen State CollegeI verified that Niva is, in fact, on
the faculty at Evergreen Statethe message outlines, at considerable length,
some of the causes of Islamist anger at the United States while stressing that

65

66

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

there is no justification for the horrendous attacks on innocent American

civilians in New York or Washington. Commented one of the forwarders: I
thought this analysis of US policies and Middle East politics might be useful
to members of the Family Medicine and Community Health list. I know I
need all the information I can get about this situation.
The same day as the Niva essay landed in my in-box, I received what my
sister labeled Another weird one! before she passed it on to my mother.
Here is that e-mail in its entirety:
for those of you who are not familiar with this, within jewish mysticism
is the study of numerology. the letters all have number values. though
i dont know what the significance of all this is, i have to admit that it
piques my curiosity.
i remember years ago, when israel was being attacked by scud missiles, we
received a letter from a girl from israel, who showed us the numbers of
the patriot missiles and that they had the same number value of shomer, which means watchman, and is one of the hebrew names for god.
this may mean nothing to you, and i am not suggesting that it should.
enjoy it for what it is worth, and delete it if it seems meaningless to you.
always wondering,
jo-anne
The date of the attack: 9/11 - 9 + 1 + 1 = 11
September 11th is the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11
After September 11th there are 111 days left to the end of the year.
119 is the area code to Iraq/Iran. 1 + 1 + 9 = 11
Twin Towers - standing side by side, looks like the number 11
The first plane to hit the towers was Flight 11
I Have More.......
State of New York - The 11 State added to the Union
New York City - 11 Letters
Afghanistan - 11 Letters
The Pentagon - 11 Letters
Ramzi Yousef - 11 Letters (convicted of orchestrating the attack on the
WTC in 1993)
Flight 11 - 92 on board - 9 + 2 = 11
Flight 77 - 65 on board - 6 + 5 = 11
The date of the attack: 9/11 - 9 + 1 + 1 = 11
September 11th is the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11
After September 11th there are 111 days left to the end of the year.

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

119 is the area code to Iraq/Iran. 1 + 1 + 9 = 11

Twin Towers - standing side by side, looks like the number 11
The first plane to hit the towers was Flight 11
A mass e-mail that arrived on September 16 exhorted the receiver to
keep the message going, though unlike other chain e-mails, it threatens no
consequences as a result of not doing so:
We are keeping this candle burning for all the people & their families
who were in the planes, buildings and anywhere near the explosions
today. May God be with them and help them through this terrible time.
God Bless
Keep The Candle Going
I asked God for water, he gave me an ocean.
I asked God for a flower, he gave me a garden.
I asked God for a tree, he gave me a forest.
I asked God for a friend, he gave me YOU.
There is not enough darkness in the world to put out the light of one
candle.
The Candle of Love, Hope and Friendship
()
||
||
||
||
||

This candle was lit on the 11th of September, 2001. Someone who loves
you has helped keep it alive by sending it to you.
Dont let The Candle Of Love, Hope and Friendship die!
A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle

67

68

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

What can this partial collection of mass e-mails from the first week after
the attacks tell us? In contrast to the brevity and frivolity typical of so much
computer-mediated communication, all the material shared in the immediate aftermath of September 11 was serious, and much of it was remarkably long. People were angry, sad, and bewildered, and they were willing to
read whatever best expressed those states of mind. Even Dan Kurtzman, the
steward of the vast About.com humor Web site, posted the following message to regular visitors on September 13:
In light of recent events, there will be no new humor material posted to
this site this week.
Eventually, laughter will have an important role to play in helping heal
our national psyche, but now is clearly not the time.
For the latest news and commentary, I recommend you check out
About.coms special coverage of America under attack, as well as some
of the other useful links and resources listed on this page.
If you would like to be notified when About Political Humor returns with
new material, feel free to sign up for my newsletter and Ill drop you a line.
My heart goes out to all those who perished in this terrible tragedy and
to all those mourning the loss of loved ones.
To find out ways you can help, click here.3
The revival of Sinclairs Canadian tribute and the condolence message from
Baja suggest a need for reassurance, after being stunned by Islamist hatred,
that not everyone hates us. The Bennett piece gives voice to Americas anger
and thirst for vengeance, while Professor Nivas remarks counsel a more temperate response. If Bennett represents the hawkish and perhaps conservative
response to September 11, and Niva the dovish and possibly liberal response,
together they tell us that the world of computer-mediated communication is
the domain of neither the political right nor the political left.
If this small sampling is representative of the totality of what was swirling around cyberspace from September 11 to 17, the numerological analysis and the chain candle would indicate a shift from positivistic to mystical
responses. After all the tough talk and calls to action, it may have begun to

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

sink in that there wasnt much we civilians could do about what had happened. And as the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski pointed out in his
landmark study of magic in the Trobriand Islands in the 1920s, when rational explanations and behaviors are less than satisfying, we become receptive
to less rational approaches.4 Numerology assures us that there is an internal
logic to events that on the surface seem inexplicable. In the absence of the
comfort of action, the candle chain offers the comfort of virtual communion, which is the comfort of e-mailing itself.
But then, on September 18, it was as if a barrier had been lifted: It became
okay to joke and to spread stories of dubious veracity.

When the Going Gets Tough,

the Tough Go Photoshopping
The first September 11 joke I received, one week after the attacks,5 was a
visual one: a digitally altered photographic design for a new World Trade
Center with five towers, the middle one taller than the rest.6 To build an
even more imposing structure on the site of the towers would already be
an act of defiance. To build it in the shape of the digitus impudicus is to
give symbolic form to that act of defiance. The folklorists Joseph Goodwin
and Bill Ellis both suggested that America suffered a symbolic castration
when the Twin Towers were toppled.7 The finger would signal a return to
potency. On another level, the digitus impudicus is simply a gesture of impotent rage: its about all a driver can do to express his displeasure with another
motorist who has cut him offalthough it could be argued that even here
the expression to cut someone off suggests that to be thwarted in ones
forward automotive progress is to suffer a symbolic castration.
The other photoshopped image I received on this theme (on September
29) substituted the finger for Lady Libertys torch. In keeping with the folk
penchant for recycling images and motifs,8 Lady Libertys obscene gesture
recalls folk cartoons of Mickey Mouse making the same gesture in response
to Iranian students seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979.9 The
cartoon, photocopied and faxed, expressed the feeling that after Vietnam,
America had become too innocent, too cuddly, and so risk-averse that we
gave our enemies the impression that if they hit us, we would not hit back.
(One argument for keeping our troops in Iraq after Saddam Hussein had
been overthrown was that the Iraqi insurgents were counting on Americans
to weary of war before the country had been stabilized.) The cartoon said, in

69

70

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Within days of the September 11 attacks, photoshoppers began circulating their design
suggestions for a new World Trade Center.

effect, hey, dont underestimate us. Mickey gave way to Lady Liberty, perhaps
because the Statue of Liberty appeared in some of the New York harbor photos and video footage of the World Trade Center site and is as much a New
York symbol as it is an American symbol. As Dundes and Pagter say, Stressful and traumatic events of national or international scope often stimulate
the generation of new folklorealthough the new folklore may turn out to
be old folklore in disguise.10
Returning to our chronology, on September 20 I received a warning from
my brother-in-law about the Klingerman virus, an item that I had already
received from my mother back on February 10, 2001, but which seemed
to take on new life after September 11 amid speculation that the terrorists
might follow up with biological or chemical attacks. (The anthrax mailings did not happen until October.) To a student of urban legends, much
about this e-mail was immediately familiar. There was a disclaimer from a
sender who felt compelled to express some skepticism lest any of his or her
addressees think him a fool for believing such obvious nonsense: Could
be a scam but anything is possible, as we all know. The subtext seems to be

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

This much-recopied piece of photocopier-andfax-machine lore circulated after Iranian militants

stormed the U.S. Embassy in 1979 and held
seventy Americans hostage for 444 days.

71

A lot of the photocopier lore from the Iranian

hostage crisis reappeared during Operation
Desert Storm in Iraq in 1991 and againin
updated digital formin response to the
September 11 attacks.

that the idea of terrorists using American passenger planes as missiles to

attack American buildings would also have seemed farfetched before September 11. There was the acknowledgment that people might dismiss this
as another wacko e-mail if one did not slap on a WARNING labelin
capital lettersand exhort the recipient to PLEASE READ and PLEASE
FORWARD TO ALL YOU KNOW.
Subject: Warning - Do Not Open Blue Envelopes in your U.S. Mail
ONCE YOU HAVE READ THIS PLEASE FORWARD TO ALL YOU
KNOW.
This is from Schwab corporate headquartersso its no joke.
Very scary.

72

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Be careful Just when you thought you were safe, now we have the following to deal with . . . please read, it definitely is a serious threat to our
lives and health. This is an alert about a virus in the original sense of the
word . . . one that affects your body, not your hard drive.
The body of the message goes on to warn that blue envelopes labeled A
Gift from the Klingerman Foundation contain sponges laced with a strain
of virus they have not previously encountered. Journalistic verisimilitude is
attempted via a quote attributed to Florida police sergeant Stetson, though
a journalist would look askance at the lack of a first name, the lack of a
specific reference to a city police force or the state police, and that name
Stetson, which would be a good choice for a southern lawman in a work of
fiction. The other interesting thing about the Klingerman virus warning is
that, as the please read preamble suggests, it restores the literal meeting
of virus in a realm that has been dominated by figurative use of the word
virus to refer to contagious computer problems and viral to refer to the
computer-to-computer spread of the material in this book. If your computer
can catch an electronic virus by opening an e-mail, it makes sense that your
body can catch a biological virus by opening a piece of snail mail.11
Another wave of warning e-mails arrived in mid-October, timed to connect September 11 to Halloween. I received the first on October 11 from a
student who had been in a class where we had talked, among other things,
about urban legends. The message begins thus: What you are about to read
is a letter that was forwarded to me by a close and honest friend. And here
is how the letter begins: My friends friend was dating a guy from Afghanistan up until a month ago. The letter explains that the Afghan boyfriend
stood up the friends friend. When she went to his apartment to confront
him, she found that he had cleared out. Then she got a letter from him in
which he said he could not explain why but BEGGED her not to get on any
commercial airlines on 9/11 AND TO NOT GO TO ANY MALLS ON HALLOWEEN. The letter concludes with the writer attesting to the warnings
authenticity:
This is not an email that Ive received and decided to pass on. This came
from a phone conversation with a long-time friend of mine last night.
I may be wrong, and I hope I am. However, with one of his warnings
being correct and devastating, Im not willing to take the chance on the

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

second and wanted to make sure that people I cared about had the same
information that I did.
A second version, also passed along by a student, was attributed to a
friend of someone I work with. This is a less detailed version, and it ends
thus: I just heard this tonight, and the source in the company here is pretty
credible (one of the partners), so I thought Id pass the word of caution on to
all of you about Halloween, just in case theres any truth to it.
Yet another of my students wrote his own introduction to a third
version:
Dear Professor Frank,
I received the following email from a friend a week or so ago. I found
it interesting at first because it wasnt sent as a FWD: fwd: fwd: FWD:
Read This!!!: Fwd: Possible terrorist attack on Halloween but written as
if he knew the girl personally. I checked up on it, and two of my roommates had received the exact same email, except as a FWD: fwd:....
message. I dont know if youve already seen this message floating
around or not, but I thought you might find it intriguing. In the wake
of September 11th, such warnings seem inevitable, given our discussions on Urban Legends. When I asked one of my roommates what he
thought about the Halloween email, he replied I guess theres no shopping for me on October 31st. When further questioned, he admitted
he didnt really believe the email was true, but hed rather be safe then
sorry. He admitted he doesnt shop all that much anyway, so staying in
wouldnt be too much of a problem.
Here is the text of his version:
The last thing I want to do is scare you guys but last night one of my
friends was telling me that her friends bf was from the middle east and
dissapeared on Sept 8th. He left her a note telling her to stay away from
planes on the 11th and not to go to the malls on Halloween.
Just for my sake please be careful on halloween and use your judgement. I cant be sure this is completely true but I care about you guys so
Id prefer you stayed away from shopping on halloween. Buy your things
a day or 2 early instead.
I hope that this is all a big lie but i just wanted you to be safe.

73

74

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

About.coms Netlore Archive offered a version that began with a quintessential urban legend disclaimer:
Hi All
I think you all know that I dont send out hoaxes and dont do the reactionary thing and send out anything that crosses my path. This one,
however, is a friend of a friend and Ive given it enough credibility in my
mind that Im writing it up and sending it out to all of you.
The Netlore Archive provides links to a New York Times story12 and offers
four variants labeled My friend Colleen . . . , My friend Jill . . . , From
Someone Who Works at Sprint . . . , and Her friend that lives right here in
Baltimore . . . 13
Readers unfamiliar with the strange world of urban legends will readily
see from this sampling why folklorists sometimes refer to these stories as
foafloreshort for friend-of-a-friend lore. The warnings to avoid malls
on Halloween may have been a response to speculation that the terrorists
might next strike in the American heartland to further demoralize Americans with the message that no place is safe. (I remember hearing a loud,
low-flying plane while raking leaves on a football Saturday that fall and
becoming convinced that it was going to crash into Penn States Beaver Stadium, where it could potentially kill many more people than were lost in the
World Trade Center attacks.) The warnings also bear an interesting relation
to politicians exhorting Americans to defeat the terrorists by going about
their businessincluding the business of shopping. Go to restaurants, said
New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Go shopping. Do things. Show that
youre not afraid. Show confidence in yourself and the city.14
The shopping mall warnings also partake of a larger tradition of Halloween legends, from warnings about pins or razor blades in Halloween
treats to rumors that circulate on college campuses from time to time that
a costumed psychopath is planning to kill dorm residents on Halloween.15
(In some versions, a psychic reveals this plot to Oprah Winfrey, who has
become a category of urban legend in her own right. Supposedly she booted
the fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger [or Liz Claiborne] off her show when
he confirmed rumors that he never intended for blacks to buy his clothes.
Calls for a boycott ensued.)16
In a variation on the mall warning story sometimes referred to as The
Grateful Terrorist, an Arab warns someone who has done him a favor (like
chipping in a small amount of money for his groceries when she learned
he was short of cash) not to drink Coke or Pepsi after a certain date. The

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

stories dont say why drinking the colas would be a bad idea, but presumably
plans were afoot to contaminate them. The story thus connects both to the
Klingerman legend and to classic urban legends about contaminated products, especially tales of mice in Coke bottles.17 Why Coke and Pepsi? What
better way to sow terror than to tamper with the most ubiquitous consumer
product on earth? Forbes reported in 2003 that 1.2 billion eight-ounce servings of Coke are consumed daily worldwide.18 The Web site of the Coca Cola
Bottling Companys Indonesia branch devotes considerable space in its FAQ
section to debunking myths and rumours.19
But back to our chronology. On September 22, my mother forwarded
Flight to Washington, an anonymous note from someone who flew from
Denver to Washington with a captain who gave the passengers a strengthin-numbers pep talk about how to subdue hijackers, if any should happen
to be on board, and a crew member who urged the passengers to introduce
themselves to each other and show each other family photos. The sender
and forwarder comments were The following is from a letter by a professional friend and her return flight to D.C. this week and This was passed
along to me by a friend. Interesting.
Here, I think, were seeing two influences coming into play. One is the
stirring tale of the passengers on Flight 93 who tried to wrest control from
the hijackers and succeeded to the extent that the plane crashed into a field
in rural Pennsylvania rather than into its intended target, which might
have been the White House or the U.S. Capitol. The other is the recognition
that, for all the tough talk about revenge, the only opportunity most of us
would have to confront the terrorists would be if we met up with them on a
flight. Sooner or later, we were all going to have to resume normal activities,
including flying. This was a way to steel ourselves for the experience.
An e-mail with a related message arrived on September 27. Called I Forgot, it places responsibility for September 11 on our own shoulders. Each
time Osama bin Laden revealed his intentions in bombings throughout the
1990s, it says, we expressed outrage, then forgot. This time, the piece concludes, we must not forget:
Please, Please, Please, if you are reading this, dont look away when they
show the airplanes flying into the buildings on TV, look at it over and
over again !! Dont stick your head in the sand! Remember how despicable the act was, remember the loss of life, dont shield your children,
use restraint, but help them understand it, and remember it! They are
our future! You will go back to work, and resume your daily duties, but,
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, DONT EVER FORGET! I assure you the

75

76

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

terrorists around the world are counting on us to! AGAIN! I fear the
next time we will see a mushroom cloud on our beautiful horizon! Then
it will be too late! All because WE FORGOT!

This One Will Make You Cringe

My brother-in-law sent me an unforgettable image on September 28, along
with a noncommittal message: Check this out. Also included were prior
forwarders similarly neutral messages: If you havent seen (September 26)
and This is interesting (September 25). But the message that appears to
have accompanied the original transmission goes like this: This picture was
developed from film in a camera found in the rebble of the wtc!!!!!! person
in picture still not identified. A tagline at the bottom of the photo said,
SUPPORT YOUR POLICE, FIRE, AND EMS PERSONEL.
Another version of the accompanying message, reproduced on the Netlore Web site, appeared under the subject line Different Perspective on the
New York Tragedy:
Attached is a picture that was taken of a tourist atop the World Trade
Center Tower, the first to be struck by a terrorist attack. This camera was
found but the subject in the picture had not yet been located. Makes you
see things from a very different position. Please share this and find any
way you can to help Americans not to be victims in the future of such
cowardly attacks.
And a third version, on Snopes.com:
Weve seen thousands of pictures covering the attack. However, this one
will make you cringe. A simple tourist getting himself photographed on
the top of the WTC just seconds before the tragedy . . . The camera was
found in the rubble!!
For just the briefest split-second of gut reaction, wrote the Chicago
Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper, we thought we were seeing one of
the most astonishing photos in recorded history.20 On closer inspection,
one sees that there are enough holes in this image to fly several airplanes
through. Netlore enumerated most of them:

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Many people were taken in by the original Tourist Guy image, which was usually
accompanied by a message asserting the camera was found in the rubble and urging
support for the troops.

Why isnt the fast-moving aircraft blurry in the photo?

Why doesnt the subject (or the photographer, for that matter) seem to be aware of the planes

The temperature was between 65 and 70 degrees that morning. Why is this man dressed for

high-decibel approach?
winter?

How did the camera survive the 110-story fall when the tower collapsed?

How was the camera found so quickly amidst all the rubble?

Why has this one-of-a-kind, newsworthy photo not appeared in any media venue?

Those were the obvious illogicalities. Roeper, who aptly referred to the
images as photographic urban legends, pointed out more arcane clues to the
images inauthenticity: There was no observation deck on the north tower,
and the deck on the south tower wasnt scheduled to open until 9:30 a.m. that
day. Also, The American Airlines jet shown in the photo is a Boeing 757, but
the American Airlines plane that struck the tower was a Boeing 767.21
And so Tourist Guy, as he came to be called (or alternatively, the Ground
Zero Geek, which I prefer), was revealed to be a hoax. Did that cause him

77

78

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Once Tourist Guy was debunked as a fake, a succession of spoof versions followed.

In this version of Tourist Guy, the World Trade Center is menaced by the Stay Puft
Marshmallow Man from the movie Ghostbusters.

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

An alternative tradition developed wherein Tourist Guy appears at the scene of various
earth-shattering events, such as the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas in 1963.

The joke-within-the-joke in this image of Tourist Guy at the crash of the Hindenburg in
Lakehurst, New Jersey, in 1937, as with the Kennedy motorcade image, is the faux-digital
date in the right-hand corner.

79

80

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

In another twist on the Tourist Guy tradition, the variable is Tourist Guy himself, here
replaced by Osama bin Laden.

to disappear from view? Hardly. As with e-mailed warnings, the hoax gave
way to parodies of the hoax.22 We see the same guy on the same observation
platform. Only now a subway car is coming at him. Or a hot-air balloon. Or
the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from the 1984 movie Ghostbusters. Then,
instead of the disaster coming to him, the Ground Zero Geek goes to the
disaster: the crash of the Concorde in 2000, the bombing of the USS Cole at
port in Yemen in 2000, the Kennedy motorcade in Dallas in 1963, the crash
of the Hindenburg in 1937, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the sinking of
the Titanicthe moviein 1997, and President Lincolns box in Fords Theatre in 1865. He also drives the bus in the 1994 movie Speed and feels the hot
breath of Godzilla on his neck. In a later version that only a New York Yankees fan can appreciate, Tourist Guy joins the Boston Red Sox in celebrating
their 2004 World Series victory, their first since 1918.23
Finally, we go back to the observation platform and the looming menace of
the plane, only now its not the disaster that has morphed into something else,
but Tourist Guy himself. He becomes the owner of a giant cat named Snowball
in one meta-parodyan image that was almost as popular on the Internet in
2001 as Tourist Guyand none other than Osama bin Laden in another.

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

The news media devoted an enormous amount of attention to the seeming arbitrariness of fate. There were countless tales of people who were supposed to be on one of the four planes or at the World Trade Center but were
delayed or had to change their plans. The stories emphasized the gratitude
and guilt of these survivors. The dominant attitude was awe in the face of so
many reminders of the slender thread on which our lives hang. Consider the
following headlines:

Running Late Saved Them from Trade Center Death24

Fiery Escapes, Surreal Stories at Trade Center25

She Got Laid Off, He Missed a Train; Such Lucky Breaks26

The photoshoppers were also aghast at the precariousness of life but took a
darker view. Sudden death makes a mockery of our plans. It is the ultimate
cruel joke. Where the news media dwelled on the solemnity of it all, the
newslore focused on the absurdity. If Osama bin Laden was the face of evil,
Tourist Guy became the face of absurdity. He is the quintessence of being in
the wrong place at the wrong time. In his ignorance of what is about to befall
him, he represents all of us on the morning of September 11.27 The stories
about the real victims of that terrible day struggle to particularize them, to
assert the meaningfulness of all their lives, in Jack Lules words, to make
sense of life in the face of the seeming randomness of human existence.28
Victims became heroes. Death became sacrifice. In contrast, newslore counters the pious approach with an anonymous, fictitious victim that allows for
the expression of the subversive, unspeakable view. These deaths were senseless, absurd. Were here one minute, gone the next. Whats heroic about it?
Were geeks, tourist guys, on planet Earth. As is often the case, the folkloric
response may have been the more honest response.
The original Tourist Guy image was plausible, at least at first glance, more
urban legend than joke. The apparent motive of the first wave of e-mailers
was not to amuse but to appall. Once the picture had been debunked, however, the sense of victimization gave way to relief: Tourist Guy, like the rest
of us, had survived. The endless permutations of Tourist Guy that followed,
coinciding with the reduced sense of imminent threat as the days and weeks
after September 11 passed without follow-up attacks, seemed to place September 11 in historical context: as horrific as it was, we had come through
other horrific events. We would come through this one as well. The jokes do
more than express anxiety; they grapple with it.29

81

82

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

The substitution of Osama bin Laden for Tourist Guy on the observation
deck provides us with a segue into the trove of newslore that shifts the focus
from the attack on the homeland, as it was suddenly being called, to the
counterattack on Afghanistan and Iraq.

Vengeance
As soon as Osama bin Ladens name surfaced in connection with the September 11 attacks, the faceless enemy had a face. Following President Bushs
lead, much of the postSeptember 11 newslore was directed specifically at
bin Laden, just as it had been directed at the Ayatollah Khomeini during the
Iranian hostage crisis of the late 1970s and at Saddam Hussein during the
Gulf War of the early 1990s.30 Here is where our material becomes unprintable, at least by newspaper standards. In devising suitable punishments for
bin Laden, the newslore brings together the contemporary meaning of cursingusing four-letter wordsand the ancient meaning of wishing harm
upon another person.31
My collection of September 11 newslore includes a cycle of six photoshops
that centers on the idea of targeting. Just as in 1979 Khomeinis face appeared
in a gun sights crosshairs in a photocopied cartoon that circulated via fax
machine, so bin Ladens face appeared behind a shooting-range target, on a
dartboard, and in two pop-cultural parodies in a series of images that circulated by e-mail in fall 2001. In one, bin Laden appears in the crosshairs with
the caption Who wants to bomb a millionaire? on the perimeter of the
circlea reference to the popular television program Who Wants to Marry a
Millionaire? In the other, bin Laden appears in the crosshairs in a parody of a
MasterCard company ad that offers an opportunity to assassinate him (well
look at the Priceless parodies in chapter 6). The parodying of commercial
messages is consistent with what Elliott Oring found in the Challenger joke
cycle, with its plays on well-known TV spots for beer (Bud Lite), shampoo
(Head and Shoulders), and soft drinks (7UP).32 Paraphrasing Dorst,33 Bill
Ellis, who includes the credit card spoof in his study of 9/11 lore, writes that
topical jokes appropriate mass media imagery in order to challenge official
definitions of reality.34
Another set of target images turns scatological. Just as the face of the
president of Iraq appeared on a cartoon titled Saddam Hussein Urinal Target that was widely photocopied and faxed during the Gulf War in 1991,
bin Ladens face was emblazoned on a photoshopped urinal ten years later.35

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Like the Mickey Mouse image we

saw earlier, this item of photocopier
lore featuring the Grand Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual leader
of the Iranian revolution, dates
back to the Iranian hostage crisis.

The updated, digital version of the 1979 image of Ayatollah Khomeini puts Osama bin
Laden in the crosshairs.

83

84

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

This photocopied cartoon hints at public frustration that America could be victimized by
such a technologically inferior adversary.

Both parody the targets designed to help in the potty training of little boys.
Echoing the credit card parodys characterization of bin Laden as a piece of
shit, another photoshop depicts a dog using bin Ladens face as a target.36
In a similar vein are the punning photoshops of bin Ladens face on a roll
of toilet paper. One carries the slogan Get Rid of Your Shiite. Another says,
Wipe Out Terrorism.
References to defecation lead, in turn, to an array of images that follow a
chain of associations connecting defecation, military assault, and homosexual assault. Symbols of military and sexual aggression, Dundes and Pagter
point out, are often interchangeable.37 In combat, including the ritual combat of sports, Dundes writes, one proves ones maleness by feminizing ones
opponent. Typically, the victory entails some kind of penetration.38 To begin
with antecedent material, there is the Gulf War cartoon of an American military plane chasing an Iraqi camel. Just as the plane rides the camels ass
with the appropriate Holy shit! responseso a warplane tails Osama bin
Ladens flying carpet or appears in the rearview mirror of his car in at least
three variants that circulated in 2001.39 A photoshop of the bat-wing B-2

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Here the image of the flying carpet rather than the camel is invoked as an icon of the
Middle East to highlight the disparity in military might between the United States and its
latest enemy in the Islamic world.

bomber is inscribed with a parody of the bumper sticker designed to tweak

tailgaters: If you can read this, youre fucked.40 Another photoshop shows a
cache of missiles on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise with the
words Taliban-Brand Extra-Strength Suppository stenciled on them.
Another set of images expresses the theme of homosexual assault through
the use of the upraised middle finger. As Oring points out, the news anchors
may offer reassurance and a sense of control in times of national trauma,
but when it comes to expressing anger, they are too constrained by decorousness to be up to the task.41 A final image with a more overt homosexual
theme shows the martyrs supposed reward in heaven: seventy virgins, only
the virgins are gay men.
In yet another cycle of photoshops, which corresponds to Elliss second
wave of 9/11 lore,42 the humiliations are heterosexual rather than homosexual, which reflects news reports of the puritanism and misogyny of
fundamentalist Islamic movements such as the Taliban and the Wahaabi
sect in Saudi Arabia, of which bin Laden is a member. One photoshop
showed bin Laden being squashed by a large female bed partner. Depicting

85

86

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Photoshoppers gleefully devised suitable punishments for Osama

bin Laden. This one responds to what appeared, at least to
Western sensibilities, as a strong misogynistic streak in Islamic
fundamentalism.

the al-Qaeda leader in any sort of sexual encounter shows disrespect for
his religious beliefs. Showing the woman crushing him violates patriarchal
folk ideas about man-on-top male dominance. A second image showed
bin Laden pinned beneath a woman flexing her muscles while waving an
American flag.
In the following genie joke, bin Laden is dominated in another way by
three strong women who themselves were the subjects of a considerable
outpouring of newslore in the 1990s:

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Osama bin Laden found a bottle on the beach and picked it up. Suddenly, a female genie rose from the bottle and with a smile said, Master,
may I grant you one wish?
Infidel, dont you know who I am? I need nothing from a lowly
woman, barked bin Laden.
The genie pleaded, But master, I must grant you a wish or I will be
returned to this bottle forever.
Osama thought a moment. Then, grumbling about the inconvenience
of it all, he relented. OK, OK, I want to wake up with three white,
American women in my bed in the morning. I have plans for them.
Giving the genie a cold glare, he growled, Now, be gone!
The genie, annoyed, said, So be it! and disappeared back into the
bottle. The next morning, bin Laden woke up in bed with Lorena Bobbitt, Tonya Harding, and Hillary Clinton. His penis was gone, his leg was
broken and he had no health insurance.
The backstory: Lorena Bobbitt experienced her brief brush with fame
in 1993 when she cut off her husbands penis. Tonya Harding had hers in
1994 when she hired a hit man to injure her Olympic figure-skating rival
Nancy Kerrigan. As we saw in chapter 1, Hillary Clintons image suffered
long-term damage when her husband made her chair of a task force charged
with developing some sort of national health insurance. It is a measure of
celebrity when veterans of old newslore resurface in new newslore.
In two final humiliating images, Osama bin Laden is not feminized but
infantilized. One image parodies milk carton campaigns on behalf of missing children. On a container of Afgan Farms goat milk (already expired)
it says: Last seen: Mounting his donkey before crawling his skinny little
pajama, towel headed lanky ass into some elusive Afghan cave. The other
image, a poster version, asks: Have you seen me? Im about to get my ass
nuked off the face of the planet.43 This echoes an earlier milk carton parody of the Mars Explorer spacecraft with which NASA briefly lost contact
in 2004.
The bin Laden connection also provided a geographic target: he was
believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. The San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Joseph Perkins may have been one of the first to suggest that Afghanistan be bombed back to the Stone Age.44 The next day, the New York Times
reporter Barry Bearak grimly joked that the war-torn land was already
there.45 The idea of bombing back to the stone age, which the San Francisco

87

88

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Chronicle columnist Rob Morse reminded readers was a recycled Vietnamera quote from General Curtis LeMay,46 and the observation that Afghanistan was already there, appeared in scores of newspaper columns and stories. The newslore was more creative. The desire to lay waste to Afghanistan
found pictorial expression in cybercartoon maps showing the country
transformed into either a lake or a parking lot (the radio talk show host
Howard Stern reportedly made the same suggestion on the air).47 Dundes
and Pagter found similar maps of Iraq-as-parking-lot during Operation
Desert Storm.48 As Ellis noted,49 the urge to flatten Afghanistan also found
expression in several riddles:
Q: How is Bin Laden like Fred Flintstone?
A: Both may look out their windows and see Rubble.
Remember that the Flintstones were a modern Stone Age family and
that Fred Flintstones neighbor and pal was Barney Rubble. Some other riddles and jokes with annihilation themes:
Q: What do Osama bin laden and General Custer have in common?
A: They both want to know where those Tomahawks are coming from!
Q: How do you play Taliban bingo?
A: B-52 . . . F-16 . . . B-1 . . .
Q: What do Bin Laden and Hiroshima have in common?
A: Nothing, yet.
Q: Whats the five-day forecast for Afghanistan?
A: Two days.
A variant:
Forecast weather for; Kabul, Karachi, Baghdad and Damascus for the
week of 9/24/2001: Very brief period of extremely bright sunlight followed by variable winds of 2000 knots and temperatures in the mid to
upper 6000 degrees range with no measurable moisture. SPF 12000 sun
block highly recommended if standing near an outside structural wall
of less than one meter thick.

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Q: What is the Talibans national bird?

A: Duck.

Nothing Sacred
Until this point, the only 9/11 jokes weve seen have been at the expense of
the perpetrators and their allies (or supposed allies)Osama bin Laden, the
Taliban, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Arab world in general. For a long time, I had
the impression that jokes about victims of the 9/11 attacks were off-limits.
Alas, they were not. In the interest of completing the record, I offer the following examples:
Q: What does WTC stand for?
A: What Trade Center?
[This is a common riddle type. After the Challenger disaster, for example, we learned that NASA stood for Need Another Seven Astronauts,
among other things. After the bombing of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, we leaned that Waco stood for We Aint Comin
Out, We All Cremated Ourselves, etc.]
At the World Trade Center restaurant, they offered three seating areas:
smoking, non-smoking and burned beyond recognition.
They dont need any more volunteers to help at the WTC: they have
found 5000 extra pairs of hands . . .
Q: What is world most efficient airline?
A: American Airlines, leave Boston 8:15 . . . be in your office in New York
8:48!
Americas new math:
Q: Now how many sides to a Pentagon?
A: 4.
If one side of the Pentagon has collapsed, will it now be renamed The
Square?

89

90

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Q: Why are police and firemen New Yorks finest?

A: Because now you can run them through a sieve.
A man goes to the World Trade Center. He says, I want to buy a jumbo
jet.
We dont sell jumbo jets here, sir, was the reply.
Well, youve got one in the window!
Q: Whats the difference between 9/11 and the Oklahoma City
Bombings?
A: Once again, foreigners have proven that they can do it better and
more efficiently.
I should note that these jokes did not come my way as e-mail forwards.
I found them on various humor Web sites. The jokes aggressively refute the
notion that there are some things one just does not joke about. While the
knee-jerk reaction would be to deplore the insensitivity of this material, it
could also be looked at as an ostentatious display of tough-mindedness and
defiance. If I laugh at any mortal thing, Byron writes, Tis that I may not
weep.50 I think of the scene in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail
where the Black Knight refuses to surrender even after King Arthur lops his
arms off. Just a flesh wound, he says.
Giselinde Kuipers wisely cautions that interpreting the sick 9/11 jokes as a
coping mechanism assumes that everyone was traumatized by the attacks
which may not be warranted. Doubtless there were those who didnt see
what all the fuss was about and said as much in the jokes. (After all, as a New
York Times story noted in 2008, the chances of the average person dying
in America at the hands of international terrorists [is] comparable to the
risk of dying from eating peanuts, being struck by an asteroid or drowning in a toilet.)51 The jokes, Kuipers writes, defy the moral discourse of the
media, provide the pleasure of boundary transgression, and block feelings
of involvement.52 The defiance, in other words, is not of the terrorists but of
the taboos against offensive humor.

Unfit to Print
When big news happens, reporters, as a matter of course, will report what
happened and how people reacted to what happened. If the event is deemed

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

to be of major importance, a separate reaction story will run alongside the

main news story. By any measure, the September 11 attacks were the biggest
story in the history of American journalism. Beginning with extra editions
that hit the streets on the afternoon of September 11, coverage included not
just one-story roundups of the latest developments but multiple stories,
including stories that focused exclusively on the reactionfrom world leaders, from members of Congress, from military personnel, from terrorism
experts, from clergy, from people in the street at home and abroad, and so
on. The New York Times devoted an entire section to 9/11 follow-up stories
throughout the fall of 2001.
The stories are inevitably balanced. The rituals of objectivity require reporters to present, if not a range of viewpoints, at least representative expressions
of opposing views. The message to readers is that, in its news columns, the
paper does not privilege one view over another. It does, however, limit its
sampling of views to those that do not violate the canons of good taste. The
dual imperatives of balance and taste produce a muting effect. There is anger
in the postSeptember 11 reaction stories, but it seems restrained compared
to the revenge fantasies that are played out in the folklore.
On September 19, for example, USA Today asked, Do we seek vengeance
or justice? and noted that the sentiments of Americans run the gamut.
Four voices calling for rage and retribution followed, including one who
said, simply, Nuke em. Then came the balancing act: Others prefer the
guidance of the old saying Revenge is a dish that is best served cold.53
The St. Petersburg Times noted that polls showed overwhelming support
for a military response and illustrated the point with a quote from a local
official that was as risqu as most general-circulation American newspapers
ever get: I think we need to go kick some ass big time. After three other
blustery quotes, though, the story turns to the more measured responses:
While most Americans support whatever action is necessary, not everyone
is quite ready for what that could mean.54
A September 14 story in the New York Times began thus: Having donated
more blood than victims needed, having wallpapered their towns with flags,
and with little choice but to stew over television reruns of terror in their
homeland, more than a few Americans are beginning to obsess about how
to get even. One interviewee suggested that we find and kill these Arab
people, then wrap them in a pigskin and bury them. That way they will
never go to heaven. Another said, If I could get my hands on bin Laden, Id
skin him alive and pour salt on him. Such talk, the reporter Blaine Harden
noted, also alarmed many Americans.55

91

92

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Another New York Times story, Fantasies of Vengeance, Fed by Fury, on

September 18, included calls for parading bin Ladens head through the city
on a pike, burning him alive, and nuking Kabul.56 Then President Bush
himself weighed in, invoking Wanted: Dead or Alive posters from the old
West. The Times disapproved, taking the president to task in its lead editorial for his overly bellicose language.57
Taken together, these stories and others like them offer specific evidence
of American anger. But that anger found its fullest and most profane expression in the newslore that circulated among friends and acquaintances via
e-mail. Americans werent just angry about the September 11 attacks, they
were cursing angry. Studies of the sick jokes that greeted the explosion of the
space shuttle Challenger in 1986 suggest that the jokes were a response not
only to the disaster itself but also to the disaster storyin other words, to
the solemnity and piousness of the news medias narrative of the disaster.58
While it may seem obvious that much contemporary folklore responds
to current events, it is easy to forget that, strictly speaking, the lore responds
not to the events themselves but to accounts of the events. As countless sociological and rhetorical studies of news have pointed out, the news is a story
about an occurrence.59 As such, it is important to recognize that newslore
may be a response to how that story is toldto what is left out as well as
what is includedas much as it is a response to the occurrence itself.
No one, other than people who were close enough to the launch site to
see it in person, could have known about the Challenger explosion other
than by seeing it on television, hearing about it on the radio, reading about
it in the newspaper the next day (this was before newspapers had Web sites),
or hearing about it from someone who had been paying attention to the
mass media.60 For those of us who watched the disaster on TV, the experience was visually framed and reduced by the screen itself, bracketed by the
commercial messages that underwrite the news programming, and filtered
through the personality of whichever news anchor told us the story. The
juxtaposition of extraordinary tidings with the business-as-usual production values and fiscal imperatives of network news was jarring and more
than a little absurd.
Oring argues that the Challenger jokes were a strategy of rebellion
against the slick media packaging of the disaster. Part of that strategy was
to effectively bar the news media from appropriating the jokes by making
them unspeakable according to the news medias canons of good taste.61
Oring infers public attitudes toward the packaging of disaster from the
content of the jokes themselvesand from the cultural knowledge one

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

would need to possess to understand the content. Here, contrasting the

newslore of September 11 with the expressions of rage and dismay that
were deemed fit for public consumption has shown how newslore functions as an alternative discourse on disaster. Like the accused miscreant
who makes an obscene gesture at the cameras during his perp walk, those
with a taste for newslore can fight off news media co-optation and thereby
maintain the world of computer-mediated communication as a parallel or underground universe of discourse simply by making the material
unspeakable.
Sure enough, as exhaustive as news coverage of September 11 and its
aftermath was, when I searched for stories about the newslore of September
11, I found that the American news media mostly ignored or toned down
tasteless expressions of public anger so as not to offend their audiences.
A USA Today story about humor on the Web noted that the goat milk carton emblazoned with the image of Osama bin Laden contained language
unsuitable for a family newspaper.62 A Rocky Mountain News story mentioned photos of bin Laden in none-too-flattering poses.63 Anything more
explicit, presumably, was simply not fit to print. As Christie Davies wrote
of jokes about the death of Princess Diana, Such jokes never appear on
radio or television or in established newspapers, for media executives stringently censor out any such material lest an influential or vociferous segment
of their audience feel offended.64 (I would note that the media executives
need not get involved; the canons of good taste are widely shared among the
newsroom rank and file.)
The Pew Internet and American Life Project, incidentally, also gave the
folklore of 9/11 a wide berth. The projects sixty-five-page study of how
Americans used the Internet in the aftermath of September 11 noted that
the Internet became a channel for anguished and prayerful gatherings, for
heartfelt communication through email, and for vital information65 but
made no mention of jokes or humor apart from observing the presence
of rumors and other fanciful tales.66 Snopes got a mention for its role in
debunking rumors, as did Fark.com for abandoning its usual comedy format to deliver straight news.
Elsewhere, the Pew report acknowledged that the Internet provided
a virtual public space where grief, fear, anger, patriotism and even hatred
could be shared,67 but only addressed direct statements of those sentiments
and not their expression in the more stylized or artistic forms of folklore.
Similarly, a section on images listed six kinds of images but ignored cartoons and photoshops.

93

94

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

Meanwhile, with the acquiescence of a shockingly docile news media and

Democratic opposition, the Bush administration ordered the invasion of
Iraq and toppled Saddam Husseinso far, so goodbut U.S. forces were
unable to restore order once Saddams army had disbanded and dispersed.
Though polls showed that a majority of Americans continued to believe that
Saddam had his hand in the September 11 attacks and possessed weapons
of mass destruction long after conclusive evidence to the contrary came to
light, eventually the sense that we were bogged down in Iraq while Osama bin Laden remained at large eroded popular supportand the change
seems to have been reflected in the newslore.
A good starting point for a discussion of antiwarand therefore antiBushnewslore is the juxtaposition of two wildly contradictory Bush
statements:
September 13, 2001: The most important thing is for us to find Osama
bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find
him.
March 13, 2002: I dont know where he is. I have no idea and I really dont
care. Its not that important. Its not our priority.
In one version, the two quotes are set in speech bubbles, each coming from a reversed image of the president and labeled The Two Faces of
George Bush Jr.68 Another, parodying the Wheres Waldo? series of childrens books, is labeled Wheres bin Laden?
A similar juxtaposition of Bush quotations was captioned Two-Faced
Bush:
May 29, 2003: Weve found the weapons of mass destruction. And well
find more weapons as time goes on.
February 7, 2004: Theres theories as to where the weapons went. They
could have been destroyed during the war.
The other major contributor to turning the tide of public opinion against
the war was the set of photographs takenand shared, folklore-likeby
American military personnel detailed to the Abu Ghraib prison. The visual
evidence of prisoner abuse shocked the publicand lent itself to pointed
photoshops, including images where a smirking Bush (and, in some instances, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld) was substituted for the faces of
guards at Abu Ghraib. The most searing image, the hooded prisoner with
electrodes attached to his fingers, appeared as the White House Christmas
tree, under the Mission Accomplished banner under which Bush appeared
on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the original photo taken on
May 2003, and on the Statue of Libertys pedestal, among other places. As

When the Going Gets Tough: Newslore of September 11

we will see in chapter 5, Bush had been skewered before his electionand
before September 11as a stooge, a chimp, a dunce, and a puppet of his
father or of Dick Cheney or his friends in the oil industry. But when things
began to go wrong in Iraq, the newslore took on a harder edge. Bushs supposed lack of qualifications for the highest office in the land became more
disturbingand the newslore more condemnatoryas the stakes rose, as
they did again in 2005 when the Bush administration seemed woefully inept
in its response to Hurricane Katrina.

95

4
Got Fish?
Newslore of Hurricane Katrina

Disgusting
On September 12, 2005, a colleague down the hall forwarded an e-mail to
me with the subject line Got Fish? (the subject line in the Urbanlegends.
about.com version is Some people find good in EVERYTHING!!!!). Disgusting, Ken Yednock commented in the body of the e-mail. But funny.
What followed was a photograph of the two presidents Bush on what
appears to be the deck of a sportfishing boat. George Bush the elder, smiling
in cap and windbreaker, is holding a fishing rod. George Bush the younger,
grinning in leather jacket and sunglasses, is holding a striped bass. Thats the
foreground. In the background we see nine or ten people, most if not all of
whom appear to be African American, wading through waist-high water on
a city street.
Here is some of what one needed to know to understand why the photograph was disgusting but funny: The Bushes are members of the leisure
class, which likes to engage in high-end recreational pursuits such as sportfishing. The streets of New Orleans had flooded when Hurricane Katrina
made landfall the week before. Many African American citizens of New
Orleans are poor and therefore lacked the ways and means to heed the order
to evacuate the city. They were trapped. President Bush in particular and
authorities at all levels of government in general were perceived as being
catastrophically and criminally slow to respond to the gravity of the situation. Message of the photo: the Bushes are so out of touch with the plight of
the poor, especially poor blacks, that they saw the flooding of New Orleans
96

Got Fish? Newslore of Hurricane Katrina

The two presidents Bush appear to be taking advantage of the flooding of New Orleans by
Hurricane Katrina to do a little sportfishing.

as nothing more than an opportunity to do a little fishing. The name of the

file is BushVaca.jpgan abbreviated version of Bush Vacation. The subject
line Got fish? refers to the Got Milk? advertising campaign, more parodies of which we will see in chapter 7.
The bass-fishing photo can also be read as a response to Barbara Bushs
Let them eat cake moment at the Houston Astrodome, which was serving as a temporary evacuation center for New Orleanss poorest and leastmobile residents. What Im hearing, which is sort of scary, the wife of the
first President Bush and mother of the second one told a reporter, is they
all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And
so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged
anyway, so this is working very well for them.1 John Nichols blogged in the
Nation: Finally, we have discovered the roots of George W. Bushs compassionate conservatism2
Other people made the let them eat cake connection. A piece of commentary on Politicalhumor.about.com juxtaposes a photo of a black man
standing amid the wreckage of his house and a photo of President Bush
and Senator John McCain standing behind a white cake and superimposes
both photos over a dictionary definition of the word negligence. The caption asks, Where were you on August 29, 2005? They were eating cake.3 A

97

98

Got Fish? Newslore of Hurricane Katrina

similar collage juxtaposes the cake photo, a photo of Bush playing a guitar
given to him by the country singer Mark Wills, a photo of Bush looking
out the window of Air Force One, and a pink While You Were Out pad
with the message FEMA called. The collage is labeled Operation: Enduring Vacation, which parodies the slogan Operation Enduring Freedom,
coined for the invasion of Afghanistan in fall 2001.4
Comparisons with Nero fiddling while Rome burned were also popular,
as the following letter to the editor of Newsday shows (while connecting
Bushs mishandling of Katrina with his mishandling of 9/11):
Yet, as the country cries and mourns for those who have died, our president found time to ape for the cameras, strumming a guitar with country singer Mark Wills for a photo op. He also managed to get in a round
of golf before deciding to cut short his five-week vacation. Four years
ago when disaster struck he sat dumbstruck and continued to read a
childrens book so as not to frighten the students. What excuse can he
possibly have this time for strumming away on his guitar as catastrophe
strikes? He truly has become a modern-day Nero, fiddling as the nation
burns. President Bush, whos not big on the classics, probably wasnt
thinking about this when he mugged for the cameras Tuesday, playing
a guitar presented to him by country singer Mark Wills. But with the
photo now Exhibit A for many liberal bloggers, he may find the comparison hard to shake.5
Thus far, the meanings I have teased out of this photo explain only why
it is disgusting. To understand why its funny, you have to know that the
photograph is a fake, which is to say you have to know that it is possible to
digitally alter or combine photographs in ways that make the altered photo
almost indistinguishable from a photograph of a scene as it appeared to the
photographer through the cameras viewfinder. Snopes.com says it received
many is this real? inquiries about both Got Fish? and another photo of
President Bush the Younger strumming the guitar for a weeping woman
outside the New Orleans convention center. Snopes displayed the original
photos from which the spoof versions were made.6
That some people believed these images to be true tells us two things:
even though we are routinely exposed to and aware of realistic digital fauxtos, our knee-jerk response to the physically plausible image (as opposed to,
say, a horses head on a mans body, which would be a physically implausible
image) is to accept it at face value; and we are likelier to believe a physically

Got Fish? Newslore of Hurricane Katrina

plausible image if the content accords with beliefs we already hold. In the
present instance, I suspect the believers were those whose boundless contempt for George W. Bush made them susceptible to almost any calumny.
That Got Fish? hadnt appeared in any newspapers would not have surprised them. If you believe Got Fish? its no stretch to believe in conspiracies to suppress news. Presumably these people did not find the photograph
amusing.
Those who laughed at Got Fish? recognized it as a fake not because
they were able to spot the telltale signs of a cut-and-paste job but because
the conduct depicted in the photo was so breathtakingly inappropriate to
the situation. One of the phrases that recurs in the humorless scholarly literature about humor is the idea of appropriate incongruity. Got Fish? is
incongruous in multiple ways: though digitally altered photographs have
become commonplace, we continue to marvel at how realistic a fake can
look. The disconnect between the visual plausibility of the image and the
implausibility of the conduct is startling, but it would not be funny if the
conduct, though literally false, did not express a figurative truth. If we laugh
at Got Fish? we laugh because someone has cleverly brought together
these disparate scenes to craft a false, yet maliciously apt, representation of
the Bushes perceived insensitivity and disengagement.
The day after Ken Yednock forwarded Got Fish? to me, I received another copy from my friend Michael Yonchenko in California. Michael correctly
surmised that he was trafficking in old news. His subject line read: You
may have already seen this, but . . . I was one of thirty-five addressees. Got
Fish? came up in conversation several times in the next few days. Everyone,
it seemed, had seen the picture, which is why it became my shorthand explanation of what this book was going to be about. You know that photo of the
Bushes? Id say. The book is going to be about stuff like that.
Got Fish? may have been the most popular bit of Katrina newslore.
There were others. One photoshop showed Bush putting the Presidential
Medal of Freedom around the neck of FEMA director Michael Brown.
Brown bore the brunt of the blame for FEMAs poor performance, at first.
(He later testified to Congress that he tried in vain to convey the severity of
the situation to White House staffers and his boss, Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.) But Bush, who has often
been accused of being loyal to a fault, was famously quoted as saying that
Brownie was doing a heck of a job. (Giving Brown the Medal of Freedom
would have been consistent with what Bush had done the year before when
he awarded the Medal of Freedom to former CIA director George Tenant,

99

100

Got Fish? Newslore of Hurricane Katrina

despite Tenants key role in the use of faulty intelligence about Saddam Husseins weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq.)
Another bit of newslore that addressed Bushs apparent obliviousness
to the plight of ordinary citizens displaced by the hurricane was a bumper
sticker that said, I want to sit on Trent Lotts porch. Lott was the junior
senator from Mississippi at the time. Here is what the president said while
surveying the damage:
The good news isand its hard for some to see it nowthat out of this
chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out
of the rubbles of Trent Lotts househes lost his entire housetheres
going to be a fantastic house. And Im looking forward to sitting on the
porch.7
Here are three more jokes that poked fun at Bushs racial insensitivity:
In response to accusations that he doesnt care about black people,
George Bush replied, Of course I care about black people, every home
should have one.
Whats all this talk about the poor people in New Orleans? There aint
none, from what I hear most everyone has got prime waterfront property, and swimming pool in the backyard.
Q: What is George W Bushs position on Roe v. Wade?
A: He doesnt care how the blacks get out of New Orleans.8
This joke recalls an earlier Dan Quayle joke:
After the 1989 earthquake struck Northern California, President Bush
dispatched Vice President Quayle to the epicenter. The vice president
flew to Orlando.
To get this joke, you had to know that Quayle, like Bush, was widely thought
to be lacking in the brains department, in large part because he frequently
misspoke; and that Quayle must have mistaken epicenter for Epcot Center, which is part of Disney World, located in Orlando, Florida.
Here are two more jokes that recall the shake-up puns that greeted the
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in northern California:

Got Fish? Newslore of Hurricane Katrina

Black men in Purple Dinner jackets & bow ties were found floating
under a pier in New Orleans today . . . D.N.A Tests have revealed they
were indeed the DRIFTERS.
I heard from my brother who has reopened his bar in the French Quarter, he said business was a little quiet but was picking up now that some
of his regulars have been drifting back in.
I ran across a similar joke about Thai bar owners saying business had
been slow since the 2004 tsunami. This next joke makes sly reference to
Frances unwillingness to support the invasion of Iraq:
Did you hear which part of New Orleans was the first to surrender to
the Hurricane Katrina flood waters? The French Quarter.
Finally, Katrina provided grist for those who can tie any newsworthy
occurrence to the sexual misconduct of Michael Jackson and Bill Clinton:
Why did Michael Jackson volunteer to help Hurricane Katrina victims?
Because New Orleans now has the highest concentration of children
wearing wet underwear.
Bill Clinton says, The hurricane season in New Orleans is no big
deal . . . last time I was there I got blown up a back alley in the French
Quarter.
As with the Loma Prieta quake, newspaper coverage of Katrina included stories about gallows humor, not immediately after the disaster but months later,
when reporters returned to New Orleans to cover the first post-Katrina Mardi
Gras. Most of a Washington Post column by Linton Weeks was about the edgy
humor of the parade floats and costumes, T-shirts, and bumper stickers. Several
T-shirts and bumper stickers parodied the citys slogan New OrleansProud
to Call It Home: Proud to Crawl Home, Proud to Swim Home, and, with a
sketch of a FEMA trailer, Proud to Call It Home. Another T-shirt joked about
the looting that went on amid the chaos: I Stayed in New Orleans and All I Got
Was This Lousy T-shirt, a New Cadillac and a Plasma TV.
Oddly, Weeks asks if such flippancy is appropriate and concludes that
the jurys still out, without asking anyone. I must admit I was tickled to see
Weeks describe a supposedly unintentionally funny moment:

101

102

Got Fish? Newslore of Hurricane Katrina

A tour guide said that she heard a TV reporter ask a New Orleans
woman if she was devastated by the destruction of all the churches in
the area and the woman replied: Not really. I eat at Popeyes.
Thats a local fried chicken reference. If you dont get it, ask a New
Orleanian.9
What Weeks means is that Churchs, liked Popeyes, is a chain of fried chicken restaurants. What he apparently didnt know is that this is a variation
on an old jokenothing unintentional about it at all. The story pops up on
Snopes.com as an urban legend.10
As with jokes about celebrity deaths (see chapter 8), there were those who
thought Hurricane Katrina was no laughing matter:
This Joke Line or whatever it is, should stop I had 10 family members to
die out there in new orleans and you have people on here using the N
word thats not funny im black proud of it and there were alot of people
to die out there including whites and its not about color anyway there
or whites on welfare just like blacks so the comments on here about
welfare is just down right stupid. And who ever started this katrina joke
shyt, I see you werent the one waiting for days for food or water you
werent the one preying not to get raped or have your family that you
found lost again seperated again have some compasion, God Bless all
the people that did write these stupid jokes because your day is coming,
because paybacks a bytch.

The Mayhem Legend

As if reports of the conditions in the Louisiana Superdome and the New
Orleans Convention Center werent horrifying enoughovercrowding, no
air conditioning or plumbing, insufficient food and waterthe news media
reported that evacuees were being raped and killed. Some of the rumors came
from people inside the two evacuation centers, who may have been reporting
what they had heard rather than what they had seen, but some came from
officials, including the mayor and the citys police superintendent. Mayor Ray
Nagin went on The Oprah Winfrey Show and told of people in that frickin
Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing
people, raping people.11 Police Superintendent Edwin P. Compass III talked
about rapes and beatings in the convention center and added that tourists

Got Fish? Newslore of Hurricane Katrina

were also getting raped and beaten. In some accounts, the rape victims were
as young as seven years old; in some they were as young as two. The New York
Times acknowledged that some of these stories had not been verified.12 Other
papers reinforced the accounts with quotes like the following, from Sgt. Tony
Small of the New Orleans Police Department: Thats not rumors, Small said
of the mayhem at the convention center. It was horrendous.13
A couple of weeks later, the press began reporting that most of the
accounts of violence were either false or had never been confirmed. Even
Eddie Compass said as much. We have no official reports to document any
murder, he told the New York Times. Not one official report of rape or sexual assault.14
A Washington Post story dated September 15 began: Rumors were treated
as factboth inside the convention center and out.15 The Times described
the stories as figments of frightened imaginations.16 Times columnist David
Carr called it a game of toxic telephone.17 Many reporters and sources
turned to the vocabulary of folklore to describe the unverified stories:
I think it was urban myth. Any time you put 25,000 people under one
roof, with no running water, no electricity and no information, stories
get told.
Lieutenant David Benelli, New Orleans Police Department18
[The Superdome] morphed into this mythical place where the most
unthinkable deeds were being done.
Major Ed Bush, Louisiana National Guard19
And many of the urban legends that sprang upthe systematic rape
of children, the slitting of a 7-year-olds throatso far seem to be just
that. . . . Even now, the real, actual events in New Orleans in the past
three weeks surpass the imagination. Who needs urban myths when
the reality was so brutal?
David Carr, New York Times columnist20
That the nations front-line emergency management believed the body
count would resemble that of a bloody battle in a war is but one of
scores of examples of myths about the Dome and the Convention
Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New
Orleans top officials, including the mayor and police superintendent.
Brian Thevenot and Gordon Russell, New Orleans Times-Picayune21

103

104

Got Fish? Newslore of Hurricane Katrina

There was plenty of blame to go around. Officials blamed sensationmongering journalists. Journalists blamed officialsand each other. Print
journalists, for example, blamed television journalists,22 irresponsible Web
sites, and talk radio. Columnists blamed sensation-mongering reporters
and, buttressed by academic sources, racism. Carl Smith, a professor of English and American studies at Northwestern University, told the Times that
stories of a city in chaos and people running loose offered the fulfillment
of some timely ideas and prejudices about the current social order.23 TimesPicayune editor Jim Amoss was more blunt: If the dome and Convention
Center had harbored large numbers of middle-class white people, it would
not have been a fertile ground for this kind of rumor-mongering.24
Carl Lindahl, a folklorist and codirector of the Surviving Katrina and
Rita in Houston project, presented a paper at a conference I attended about
another set of rumors that swept through New Orleanss black community
after Katrina: the government had deliberately sabotaged the levees protecting the citys Ninth Ward, both to divert the water away from more-affluent
white neighborhoods and to have a pretext for razing the Ninth Ward and
turning it over to developers who would put the land to more upscale use.
The racial dimension of the rumormongering was seemingly confirmed
by the treatment of two photos that appeared on the Yahoo! News Web site.
The people in one of the photos were white. The caption:
Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and
soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina came through
the area in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The person in the other photo was black. The caption:
A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005.25
Students in my journalism ethics class got worked up about the seemingly overt racism of the word choices. They were responding to forwards of
posts such as these:
The captions on two photos from flood victims show very clearly the
sinister and subtle ways that racism thrives in this country. . . . Whats
the difference between looting and finding? Apparently its as simple
as the color of your skin.26

Got Fish? Newslore of Hurricane Katrina

My job was to challenge their knee-jerk responses. I noted (as did many
other commentators) first that the photos came from two different sources,
so it wasnt as if the same photographer was distinguishing the behavior of
the white flood victims from the behavior of the black flood victims along
racial lines; and second that the use of the word looting does not necessarily entail a moral judgment. Looting describes taking items from stores
during a breakdown in order; it doesnt address the question of whether the
taking of the items may be justified. Ultimately the episode told us less about
racism in the news media than about how racially charged life remains in
America.
As the controversy over the juxtaposed looting photos died down, another looting photo, of a black man carrying a plastic tub filled with bottles of
beer, took on a life of its own, appearing in a wide variety of contexts, just as
Tourist Guy did before him.27

Disaster Overseas
I mentioned a tsunami joke earlier; there was other tsunami lore. Some
involved real photos that were given phony backstories. One showed spectators calmly watching the wave come in. Not too smart! commented
one of the forwarders. Here is why sooo many people died. . . . They just
stood there and watched the wave come. The casting of aspersions on
the intelligence of the Southeast Asian victims of the tsunami is similar
to some exasperated reactions to the failure of black residents to evacuate
New Orleans. An About.com page titled Stupid Quotes About Hurricane
Katrina includes one from former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum:
I mean, you have people who dont heed those warnings and then put
people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a
need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and
understand that there are consequences to not leaving.28 In fact, according
to Snopes, the purported tsunami photo actually showed a high tide that at
regular intervals causes a river in China to rise dramatically. Another photo of the tsunami supposedly taken from a high-rise building in Phuket,
Thailand, was actually an altered photo of a city in Chile.29 Then there were
the sick jokes:
How can you tell an Indonesian prostitute?
Shes the one in the fish nets.

105

106

Got Fish? Newslore of Hurricane Katrina

How do you stop a tsunami?

Throw 160,000 Asians in front of it.
The Australian Gold Coast Surf Classic was won this week under controversial circumstances........by a Burmese on a wardrobe.
According to published reports, immediately following the Tsunami in
January of 2005, all of the sharks in the Indian Ocean came down with a
terrible case of diarrhoea.
You try eating Thai for a whole week!
Jokes about the 2008 earthquake in China also reveal a continuing Western distrust of Asian cuisine. In the 1980s, the folklorist Florence Baer wrote
about stories circulating in Stockton, California, that Asian immigrants
were stealing pets and cooking them. Such was the furor over these tales
that the city council considered an ordinance that would specifically ban the
practice. Cooler heads prevailed. No documented instance of petnapping in
Stockton ever materialized.30 Here are the China earthquake jokes:
Torrential rain has been hampering relief efforts in the Chinese earthquake zone. . . . Luckily for survivors, its been raining cats and dogs.
Apparently they are flying in food aid for victims of the earthquake
in South-Western China . . . Battersea dogs home is completely out of
stock, in response to the emergency.
The meagerness of the crop of jokes about the Loma Prieta and China
earthquakes and the tsunami when compared to jokes about September
11 and Hurricane Katrina may partake of a larger pattern: when unfunny
things happen, we are likelier to joke if we have someone to blame. One
might think that we would be likelier to joke about catastrophes that happen
on the other side of the world than ones that happen close to home, but the
paucity of jokes about the Asian disasters suggests that when it comes to sick
joking, distant disaster doesnt have enough shock value.

5
It Takes a
Village Idiot
Bushlore
Alan Dundes regarded jokes as socially sanctioned outlets for expressing
taboo ideas and subjects.1 Thus, he claimed, political jokes are far more
plentiful in dictatorships than they are in democracies, where the press can
openly lampoon political leaders in opinion columns and editorial cartoons.
In America, Dundes found, instead of joking about politics, we joke about
sex and race because those are the topics we feel least comfortable discussing openly.2
Is Dundess claim, made in 1987, no longer true? In cyberspace, political
jokes seem at least as plentiful as jokes about sex and race. Why should this
be? Has our political culture changed, or is there something about computer-mediated communication that lends itself to political humor?
A couple of tentative answers: With the notable exception of the 2008
presidential election, voter turnout has been declining steadily. The standard
explanation is that voters are increasingly disgusted with the way politics
works, and that disgust inevitably leads to apathy. But the disgust-apathy
link may not be as automatic as is generally supposed. To be disgusted with
the way politics works, you have to care about it, a lot. The assumption seems
to be that if you care about something a lot, are unhappy about it, but cant
do anything about it, you give up on it. It may be, though, that disgust is not
a precondition of political apathy. While a society like ours gives us the freedom to criticize our political leaders, it also affords us the luxury of ignoring
them. I dont agree with those who say that every election offers us a choice
between Tweedledum and Tweedledee: The differences between Democrats
and Republicans may not be as stark as those between, say, liberals and
107

108

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

libertarians, but they are real, and they matter. At the same time, American
politics is so fundamentally centrist, and American society so stable, that
one can tune out the whole process, confident that whoever wins elections,
ones own life is not going to change much either way. People dont stay
home on Election Day, in other words, because theyve lost confidence in the
system but because they have an abundance of confidence. The disgusted
people, I would wager, are conscientious voters, and the most zealous jokers
come from their growing ranks. The only reason I assert this is that the jokes
themselves offer evidence of a high degree of engagement. The jokes make
sense only if you follow the news, and I cant imagine why a nonvoter would
follow the news.
The other reason why political jokes are flourishing has to do with the
nature of the medium in which the jokes are crafted. Political leaders and
celebrities dominate news photographs, just as they dominate news stories.
Those photographs comprise a trove of near-at-hand raw materials for the
photoshoppers art. News photos are on the Web for the takingand faking. If Bill Clinton was unfortunate to be president when e-mail became
the dominant joke exchange medium, George W. Bush was unfortunate to
occupy the White House during the evolution of the computer from a predominantly text-driven medium to a text-and-graphics-driven medium.
Bushlore hammers away at four themes:
1. Bush is not intelligent.
2. He has a substance abuse problem.
3. He is a huckster.
4. He should never have gotten as far as he has, and therefore his demise would be no great loss.

While all this material has overlapped in terms of its currency in cyberspace, it should be noted that concerns about Bushs intelligence and his
misspent youth were voiced even before his ascension to the White House
following the disputed election of 2000, and disgust with Bushs role as a
shill for policies widely seen as the work of Cheney or Rumsfeld on behalf
of their cronies in industry (Halliburton, et al.) mounted as the war in Iraq
began to bog down. Once it became clear that Bush was not equal to the
task of presiding over a much more dangerous world than the one he faced
when he took office in 2001, the jokes got meaner. As I suggested in the previous chapter, the last straw, for many who might previously have given the
president the benefit of the doubt, was the administrations mishandling of
Hurricane Katrina. Before Katrina, the argument over the war in Iraq was

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

largely ideological: was it an appropriate use of American power to topple

a dictator and preside over the ensuing chaos? After Katrina, the issue was
competence. Those who may have disagreed on whether the interference in
Iraqi affairs was justified readily agreed that the invasion and occupation
were poorly planned and poorly executed.

Bush Is Not Intelligent

e President Cant Read
George W. Bush took the national stage with a reputation for not being
articulate, scholarly, thoughtful, or well-read. It didnt help matters when he
named Jesus as his favorite philosopher and couldnt name a favorite childrens book. His detractors went further. The guy isnt just a nonreader. He
doesnt even know how to read. He received all those gentlemans Cs at
Yale because of his pedigree. The photograph of Bush holding a book upside
down at an elementary school illustrates that rumor. The photo is identical
to one that appeared in newspapers except that the book has been inverted
in Photoshop. (A photoshop of Bill Clinton uses the same situationhe is
reading to a group of schoolchildrenbut to spoof the forty-second presidents reputation as a sex fiend, the book is open to photographs of naked
women.) Apparently a number of people got taken in by the upside-down
book photograph. The Web site Idealog (Where technology, politics, media
and snowboarding collide) ran a correctionApparently, the photo of
Bush reading upside down that we posted last week . . . was a manipulated
imageand linked to Snopes.com.3 A personal Web page, anvari.org, posted the photo along with two comments:
anonymous: ITS PHOTOSHOPPED YOU IDIOTS!
Chris: You all know Bush is that stupid to read a book upside down
[Presumably the more recent comment appears above and responds to
the comment below it.]4
A related illustration of Bushs ineptitude shows him talking into an
upside-down phone receiver. (Newer photoshops show Barack Obama
doing the same thing. A digitally reversed photo from the opposite side of
the political spectrum shows former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle
saluting the flag with the wrong hand. The caption says: Hes so left of center, he pledges backwards!) Another photoshop shows Bush in a trench

109

110

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

George W. Bush entered the national political spotlight with a reputation as an intellectual
lightweight. The rumor illustrated by this photoshop took it a step further: Bush did not
know how to read.

with two soldiers, looking through binoculars with the lens caps still on.
According to Snopes, its not clear whether the image is a photoshop or the
president was caught raising the capped binoculars to his eyesas many of
us have donebefore he removed them.5
If Bush can read, his abilitiesor tastesare so infantile that his preferred
reading is comic books: one photoshop shows him carrying X-Men, Donald
Duck, and Superman comics under his arm. Then theres a joke that references the belief that Vice President Cheney was the real brains of the outfit:
George Bush and Dick Cheney are having lunch at a fancy Washington
restaurant. Their waitress approaches their table to take their order and
she is young and very attractive.
She asks Cheney what he wants, and he replies, Ill have the hearthealthy salad. Very good, sir, she replies.
Turning to Bush she asks, And what do you want, Mr. President?
Bush answers, How about a quickie?

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

Taken aback, the waitress slaps him and says, Im shocked and disappointed in you. I thought you were bringing in a new administration
that was committed to high principles and morality. Im sorry I voted
for you. With that, the waitress departed in a huff.
Cheney leans over to Bush, and says, Mr. President, I believe thats
pronounced quiche.
Part of what is interesting about this joke is that it plays on the contrast
between President Clintons reputation for sexual indiscretion and President
Bushs reputation for butchering the language. When Bush makes a sexual
overture toward the waitress, it appears to be a recycled Clinton joke, very
much out of keeping with most other Bush jokes. But then it turns out he is
not making an out-of-character proposition but committing an altogether
in-character verbal gaffe.
Or is he? Months after running across the quiche joke with Bush and
Cheney as the dramatis personae, I ran across a version that suggests the
joke may originally have been a Clinton joke after all. In this version, Clinton is the mispronouncer, and Al Gore the corrector.
e President Is Unsophisticated
Bushs unfamiliarity with quiche also marks him as a bit of a bumpkin, as do
the next two jokes:
George W. says to an aide, I need to do better in south Florida four
years from now. Ive got to see what all this Jewish stuff is about.
So off they go to a kosher restaurant. The first course set in front of
them is matzoh ball soup. George W. is grossed out and reluctant to
taste this strange-looking brew. Gently, the aide says, Just have a taste,
Mr. President. If you dont like it, you dont have to finish it.
George W. gingerly lowers his spoon into the bowl, picking up a
small piece of matzoh ball with some broth. He hesitates, then swallows,
and a grin slowly appears on his face. George W. digs in, quickly finishes
off the entire bowl of soup and all of the matzoh balls.
That was delicious, George W. says to his aide. Do the Jews eat any
other parts of the matzoh, or just the balls?
What you need to know to get the next joke is that during the 1992 campaign, President Clinton received a lot of attention for playing the saxophone on television on The Arsenio Hall Show.

111

112

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

George W. Bush was invited to the White House for a foreign policy orientation session. After drinking several glasses of iced tea, he asked Bill
Clinton if he could use his personal bathroom. He was astonished to see
that the President had a solid gold urinal.
That afternoon, W. told his wife Laura about the urinal. Just think,
he said, when I am President, Ill get to have a gold urinal!
The next day Laura Bush had lunch with a group of female Senators.
She told Hillary Clinton how impressed W. had been with his discovery
that the President had a gold urinal in his private bathroom.
That evening, Bill and Hillary were getting ready for bed. Hillary
turned to Bill and said, Well, I found out who peed in your saxophone.
At least two other urban legends about Bushs cluelessness made the
rounds. In one, he is supposed to have said that the problem with the
French is [that] they dont have a word for entrepreneur. In another he is
supposed to have waved to musician Stevie Wonder, who is blind. According
to Snopes, neither tale is true.6
e Crayola Presidency
I have run across three photoshops that show President Bush writing or
drawing with crayons. In one, he is using a thick crayon to draw a stick
figure with bombs falling and the words, written in a childish scrawl,
Bad, Bad Saddam. Another shows the president, sitting at a desk with
four men standing behind him, signing a bill or declaration. But instead
of signing the document with a pen, he is drawing with an oversize crayon. The third image shows the same scene from a different angle, but here
we also see a box of Payola crayons and a Mr. Potato Head. Clearly the
images portray the president as childlike, which correlates with editorial
cartoonists and columnists depictions of Bushs relationship with Vice
President Cheney as a father-son relationship. Then theres this phony
news story:
Fire Destroys Bush Presidential Library
WASHINGTONA tragic fire on Monday destroyed the personal
library of President George W. Bush. Both of his books have been lost.
Presidential spokesman Scott McLelland [sic] said the president was
devastated, as he had not finished coloring the second one.

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

Bushs lack of intellectual

sophistication was also portrayed
with images of him using crayons.

e President Cant Talk. Or Write.

Another example of the durability of newslore is a rebus that first circulated
as photocopier lore during the 1991 Gulf War. The words, originally attributed to President George H. W. Bush, then to President Clinton, and then
to President George W. Bush, incorporate the logos of the major oil companies to indicate what U.S. military intervention in the Middle East is really
about: We [Shell] not [Exxon]erate Saddam Hussein for his actions. We will
[Mobil]ize to meet this threat to vital interests in the Persian [Gulf]. Our
best strategy IS TO [BP]repared. Failing that, we [ARCO]ming to kick your
ass. The George W. Bush version includes an addendum: Let me explainify
the war against Iraq a little bit in Texas terminologragy.
A similarly exaggerated send-up of the presidents tortured syntax and
mangled pronunciations cropped up in a parody of the Nigerian scam
the attempt, most often from Nigeria, but also from other African countries, to enlist the help of a gull with a bank account in securing monies for
both parties, provided that the gull puts up a considerable chunk of change
up front. The scam has received a fair amount of attention from the news
mediaa LexisNexis search of the fifty largest English-language newspapers summoned almost seven hundred stories over twenty-five yearsand
with that kind of exposure, parody was sure to follow:

113

114

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL:URGENT ASSISTANCE

Dear Sir / Madam / Other,
I are GEORGE WALKER BUSH, son of the former president of the
United State of Americas, George Herbert Walker Bush, and are currently serving as a President of the United State of Americas. This letter
might surprise you because we have not met neither in person nor by
being there in person. I am writing you in absolute confidence primarily to seek your assistafication in acquiring oil funds that am presently
trapped in the Republic of Iraq.
My partners and me solicit your assistancy in completing transaction
begun by my father, who have long been engaged in the extraction of
petroleum in the Untied States, and bravely serve his country as director
of the Central Intelligent Agency. In the decade of the nineteen-eighty,
my father, then vice-president of the United State, sought to work with
good offices of the President of Republic of Emirate of Iraq to re-get
lost oil revenue sources in the neighbor Emerate of Iran.
These unsuccessful venture was soon followed by a falling-off with
his Iraqi partner, who sought additional oil revenue source in the
neighboring Kuwait, a whole-owned U.S.-British subsidiary. My father
re-unsecured the petroleum asset of Kuwait in 1991 at the costimigation
of sixty-one bajillion u.s. dollars ($61,000,000,000). Out of that cost,
thirty-six bajillion dollars ($36,000,000,000) were supplied by his partners in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabian and other Persia Golf monarch
butterflies, and sixteen bajillion dollar ($16,000,000,000) by German
and Japanic partners.
But my fathers former Iraqi businesses partner remained in control
of Iraq and its petroleums. My familys is calling for you urgent assistantfication in funding the removal of the so-called President of Irak
and acquiring the petroleum assets of his country, as compenation for
the costs of removing him from powers.
Unfortunately, our partners from 1991 are not willing to shoulder
the burdenicate of this new ventures, which in it upcoming phase may
cost the sum of 100 bajillion to 200 bajillion dollars ($100,000,000,000
$200,000,000,000), both in the initial acquisitionism and in longterm managementation.
That is why my family and our colleagues are urgently seeking your
graciousness assistance. Our distinguished colleaguers in this business transaction include the seated vice-president-in-hiding, Richard
C Heney, who is an original partners in the Iraq venture and former

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

heads the Halliburton oil company, and Condoleeza Rice, who professional dedications to the venture was demonstratified in the naming of
a Chevron oil tanker after her.
I would beerseech you to transfer a sums equaling ten to twenty-five
percents (1025 %) of your yearly incomes to our account to aids in this
important ventured. The internal revenue service of the United State
of Americas will function as our trust intermediary-ness. I pray that
you overstand our plight. My family and our colleagues will be forever
graceless. Please reply in strict confidencency.
With Sincere and Warmest Regardations,
George Walker Bush7
This is actually a second-generation parody. It is identical to the original,
composed by Zoltan Grossman, a geography professor at Evergreen State
College, except Grossmans contains no grammatical or spelling errors.8
Here, that the war in Iraq was really about oil is a given. While were on the
subject of Nigerian scam parodies, here is a solicitation from Laura Bush:
My dear Friend!!
I hope this letter is finding you well, and those in your family! Pardon me in advance for my informality in contacting you, you see I am
hoping for your personal assistance in a matter of Most Confidential
importance and sensitivity. My name is Mrs. Laura Bush, wife to the
President of the American United States. I am having in my possession
and in my reach some large sums Totaling 24 millions of US dollars.
The monies in regard to this of which I am speaking of which came
to us through my husbands service to our Country after he took control during a bloodless coup. During which he and his Partner, Prime
Minister Dick Cheney, accumulated this very vast sum through a deal
with our Government and Halliburton, a company which Mr. Cheney
was still in the service of although no one noticed or cared, in as of that
we secretly killed a peasant fishwife named Laci Peterson in order to
distract the public and had his husband blamed for it, a man who is too
stupid to defend himself in our Courts of Lawfulness.
All of this seemed well yet in as of that we had the money wellguarded until recently, when a local warlord from the Province of
Massachusetts, Generallisimo Johann Kerry, took up arms against my
husband the rightful President and raised an army of blacks and jews
and black jewish movie stars and began the great Super Tuesday Trek

115

116

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

towards the Capitol City. He is seeking to take control of these United

States and force our children to worship his half-man half-monkey
deity, Charles Darwin. And I pray that he does not also seize our money,
which he would give to Barbara Streisand, who is secretly a negress and
also kind of pretentious.
Of which of and towards in the end to of for wherein by these monies are held in an security company and are now untraceable for the
moment, as I agreed to perform sexual deeds with Minister of Money
Greenspan so that he would keep the transaction secrets. I will not go
into these deeds and what they consisted of in their nature, because I
am still in confusion about how I am feeling about these things. It is
like, I am supposed to love only my Husband, In our union under God,
but this Greenspan, he was like a great and terrible beast in the bed
chamber, and it made me feel under his control, but safe at the same
time. He was not like my Husband at these things, in as of that he did
not giggle during the act or cry afterwards. But this is not for what I am
writing to you about.
At any rate of things, this money is being held in an account to which
I have access, but it is necessary to safely transmit these funds into a
locale where I know my husband and I are well-loved and will be kept
safe, Baghdad. But for this to occur, it is imperative that you my friend
assist in this transaction with a small fund transfer fee. After completion, I shall be rendering you a 20 percentage portion of the 24 million
US dollars, which my husband has calculated is 90 trillion US dollars.
Please to be hearing from you soon!
Allahu Akbar, Laura Bush9
Rather pointed, no? We have references to the 2000 election as a bloodless coup, Dick Cheneys Halliburton ties (to which, we may infer, the press
paid insufficient attention), the convenient distraction of a lurid murder case
(another swipe at the press), the characterization of the Democratic Party as
the party of blacks and Jews (and the implication that the Republican Party
is decidedly not the big tent its image makers tried to pretend it was during
the 2000 national convention in Philadelphia), and, most bizarrely of all, the
love affair with former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.
e President Has a Low IQ
In fact, according to a report from the Lovenstein Institute in Scranton,
Pennsylvania, President Bush Has Lowest IQ of All Presidents of Past 50

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

Years. Specifically, the president has an IQ of 91, a figure, arrived at via

examination of Bushs writings, speaking, and schoolwork, that is accurate
to within five points. In a column in which she also took on rumors that
Teresa Heinz Kerry had contributed to a foundation that gives money to
terrorist groups, Margie Boule of the Oregonian assured readers that there is
no Lovenstein Institute in Scranton, or anywhere else.10
This must be a joke, Boule wrote, thereby establishing that she is no
folklorist, for the item in question is clearly a legend, not a joke. But it started
as a joke.11 Using David Emery of About.com as her source, Boule traces
the IQ story to a Lovenstein Institute Web site, the spuriousness of which
is immediately apparent from the sites slogan: Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot. Which brings us to a book cover parody of Hillary
Clintons It Takes a Village called It Takes a Village Idiot. (The title of Hillarys
book also lent itself to jokes about her husband: Q: How do you satisfy Clintons sexual appetite? A: It takes a village.)
In a similar vein, I have miscellaneously run across photoshops of Bush
in a dunce cap, as a member of the Three Stooges, as Mad magazines Alfred
E. Neuman, and as a chimp or a monkey. A few years later, comparisons of
Barack and Michelle Obama to monkeys were viewed as racist.
Other Jokes about Bushs Intelligence
The next joke partakes of the hoary tradition of numbskull jokes. One of the
hallmarks of the numbskull, as exemplified in the Amelia Bedelia series of
childrens books and the character Zero in the Beetle Bailey comic strip, is
literal-mindedness:
This just in: In an attempt to thwart the spread of bird flu, George W.
Bush has just ordered the bombing of the Canary Islands.
This joke, like the Roe v. Wade joke we looked at in chapter 4, recalls the 1989
Loma Prieta earthquake joke where Vice President Quayle flies to Epcot
Center rather than to the epicenter. Other numbskull jokes:
An airplane was about to crash; there were 5 passengers on board but
only 4 parachutes.
The first passenger said, Im Kobe Bryant, the best NBA basketball
player, the Lakers need me, I cant afford to die. . . . So he took the first
pack and left the plane.

117

118

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

The second passenger, Hillary Clinton, said, I am the wife of the former president of the United States, I am also the most ambitious woman
in the world and I am a New York Senator and a potential future president. She just took the second parachute and jumped out of the plane.
The third passenger, George W. Bush, said: Im President of the United States of America, I have a great responsibility being the leader of a
superpower nation. And above all Im the cleverest President in American history, so Americas people wont let me die. So he put on the pack
next to him and jumped out of the plane.
The fourth passenger, the Pope, says to the fifth passenger, a 10-yearold school boy, I am old and frail and I dont have many years left, so I
will sacrifice my life and let you have the last parachute.
The boy said, Its OK. Theres a parachute left for you. Americas cleverest President has taken my schoolbag.
In one variation on this joke, Britney Spears is assigned the numbskulls
role, with Bill Clinton, the NBA player Antoine Walker, and the pope playing
the parts of the other parachutists. In another, Bill Gates is the numbskull,
and the other dramatis personae are Michael Jordan, the Dalai Lama, and a
hippie. And in a third, the parachutists are a Boy Scout, a priest, and Bill Clintonwho argues that hes too sexy to dieand the person who gets stuck
with the schoolbag is the smartest woman in the world, Hillary Clinton.
George W. Bush, Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso have all died. Due
to a glitch in the mundane/celestial time-space continuum, all three
arrive at the Pearly Gates more or less simultaneously, even though their
deaths have taken place decades apart.
The first to present himself to Saint Peter is Einstein. Saint Peter
questions him. You look like Einstein, but you have NO idea the
lengths certain people will go to, to sneak into Heaven under false pretenses. Can you prove who you really are?
Einstein ponders for a few seconds and asks, Could I have a blackboard and some chalk?
Saint Peter complies with a snap of his fingers. The blackboard and
chalk instantly appear. Einstein proceeds to describe with arcane mathematics and symbols his special theory of relativity.
Saint Peter is suitably impressed. You really *are* Einstein! Welcome
to heaven!

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

The next to arrive is Picasso. Once again Saint Peter asks for his
credentials. Picasso doesnt hesitate. Mind if I use that blackboard and
chalk?
Saint Peter says, Go ahead.
Picasso erases Einsteins scribbles and proceeds to sketch out a truly
stunning mural. Bulls, satyrs, nude women: he captures their essences
with but a few strokes of the chalk.
Saint Peter claps. Surely you are the great artist you claim to be!
Come on in!
The last to arrive is George W. Bush. Saint Peter scratches his head.
Einstein and Picasso both managed to prove their identity. How can
you prove yours?
George W. looks bewildered, Who are Einstein and Picasso?
Saint Peter sighs, Come on in, George.
Jokes about St. Peter deciding whether the new arrival at the Pearly Gates
will spend eternity in heaven or in hell are ubiquitous. Here is a Bill Clinton
version that mocks the fine distinctions he apparently made between intercourse and oral sex when he asserted that he did not have sex with Monica
Lewinsky:
Clinton died and was standing at the Pearly Gates. After knocking at the
gates, St. Peter appeared.
Who goes there? inquired St. Peter.
Its me, Bill Clinton.
And what do you want? asked St. Peter.
Lemme in! replied Clinton.
Soooo, pondered Peter. What bad things did you do on earth?
Clinton thought a bit and answered, Well, I smoked marijuana but
you shouldnt hold that against me because I didnt inhale. I guess I
had extra-marital sexbut you shouldnt hold that against me because
I didnt really have sexual relations. And I lied, but I didnt commit
perjury.
After several moments of deliberation St. Peter replied, OK, heres
the deal. Well send you someplace where it is very hot, but we wont call
it Hell. Youll be there for an indefinite period of time, but we wont call
it eternity. And dont abandon all hope upon entering, just dont hold
your breath waiting for it to freeze over.

119

120

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

Another Clinton variation plays with his reputation as a ladies man:

Bill Clinton and the Pope died on the same day, and due to an administrative foul up on the part of Yama, Clinton was sent to heaven and the
Pope was sent to hell.
The Pope explained the situation to the devil, who checked out all
of the paperwork, and the error was acknowledged. The Pope was told,
however, that it would take about 24 hours to fix the problem and correct the error.
The next day, the Pope was called in and the devil said his good-bye
to the Pope as he went off to heaven.
On his way up, the Pope met Clinton who was on his way down, and
they stopped to chat.
Pope: Sorry about the mix up.
Clinton: No problem!
Pope: Well, Im really excited about going to heaven.
Clinton: Why is that? Its not that great.
Pope: All my life Ive wanted to meet the Virgin Mary.
Clinton: Sorry, your Holinessbut youre about a day late.
Before leaving the subject of Bushs intelligence, I should point out that
the Center for Media and Public Affairs annual survey of late-night TV jokes
for 2005 found that more than 40 percent of the Bush jokes were about the
presidents intelligence.12

The President Has Substance Abuse Problems

It became well known during the 2000 presidential campaign that Bush had
a drinking problem when he was younger. Among many voters, this was
a point in his favor: recognizing the problem and overcoming it showed
strength of character. That he also embraced religion at the time he gave up
drinking improved his standing with some voters as well. But to some jokers
in cyberspace, once a drunk, always a drunk. And when Bush sidestepped a
reporters question about rumors that he had used cocaine, his nonanswer
was treated as being tantamount to a confession.
One of the jokes parodies the Got Milk? ad campaign. Bush is posed
with his bag of cocaine at the Republican National Convention. The text
preceding the Got Coke? tagline: Im not saying Ive used cocaine. But if

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

Another rumor had Bush

experimenting with
cocaine in his younger days.
The question Got Coke?
references the Got Milk?
advertising campaign.

I did, it was merely a youthful indiscretion. Today Im clean. And Im tough

on crime. So if I catch you using coke, I dont want to hear any of that youthful indiscretion nonsense. Im throwing your crack-addicted ass in prison.
Thats not hypocrisy. Thats politics.
A second coke-themed photoshop is a Kentucky Fried Chicken sign with
the words GW Bush Inaugural special / bucket of right wings / unlimited
coke party hats. Compare this version, with its unkind focus on a womans appearance: Hillary special / 2 Fat thighs with small breast and a left
wing.
An alcohol-themed photoshop shows Bush in a similar signing scene to
the Crayola scenes described earlier. In this one, the presidents head is on
the desk, a drink is in his hand, and a bottle of Glenlivet scotch is nearby.
A billboard for Miller Genuine Draft bears the legend One Draft George
Dubya Didnt Dodge, an allusion to Bushs service in the Air National Guard,
which was widely seen as a ploy to avoid service in Vietnam. A billboard for
Bush beer with a photo of Bush and his twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna,
features the slogan Puts the W in DWI! A photoshop shows Bush in a Yale
sweatshirt, guzzling from a bottle of Jack Daniels.

121

122

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

During the 2000

presidential campaign,
Bush acknowledged
drinking too much
before the age of forty,
when he quit.

The President as Huckster

One of the hallmarks of the Bush presidency was his highly scripted appearances before friendly crowds in settings that were dressed to emphasize
the White House message of the day. Far and away the most famous of these
was the Mission Accomplished banner that was hung on the USS Abraham Lincoln in May 2003 when President Bush flew in to announce that
major combat in Iraq was at an end. When Bush left the White House in
2009, despite repeated assurances from Vice President Cheney that the Iraqi
insurgency was in its last throes, the administration had still not figured
out how to extract itself from Iraq without the country collapsing into civil
war. Plan for Victory wallpaper that was used for a speech the president
delivered a year and a half after Mission Accomplished was particularly
amusing, in the disgusting sort of way that my colleague found Got Fish?
disgusting. It is all eerily reminiscent of the Newspeak banners in 1984. Little
wonder, then, that there are photoshop parodies like Ignorance Is Strength.
Here are some others, which together form a bill of particulars outlining the
case to be made against Bush as one of the nations worst presidents:

Corporate Criminal

Credibility Deficit

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

The Bush White House predilection

for dressing the set with slogans for
a presidential appearance gave rise to
countless parodies.

Crippling the Economy

Destroying the Environment

Neglecting the Homeland

Protecting the Wealthy

Protecting my Imbecile Lying Ass

Consolidated Unchecked Power Through Fear

Liar Tyrant Thief Puppet Idiot Fraud

The other approach to parodying the banners and wallpaper is to keep

the original message but superimpose it on a different scene, much as Tourist Guy pops up in multiple locations. An example would be the Mission
Accomplished banner placed on the Superdome (a green highway sign
pointing the way to Interstate 10New Orleans makes the identity of the
building clear) with Bush smiling and giving the thumbs-up sign among
grieving New Orleans residents.
One of the things folklorists like best about what they study is its mixand-match quality. Claude Lvi-Strauss used the term bricolage to describe
the way cultural artifacts are assembled from whatever lies near at hand
and seems apposite to the purpose.13 A good example is a set of parodies of
a notorious photo of Michael Jackson dangling his child off a hotel balcony
in Berlin in 2002. Its the sort of bizarre behavior that people came to expect

123

124

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

from Jackson, which is one of the reasons why Jackolore would be a fertile
field of study in its own right (see chapter 8 for a sampling). The Jackolore
that fits the theme of this chapter substitutes Saddam Hussein for Jacksons
baby. In one, Jackson dangles Saddam off the balcony; in the other, President Bush has replaced Jackson, and a caption has been added: Time to fly,
dickhead.

The President Should Never

Have Gotten as Far as He Has
The next set of jokes is closely related to the numbskull jokes but differs
from them by making Bushs dimwittedness the implicit premise rather than
the punch line. Given what we know about Bushs intellect, the jokes marvel that such a manifestly unqualified candidate could wind up in the Oval
Office. One joke, which may be found in both verbal and visual versions, references the reality-TV program Extreme Makeover. The show indulges the
fantasy that even the plainest person can be transformed from ugly duckling to beautiful swan. Beauty, according to this fantasy, is less a matter of
genetic inheritance than of professional intervention. Ones chance of being
plucked from obscurity to be made over by the shows plastic surgeons may
be slim, but at least its possible, just as one is likelier to become wealthy by
winning the lottery than by inheriting a fortune. And of course, if one were
to win the lottery, one could then purchase all the plastic surgery one needs.
The jokes suggest that nothing less than an extreme makeover could make
Bush fit for the presidency.
Three Texas plastic surgeons were playing golf together and discussing
surgeries they had performed. One of them said, Im the best plastic
surgeon in Texas. A concert pianist lost 7 fingers in an accident, I reattached them, and 8 months later he performed a private concert for the
Queen of England. One of the others said. Thats nothing. A young
man lost both arms and legs in an accident, I reattached them, and 2
years later he won a gold medal in 5 field events in the Olympics. The
third surgeon said, You guys are amateurs. Several years ago a cowboy
who was high on cocaine and alcohol rode a horse head-on into a train
traveling 80 miles an hour. All I had left to work with was the horses ass
and a cowboy hat. Now hes president of the United States.

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

George W. Horse Tail Bush, before

George W. Horse Tail Bush, after

Dismay over what Bushs detractors saw as his woeful lack of qualifications for the
presidency coincided with the widespread use of e-mail and the World Wide Web to
circulate photographs.

The joke echoes a photoshop labeled Never Underestimate the Power

of Makeup that features a series of before-and-after photos of women who
look plain before, then glamorous after. The last pair of images shows a
horses rear end before and the face of George W. Bush after.
In this next set of jokes, instead of explaining how such an unlikely candidate made it to the White House, the jokes call our attention to his predicament now that he is there. The first one also alludes to Bushs seeming
discomfort with his role, never more apparent than when he was called on
to speak without a script:
While suturing a laceration on the hand of a 90-year-old man (he got
his hand caught in a gate while working his cattle) a doctor and the old
man were discussing Bushs health care reform ideas.
The old man said Well, ya know, old Bush is a post turtle.
Not knowing what he meant, the doctor asked him what a post
turtle was.
And he said, When youre driving down a country road, and you
come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, thats a post

125

126

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

turtle. You know he didnt get there by himself, he doesnt belong there,
he cant get anything done while hes up there, and you just want to help
the poor thing down.
This joke, needless to say, was subsequently applied to Barack Obama,
Sarah Palin, and Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and may go
back at least as far as the Clinton years, given that health care reform was
not the priority for Bush that it was for Clinton before him and Obama
after him. I ran across one recent reference to Obama as the Post-Turtle-inChief.
In the post turtle joke, the accidental president is high and dry, unable to
stand on solid ground. In the next joke, he has the opposite problem. You
might say he is literally in over his head:
I have a moral question for you. This is an imaginary situation, but I
think it is interesting to decide what one would do.
The situation: You are in the Midwest, and there is a huge flood in
progress. Many homes have been lost, water supplies compromised and
infrastructures destroyed.
Lets say that youre a photographer out getting still photos for a
news service, traveling alone, looking for particularly poignant scenes.
You come across George W. Bush who has been swept away by the
floodwaters.
He is barely hanging on to a tree limb and is about to go under.
You can either put down your camera and save him, or take a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of him as he loses his grip on the limb.
So, heres the question and think carefully before you answer the
question below:
Which lens would you use?
Does this joke challenge journalists to come out from behind their objective lens and tells us what they really see when they look at President Bush?
Here is a shorter version from the 2008 presidential campaign:
Here is a tough question: If you came across Hillary Clinton struggling
in a raging river and you had a choice between rescuing her or of getting a Pulitzer prize-winning photograph, what shutter speed should
you use?

It Takes a Village Idiot: Bushlore

In a couple of less effective versions, Osama bin Laden and Yasir Arafat
are the drowning victims. For photographers its enough of a joke to make
the victim a nameless drowning man. Here is a different drowning joke:
One day there were three boys walking down the street, and suddenly
they heard cries for help. When the boys got to the noise they saw Bill
Clinton in a lake drowning. The three boys saved him from drowning.
Dubya asked the boys how he could ever repay him. The first boy
said, I want a boat.
The second boy said, I want a truck.
And the third boy said, I want three tombstones with our names all
on them. Dubya asked, Why is that, son?
The little boy said, Because when my Dad finds out that we saved
you, he is going to kill us all!
This joke offers the best evidence I have ever seen of folkloric recycling
the tendency to update old folklore by simply changing the names of the
dramatis personae. Here the name Dubya appears in two places, but the
name Bill Clinton was inadvertently kept. In the famous urban legend about
the black man in an elevator with a big dog and a white woman (the man
says, Sit, Lady, and the frightened woman obeys, not realizing that Lady is
the dogs name), the man has been identified as Reggie Jackson, Joe Greene,
Magic Johnson, and others.14 Similarly, as we saw in chapter 3, the Ayatollah
Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden have been interchangeable in certain jokes about Americas stormy relationship with the Islamic
world over the past three decades. And the name of the current president
has been routinely substituted for the name of his predecessor on such faxlore as the Simplified Tax Form (Step 1: How much money did you make
last year? Step 2: Send it in) and this quadrennial perennial, as one Web site
calls it:
Five thousand years ago, Moses said, Hitch up your camel. Pick up your
shovel. Mount your ass. I will lead you to the promised land.
Five thousand years later, Franklin Roosevelt said, Light up a Camel.
Lay down your shovel. Sit on your ass. This is the promised land.
Today, George Bush will lay off your camel, tax your shovel, kick your
ass and tell you there is no promised land.

127

6
You Cant Raffle
Off a Dead Donkey
Newslore of Commerce

The pervasive power of corporations has been a consistent theme in contemporary American folklore. In studies of the Kentucky Fried rat and other
legends of foreign or harmful substances in our food and drink (feces in
refried beans, mice in Coke bottles, sterility drugs in fried chicken), and of
legends of companies with ties to sinister forces or ideologies (Procter and
Gamble and devil worship; Tommy Hilfiger or Liz Claiborne or Reebok and
racism), Gary Alan Fine1 and Patricia Turner,2 among others, have proposed
that such tales of contamination and conspiracy express anxiety about how
much control of what we consume we have ceded to faceless corporations
and how much economic power we fritter away buying overpriced products
that we cannot afford and do not need. As we have seen, countless disaster
jokes invoke product names, advertising slogans, and commercial punch
lines to cast a jaundiced eye on the commodification of tragedy while mocking the triviality and trivializing impact of consumer culture. This chapter
looks at two cycles of newslore aimed at the corporate world. One is a set of
parodies of MasterCards long-running Priceless campaign. The second is
a set of jokes about the collapse of the Enron corporation.

Priceless
There are a number of obvious reasons for the popularity of commercial
parodies and jokes. Our lives are saturated with these messages, so they
spring readily to mind to the creator of a parody and are readily recognized
128

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

by the receiver of the parody. Plus they cry out for parody because they are
so inherently cynical. Whatever they purport to be about, they are always
ultimately about one thing: selling goods or services. The more warm and
fuzzy they are, the more cynical they seem to be. MasterCards Priceless
campaign, which debuted in 1998, is among the warmest and fuzziest. Therefore it is among the most often parodied. The commercials show people having a delightful time and the prices of the various goods and service they
are enjoying. What it all adds up to, though, is not the sum of the costs but
the pricelessness of the experiences. There are some things money cant
buy, says the voice-over. For everything else, theres MasterCard. The parodies hinge on the dual meaning of the word priceless. MasterCard uses it
to mean worth more than money can buy. As parodists use it, its an allpurpose superlative, as in too funny or too perfect. A Google search for
priceless parodies yields dozens of sites. Here are a dozen news-related
examples.
Columbine
The version I found was all text, no photo.
Eric and Dylans American Express Commercial
AMMO, 200 Rounds: $75
Semi-Automatic Rifle: $675
Kenneth Cole Trench Coat: $400
Ski Mask: $10.00
Look on classmates face just before you blow his head off: Priceless
The backstory: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were the two perpetrators
of the 1998 Columbine High School massacre. At first blush, the tone of this
parody seems quite callous, but the expensive trench coat tells a different
story. The message is that these were spoiled kids who had nothing to complain about. The joke takes Eric and Dylans point of view: They would have
found their classmates expressions priceless, which only goes to show how
messed up they were. The parody, I would argue, expresses disgust. Odd that
its mistitled American Express Commercial.
Elian
The photo, which is untouched, shows two armed men in helmets, goggles and olive-drab uniforms. The one in the foreground appears to be

129

130

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

confronting a frightened-looking civilian who is holding a young boy in

his arms.
A Rubber Inner Tube and Trip to America . . . $17.38
A Plane Ticket from Cuba for Dad . . . $325.00
A FULL SWAT Team w/Automatics . . . $75,000
The look on the little bastards face . . . Priceless
The backstory: The photo, taken in April 2000, would be recognizable to most people. It appeared on the front page of many newspapers as
the culminating moment in a long tug-of-war over a six-year-old Cuban
boy named Elian Gonzalez. Elian had fled Cuba in a motorboat with his
mother, who died en route to Florida. The boy, found floating on an inner
tube, then went to stay with his relatives in Miami. The boys father wanted
him to return to Cuba. On one side were those who thought Elian should
be reunited with his father; on the other were those who thought the boy
would be better off remaining in the United States. Finally, Immigration and
Naturalization Service agents were ordered to seize the boy from his Miami
relatives and take him to his father. The photo of their doing so with its stark
contrast between the armed INS agent and the frightened-looking child was
a public relations disaster for President Clinton and Attorney General Janet
Reno. (Reno had to address accusations that a subsequent photo of a smiling Elian with his father was a fake.) Naturally, the parodists didnt see what
all the fuss was about. In their view, this was one of those mediathons where
the coverage was out of all proportion to the importance of the story. The
parody put the boy, but really, the story, in its place. This was not the final
battle in the great twentieth-century war between communism and democracy. It was a custody battle. The joke suggests the government should never
have gotten involved.
Bush/Cocaine
The photo shows a smiling President Bush in the cabin of an airplane, presumably Air Force One, with a plastic water pipe in his hand. The wording
on the familiar overlapping red and gold circles of the MasterCard logo has
been changed to read MasterRace.
New Bong: $50
Cocaine Habit: $300

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

Finding Out That the Good-Old-Boy Network Can still Rig an Election
in the Deep South: Priceless
For the Rest of Us theres honesty.
The backstory: When reporters asked candidate Bush in the summer of
1999 whether he had ever used cocaine, he declined to answer, apart from
alluding to his irresponsible youth. Many drew their own conclusions. The
rest of the parody links Bushs lack of candor about drug use with the way
he allegedly stole the 2000 election by stealing votes in Florida.
Gore Supporters
The photo is a close-up of Al Gore.
Haircut at the Mall: $10
Suit Off the Rack: $300
Losing the Presidential Election Because Nineteen Thousand of Your
Supporters Are Too Damned Stupid to Follow Directions and Fill Out
the Ballots Properly: Priceless
For Everyone Else Theres George W. Bush
The backstory: The parody alludes to the infamous butterfly ballots
that were used in Palm Beach County, Florida. The ballot was arranged in
a verso-recto format, with six presidential candidates listed on the left, four
on the right, and corresponding holes to be punched for the candidate of
ones choice down the middle. The first name on the verso was Bushs; so
was the first hole. The confusion arose because the second name on the
verso was Gores, but the second hole corresponded to the first name on the
recto, which was Buchanans. Thus many voters (including my mother) who
intended to vote for Gore punched the second hole and later learned they
had voted for Buchanan. The design was immediately scrapped for future
elections.
Nader Supporters
The photo shows a group of protesters holding signs with messages such as
War no more and War isnt working.
Poster board: $3.00
Bus ticket to the march: $1.75

131

132

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

Failing to see the irony of voting for Nader and putting Bush in power:
Priceless!
The backstory: Ralph Nader and his supporters contend that he drew
votes from those who would not have voted for Bush or Gore in 2000. Others believe that he mostly siphoned Democratic votes, thus costing Gore the
election. He is thus partly to blame for the war in Iraq.
Bush/Poverty
The photo shows President Bush waving at the White House press photographers while carrying one dog and walking another on a leash.
Percent of low-income working American families whose taxes will not
be reduced by the Bush tax plan: 60%
Children under the age of 18 without health insurance: 10 million
Money borrowed by the government to pay for the Bush tax rebate:
$51 billion
Heading to your ranch for 30 days off after 6 months on the job:
Priceless
There are some things money cant buy.
Real compassion is one of them
The backstory: Though theres no aircraft in the photo, the parodist has
inferred, or possibly knew from seeing the photo in the newspaper, that
the president was about to fly to his spread in Crawford, Texas, for a little
vacation time. The contrast between the problems of ordinary Americans
and Bushs immunity and seeming indifference to such problemsdoes he
care more about his pets than the people?speaks for itself. Here, too, the
expense report style of the commercial lends itself to criticism of the governments handling of the nations finances.
Bush/Iraq
The photo shows Bush lifting a baby, probably during a campaign stop.
Military deployment . . . $79 billion
Military occupation: $105 billion
Reconstruction/Recovery . . . $105 billion
Debt/Claims/Reparation . . . $361 billion

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

Humanitarian Aid . . . $10 billion

Aid to allies . . . $10 billion
Governance . . . $12 billion
Getting future generations to pay for your oil war . . . priceless
The backstory: There are three versions of why the United States invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein. The Bush administrations version,
now widely discredited, posited that Saddam had links to the September 11
attacks, was developing weapons of mass destruction, and therefore posed
a threat that had to be removed. The second version had it that the Bush
administration knew very well that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11
and that sanctions and inspections were keeping him in check. But after
9/11, the Bush administration felt it needed a win to bolster the confidence
of a shaken populace. Unlike Osama bin Laden, whose whereabouts were
unknown, Saddam Hussein, much weakened by his war with Iran and by
the 1991 Gulf War, made an easy target. The third and most cynical version
was that Bush and Cheney were oilmen, and Iraq is an oil-rich land. The 9/11
attacks provided a perfect pretext for seizing Iraqs oil and lining the pockets
of the president and vice presidents friends. The parody reminds us of the
wars staggering costand of who is going to pay for it.
Bin Laden
The next three examples are similar. One shows Osama bin Laden in the
crosshairs.
Trip to Afghanistan: $800
High powered sniper rifle: $1,000
Hotel stay with accessible roof: $100
Scoring a head shot on Osama bin laden: priceless
For everyone else theres: CruiseMissiles
The next version shows photos of a bullet, a rifle, a commercial jet, and a
head shot of Osama bin Laden.
Ammunition: $12
New rifle: $385
Airline travel to Afghanistan: $1,349
Clear line of sight: priceless

133

134

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

The photo shows a bomb.

Gross weight: 15,000 lbs.
Aluminum powder explosive = 12,000 lbs
Unit cost = $27,318
The look on their faces when this ugly motherfucker falls into their
tent . . . Priceless
The backstory: These parodies come across as criticisms of the Bush
administrations failure to bring Osama bin Laden to justice, though such
criticism may not have been the intent of the creators. The fake ads suggest
that getting bin Laden is so clearly desirable and should be such a simple matter, in terms of both logistics and expense; why, then, is he still at large? And
why are we spending billions on a war in Iraq when we could send an assassin
to the AfghanistanPakistan border, where, supposedly, bin Laden remains in
hiding? Perhaps the parodists did not believe Bushs tough talk about wanting
bin Laden dead or alive. The more typical American approach would be to
capture and try in a court of law, as was done with Saddam Hussein. Seizing
someone, which can only happen with troops laying hands on him, is a lot
more complicated than killing him, which can be accomplished at a distance.
Terrorist
Two photos. The first shows a crowd in Middle Eastern dress and a bearded
figure setting fire to an American flag. The second shows the mans clothes
on fire.
American flag: $25
Gasoline: $2
cigarette lighter: $2.50
Catching yourself on fire because you are a terrorist asshole: priceless
The backstory: This parody uses the MasterCard ad as the basis for some
straightforward commentary on a news photo.
And a variation: Another photo of a crowd in Middle Eastern dress.
Some participants are carrying banners with the following slogans: We Are
Idiots, Bomb Us Next, Please Kick Our Asses. Perhaps these parodies are
meant to reassure us: just as it is said that the biggest advantage the police
have in the war on crime is the stupidity of most criminals, so can we perhaps view the September 11 attacks as a lucky shot that made the terrorists
look much more formidable than they really are.

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

Bus fair to anti-war protest rally$.50

Paint and canvas protest signs$32.00
Asking a retired US Army Sergeant to translate your anti-American
slogansPriceless
The backstory (as told in the accompanying e-mail, which bore the subject
line Syrian geniuses):
POSITIVELY PRICELESS!!!
Read the following explanation before looking at the picture!
Most Syrians struggle to even read Arabic, much less have a clue
about reading English.
So, how do a group of Syrian protest leaders create the most impact
with their signs by having the standard Death To Americans (etc.) slogans printed in English?
Answer:
They simply hire an English-speaking civilian to translate and write
their statements into English.
Unfortunately, in this case, they were unaware that the civilian insurance company employee hired for the job was a retired US Army Sergeant! Obviously, pictures of this protest rally never made their way to
Arab TV networks, but the results were PRICELESS!
This picture is not doctored.
Snopes, after pronouncing the photo an obvious fake, offers a parody where
the signs read Spam Us, We Forward Anything, and We Never Check
Snopes.com, and the Priceless copy goes like this:
Access to the Internet: $14.95
Adding an informational site to your favorites: Free
Getting flooded with urban legends and glurge because your friends
know youre gullible enough to believe and forward everything you
read? Priceless.3
Bush/NASCAR
The news photo shows President Bush shaking hands with a man in a jumpsuit emblazoned with patches from makers of various automobiles and
automotive parts. A number of similarly attired men look on. A crowded
grandstand is in the background.

135

136

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

Air Force One Flight: $1,000,000

Extra Secret Service: $200,000
Having the Taxpayers Foot the Cost of Your Campaign Stop: Priceless
The backstory: NASCAR dadswhite men who tended to be culturally
conservative but receptive to Democratic appeals on economic issues
were identified as the election cycles hottest new constituency during the
2004 presidential race. President Bush dropped in on the Daytona 500 in
February 2004, greeted the 180,000 spectators, and said, Gentlemen, start
your engines. Both engines and spectators roared.
One of the marvels of Bushs career is that an Ivy Leagueeducated scion
of a wealthy New England family succeeded at representing himself as a
regular guy from west Texas. The creator of this parody wasnt buying it.
The parody could have served as an illustration of Ellen Goodmans column
in the Boston Globe: All this was billedand I do mean billedas a presidential, not a political, visit.4 The purpose of Bushs drop-in, Marc Cooper
wrote in the Nation, was to burnish the Everyman cultural pose that Bush
has so successfully honed, and this was a ripe audience.5 As with the Elian
Gonzalez parody, our attention is drawn to the extravagant and irresponsible expenditure of the taxpayers money.
Hillary Clinton
The photo shows Hillary Clinton shaking the right hand of a soldier who
has crossed the middle and index fingers of his left hand, signifying that he
is not as pleased to be meeting the senator as it would appear.
Haircut: $8
BDUs: $100
Knowing You Just Mocked The Smartest Woman On Earth Right
Under Her fat Elitist Nose: PRICELESS!!!
The backstory: According to Snopes, the photo, taken in Iraq in 2003, has
not been altered. An alternative version, sans the Priceless parody, offers the
following explanation:
Picture shows that this guy has been thru Survival School. Hes giving
the sign of coercion with his left hand. These hand signs are taught
in survival school to be used by future POWs to send messages back
to our intelligence services viewing the photo or video. This guy was

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

being coerced to holding hands with Hillary. Little did she know that he
would tell us.
Snopes says there is no evidence of outright coercion.6 Oh, and BDU means
battle dress uniform (I had to look it up).
Enron
The image shows the Enron logo, leaking oil.
Paper shredder: $100
Debt hidden in off-balance-sheet subsidiaries: $500 MILLION
Stock cashed in by executives while encouraging employees to keep
buying: $1.3 BILLION
Sitting in front of a congressional committee and claiming ignorance of
any wrongdoing with a completely straight face: PRICELESS
There are some things money cant buy.
Integrity is one of them.
The backstory: In 2001, Americans were appalled to learn that the top
executives of a major corporation, some with uncomfortably close ties to
the Bush administration, had used fraudulent accounting practices to conceal company losses and had then cashed out while encouraging rank-andfile employees to invest in the company, which, when it collapsed, wiped
out those employees retirement funds. The scandal so captured the public
imaginationthe comedy writer Ben Karlin referred to Enron as a cultural
touchstone that confirmed your creepy, horrible suspicions about just how
government and the corridors of power work7that newslore pertaining
to it warrants its own section.

Enron
Most jokes and urban legends about corporations are about unmasking:
beneath the friendly faces the companies that feed and clothe us present in
their commercials and advertisements lurk unsanitary food-handling practices or unholy alliances with racist organizations. Enron was something
different. The fraud was there for all to see, which is why the folk reaction
was not the whisper campaign of an urban legend cycle but the open derision of a joke cycle. Although the great recession of 2008 and 2009 affected

137

138

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

many more people than the collapse of Enron, it inspired much less folklore,
perhaps because, apart from the swindler Bernard Madoff, the key players
did not become public figures to the extent that Enron executives Ken Lay
and Jeffrey Skilling did. For this reason, I include jokes from the later financial crisis where it dovetails with the Enron material. As for Bernie Madoff,
in keeping with a larger trend away from verbal jokes and toward photoshops and video clips, there are a few obvious puns on his name, but mostly
what one finds are song parodies on YouTube (and one movie trailer parody,
Scumbag Billionaire, based on Slumdog Millionaire, which won the Oscar
for Best Picture in 2009). The Madoff puns:
Q: Why are 13,000 investors mad at Bernie?
A: Because he made off with their money!
Q: Why did Bernie choose the name, Madoff?
A: Because Ripoff had already been taken.
The first Ken Lay joke reflects our fondness for stories about our heroes
youth that foreshadow future greatness.
How Ken Lay Got Started
A city boy, Kenny, moved to the country and bought a donkey from an
old farmer for $100.00.
The next day the farmer drove up and said, Sorry son, but I have
some bad news, the donkey died.
Kenny replied, Well then, just give me my money back.
The farmer said, Cant do that. I went and spent it already.
Kenny: OK then, just unload the donkey.
Farmer: What ya gonna do with him?
Kenny: Im going to raffle him off.
Farmer: You cant raffle off a dead donkey!
Kenny: Sure I can. Watch me. I just wont tell anybody he is dead.
A month later the farmer met up with Kenny and asked What happened with that dead donkey?
Kenny said, I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece
and made a profit of $998.00.
The farmer asked, Didnt anyone complain?

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

Kenny replied, Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back.
Kenny grew up and eventually became the chairman of Enron.
Raffling off a dead donkey is a fair metaphor for Enron executives ability to
persuade investors to sink money into a worthless company. Seven years later,
when the stock market tumbled and banks began to failor required propping up by the federal governmenta similar, though rather more labored,
joke about the buying and selling of monkeys purported to explain how the
stock market works. Like the previous Ken Lay joke, this next one is predicated on the surprise revelation of the identity of the wheeler-dealer at the end.
Valentines Day
A few weeks ago, I was rushing around trying to get some Valentines
Day shopping done. I was stressed out and not thinking very fondly
of the weather right then. It was dark, cold, and wet in the parking lot
as I was loading my car up. I noticed that I was missing a receipt that I
might need later.
So, mumbling under my breath, I retraced my steps to the mall
entrance. As I was searching the wet pavement for the lost receipt, I
heard a quiet sobbing. The crying was coming from a poorly dressed
boy of about 12 years old. He was short and thin. He had no coat. He was
just wearing a ragged flannel shirt to protect him from the cold nights
chill. Oddly enough, he was holding a hundred dollar bill in his hand.
Thinking that he had gotten lost from his parents, I asked him what
was wrong. He told me his sad story. He said that he came from a large
family. He had three brothers and four sisters. His father had died when
he was nine years old. His Mother was poorly educated and worked two
full time jobs. She made very little to support her large family. Nevertheless, she had managed to skimp and save two hundred dollars to buy
her children some Valentines Day presents (since she didnt manage to
get them anything on Christmas). The young boy had been dropped off,
by his mother, on the way to her second job. He was to use the money
to buy presents for all his siblings and save just enough to take the bus
home. He had not even entered the mall, when an older boy grabbed
one of the hundred dollar bills and disappeared into the night.
Why didnt you scream for help? I asked.
The boy said, I did.

139

140

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

And nobody came to help you? I queried.

The boy stared at the sidewalk and sadly shook his head.
How loud did you scream? I inquired.
The soft-spoken boy looked up and meekly whispered, Help me!
I realized that absolutely no one could have heard that poor boys cry
for help. So I grabbed his other hundred and made a dash for my car.
Signed,
Kenneth Lay
Enron CEO
Here we have yet another subgenre of newslore, the fake letter. Classics
include the College Girls Letter Home, in which she reveals an escalating
series of calamities that add up to her being pregnant, married to a black
man, and infected with a venereal disease, only to say at the end that really,
the only thing thats amiss is that shes failing her classes, which is not nearly as bad as what could have befallen her;8 a Dear Abby letter written in
an increasingly wobbly handwriting on the subject of the writers husband
being a sex maniac;9 and various parodies of hillbilly speech. This one is
doubly caustic, first because it uses synecdoche to bring Enrons slipshod
and fraudulent business practices down to a human scale by having Ken
Lay lose a receipt and then rob a child of a poor family just as Enron execs
essentially robbed rank-and-file employees of their pensions, and second by
underscoring Enrons shamelessness by having Lay boast about his nefarious deed. The surprise ending is set up beautifully by the details of the familys plight, which cry out for a compassionate response.
The next item takes the form of a mock school handout.
How to Explain Enron to Your Children
Feudalism - You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.
Fascism - You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to
take care of them, and sells you the milk.
Communism - You have two cows. Your neighbors help take care of
them and you share the milk.
Totalitarianism - You have two cows. The government takes them both
and denies they ever existed and drafts you into the army. Milk is banned.
Capitalism - You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd
multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the
income.

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

Enron Venture Capitalism - You have two cows. You sell three of them
to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your
brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an
associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax
exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred
via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the
majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your
listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows,
with an option on four more.
Handouts like this one that purport to define and highlight differences
among competing ideologies or religions made the photocopier and fax
machine rounds for years before finding new life on the Internet. In this
version, Enron Capitalism is clearly an add-on, but the multiplying cows
nicely capture Enrons essential modus operandi of selling assets that it
did not have. A favorite of mine in this genre, as a journalism instructor,
is the following, which I have received multiple times over the past couple
of years:
NEWSPAPER READERS
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the
country.
3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they ought to run
the country.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but dont understand the Washington Post.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldnt mind running
the country, if they could spare the time.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the
country.
7. The New York Daily News is read by people who arent too sure whos
running the country.
8. The New York Post is read by people who dont care whos running
the country, as long as they do something scandalous.
9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who arent sure there is
a country, or that anyone is running it.
10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another
country.

141

142

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

Another oft-updated piece of office copier lore places the Enron scandal
in the context of a broader cultural decline.
Teaching Math
Teaching Math in 1950:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price.
What is his profit?
Teaching Math in 1960:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80.
What is his profit?
Teaching Math in 1970:
A logger exchanges a set L of lumber for a set M of money. The cardinality of set M is 100. Each element is worth one dollar. Make 100
dots representing the elements of the set M. The set C, the cost of
production contains 20 fewer points than set M. Represent the set C
as a subset of set M and answer the following question: What is the
cardinality of the set P of profits?
Teaching Math in 1980:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20.
Your assignment: Underline the number 20.
Teaching Math in 1990:
By cutting down beautiful forest trees, the logger makes $20. What do
you think of this way of making a living?
Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the
forest birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down the trees? There are
no wrong answers.
Teaching Math in 2000:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100.
His cost of production is $120, paid to a partnership owned by his sonin-law. His accounting department tells him his profit is $60. This is

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

verified by his auditing firm, Arthur Andersen, blessed by his lawyers,

Vinson, Elkins, and touted by assorted Wall Street investment bankers.
Question: How can Jesse Jackson share the spotlight on this deal?
This functions as both an Enron joke and as a timeline showing the decline of
American education from dumbing down in the 1980s to choking on political correctness in the 1990s. Theres an implicit connection: if Americans
werent so poorly educated, they might have noticed what Enron was up to
and be less susceptible to chuckle-headed liberal ideas. Note the little kicker
aimed at Jesse Jackson, here lampooned as an opportunistic publicity hound.
The next item is rather long, but too well executed to paraphrase or cut.
Dear kind-hearted friends . . .
Now that the holiday season has passed, please look into your heart to
help those in need. Enron executives in our very own country are living
at, or just below the seven-figure salary level . . . right here in the land of
plenty.
And, as if that werent bad enough, they will be deprived of it as a
result of the bankruptcy and current SEC investigation.
But now, you can help! For only $20,835 a month, about $694.50 a day
(thats less than the cost of a large screen projection TV), you can help an
Enron executive remain economically viable during his time of need.
This contribution by no means solves the problem, as it barely covers
their per diem . . . but its a start!
Almost $700 may not seem like a lot of money to you, but to an
Enron exec it could mean the difference between a vacation spent in
DC, golfing in Florida or a Mediterranean cruise. For you, seven hundred dollars is nothing more than rent, a car note or mortgage payments. But to an Enron exec $700 will almost replace his per diem.
Your commitment of less than $700 a day will enable an Enron exec
to buy that home entertainment center, trade in the year-old Lexus for a
new Ferrari, or enjoy a weekend in Rio.
HOW WILL I KNOW IM HELPING?
Each month, you will receive a complete financial report on the
exec you sponsor. Detailed information about his stocks, bonds, 401(k),
real estate, and other investment holdings will be mailed to your
home. Youll also get information on how he plans to invest his golden

143

144

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

parachute. Imagine the joy as you watch your executives portfolio

double or triple! Plus upon signing up for this program, you will receive
a photo of the exec (unsigned- for a signed photo, please include an
additional $50.00). Put the photo on your refrigerator to remind you of
other peoples suffering.
HOW WILL HE KNOW IM HELPING?
Your Enron exec will be told that he has a SPECIAL FRIEND who
just wants to help in a time of need. Although the exec wont know
your name, he will be able to make collect calls to your home via a special operator just in case additional funds are needed for unexpected
expenses.
YES, I WANT TO HELP!
I would like to sponsor an Enron executive. My preference is checked
below:
[ ] Mid-level Manager
[ ] Director
[ ] Vice President (Higher cost; please specify which department)
[ ] President (Even higher cost; please specify which department)
[ ] CEO (Contribution: Average Enron janitor monthly salary x 700)
[ ] Entire Company
[ ] Ill sponsor an Exec most in need. Please select one for me.
SPECIAL LIMITED TIME OFFER
Already an Enron supporter? Dont worry, in this troubled economy,
there are many executives who need your help. Ford today is laying off
35,000. The NASDAQ is deflated. Now you can show your patriotism
and do something about it. The Invisible Hand will allow supporters
to substitute executives from any downtrodden company listed on
****edcompany.com.
You will never own a Bentley, wear hand-tailored silk shirts, or have
a gentlemans gentleman; why deprive a worthy executive from ascending, and more importantly, from maintaining the lifestyle he so richly
deserves? (pun not intended) Imagine the feeling of satisfaction, the
pure joy of knowing that your sponsor ex-executive at the former spiltmilk.com will be able to have his caviar and eat it too.
*Its just that easy - do it now!*
Please charge the account listed below ___________ per day and send
me a picture of the Enron executive I have sponsored, along with my

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

very own Enron Keep America Strong Sponsor an Enron Exec: Ask Me
How! t-shirt to wear proudly.
Your Name: _______________________
Telephone Number:_______________________
Account Number: _______________________
Exp. Date:_______[ ] MasterCard [ ] Visa [ ] American Express [ ]
Discover
Signature: _______________________
Mail completed form to The Invisible Hand or call 1-900-2MUCH
now to enroll by phone.
Note: Sponsors are not permitted to contact the executive they have
sponsored, either in person or by other means including, but not limited
to, telephone calls, letters, e-mail, or third parties. Keep in mind that the
executive you have sponsored will be much too busy enjoying his free
time, thanks to your generous donations.
Contributions are not tax-deductible.
This is a splendid inversion of appeals to help children in the third world.
It uncannily anticipates government bailouts of banks and automakers in
20089. But where Enron executives and their peers at other large corporations are seen to have emerged unscathed from their companies financial woes, in jokes about the 20089 financial crisis, the execs get their
comeuppance:
How do you define optimism?
A banker who irons five shirts on a Sunday.
Whats the difference between an investment banker and a large pizza?
A large pizza can still feed a family of four.
The EnronArthur Andersen scandal lent itself to a joke cycle where
an embarrassing revelation is used to mask an even more embarrassing
revelation.
What Daddy Does for a Living
Its the first day of school in Houston and the teacher thought shed get
to know the kids by asking them their name and what their father does
for a living.

145

146

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

The first little girl says: My name is Mary and my daddy is a

postman.
The next little boy says: Im Andy and my Dad is a mechanic.
Then one little boy says: My name is Jimmy and my father is a striptease dancer in a cabaret for gay men.
The teacher gasps and quickly changes the subject, but later in the
school yard the teacher approaches Jimmy privately and asks if it was
really true that his Dad dances nude in a gay bar.
He blushed and said, Im sorry but my dad is an auditor for Arthur
Andersen and I was just too embarrassed to say so.
There are football variations of this joke where what Dad really does is
coach the Buffalo Bills, the team that lost four consecutive Super Bowls,
or play for the worst team in the league. There are also political variations
where Dad works for the Bush administration, for John Kerry, or for the
Democratic National Committee and is helping to secure the nomination of
Hillary Clinton.10 And there are fake Dear Abby letters in which the writer
describes various disreputable members of his family and asks if he should
tell his fiance that his cousin works for Microsoft (see chapter 7) or in television. Among the indignities to befall bankers in the 20089 financial crisis
is that a classic lawyer joke has been adapted to them:
What do you call 12 investment bankers at the bottom of the ocean?
A good start.
The next joke takes the unusual form of a transcript of a presidential
press conference.
From the Desk of the President of the United States
PRESIDENT: I DID NOT HAVE IMPROPER RELATIONS WITH
THAT WOMAN: MISS ENRON
Press Briefing by the President
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Alright, I want to get right down
to business. It seems that a few of you liberal intellectuals in the press
corps are doing your best to aid and abet terrorism by focusing the
searing spotlight of truth on the sordid details of an alleged relationship
between myself and a sexy little Houston debutante named Miss Enron.

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

So before this nonsense goes any further, I want to state a few things
for the record:
1. I DID NOT HAVE IMPROPER RELATIONS WITH THAT WOMAN: MISS ENRON.
2. Over a seven year period, I DID NOT repeatedly moan in indescribable ecstasy as she slithered her agile and velvety tongue deep inside
my campaign war chest, depositing $623,000 worth of hot political love
juice.
3. In 1999, I DID NOT squirm with unimaginable delight as she lowered
her exquisite self snugly around my mighty gubernatorial staff, gently
coaxing me to deregulate the Texas energy markets ever further, further,
further!
4. Early in 2001, I DID NOT shriek in superb pleasure as she slapped my
inaugural balls with generous check after check after check, again and
again and again, until each one was left utterly spent and exhausted!
5. Finally, just several months ago, as Miss Enron repeatedly arrived at the
White House bearing her full complement of eco-political implements
of gratification, I DID NOT feverishly satisfy myself upon learning of
her energetic servicing of not only my partner Vice President Richard
Cheney, but also every last member in his Energy Task Force club!
NO, not ONE of these grotesque assertions is accurate, and to even
so much as imply that they are, during this, our nations hour of peril,
is tantamount to giving Osama bin Laden himself the greasy reacharound. And needless to say, any journalist who continues down this
road will find himself in a whole world of traitors trouble. I hope I
make myself perfectly clear.
No questions. Thank you.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Enron made almost
$5.8 million in campaign contributions from 1990 to 2000, with about 73
percent of the money going to Republicans. The company gave more than
$100,000 to Bushs first presidential campaign and contributed close to that
amount to the newly elected presidents inaugural gala.11 Of course, the language he uses in this phony press conference transcript to deny his Enron
ties echoes President Clintons denials of impropriety in his relations with
Monica Lewinsky. It also chillingly alludes to pressure on journalists to toe
the administration line lest their patriotism be impugned.
Finally, Laura Bush gets into the act with instructions on turning Enron
stock into a craft project.

147

148

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

Reaching Out: e First Ladys Message

to Victims of the Enron Collapse
Gals, wondering what to do with your worthless Enron stock certificates? Decoupage! Thats right, Decoupage - the French art of dressing
up surfaces with attractive scrap paper!
It seems like a whole mess of folks out there are sitting on Enron
Stock Certificates, wondering what to do with them. Well, as your First
Lady and Chairlady of the Washington chapter of Bringing Integrity To
Christian Homemakers, I feel as if it is my responsibility to reach out to
you all and help.
There are two tips that I have come up with to help people put their
Enron stock to good use. Now, if you didnt get a call from me back in
August (after Id spent 30 minutes wide-eyed talking over cosmos with
Kenneth Lay) telling you: Sell those suckers! then you missed out on
my first tip. So, here I am with my second tip: Decoupage!
There are many dear, sweet people out there who arent part of Bushies Pioneers and, therefore, not on Bushies or my calling list. It just
breaks my heart that they are holding trunk-fulls of now worthless
Enron stock. If only you had used some of that stock when it was actually worth something to contribute to my husband, you would have
been one of the people we let know to get rid of the rest of it before the
bottom fell out! Golly, its just like I told the officer after I ran my car
through a stop sign just as my boyfriend was driving through the same
intersection and I killed him: Doesnt everything in life just have the
cutest way of coming down to timing?
How to Decoupage Enron Stock:
As with any craft project, you should read through and understand
all directions before starting. Dont rely on your husbandor youll end
up stuck to the kitchen counter for 2 days while he finds all the places
you hide your vodka!
If you have not prepared the surface of the item you plan to
decoupage on, do so now. Make sure it is clean and paint/seal it now. If
you didnt hold much Enron stock, you may wish to decoupage a wooden tool or tackle kit. If you are one of the many Enron employees who
had your entire life savings in stock, you will have enough to wallpaper
several rooms of your home. Just think! The little extra time you spend

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

giving your walls a novel, topical finish will really help your home sell
after it is foreclosed on!
1. Cut out your Enron stock certificates. If you are a really bitter person,
cut out letters and play smutty word games with Kenny Boys last name.
2. Arrange the Enron stock before you add the glue so you know where
you want everything. Personally, as homemaker who loves crafts, I prefer a theme! Try adding pictures of cars or colleges you can no longer
afford! Use your imagination!
3. Completely coat the back of the picture with your glue. Make sure
that the room is well-ventilated and that your husband is not hovering
over the glue pot as, if memory serves, he will wind out passing out on
the fumes and go head-first into your unfinished decoupage!
4. Stick the Enron stock on the glue. Use your finger to gently push
down the stock (dont worry about tearing itthere is plenty more
where that came from!) and push out any wrinkles and excess glue.
You can also use a popsicle stick or brayer (which is what I also call my
Mother-In-Law Bar).
5. Continue with the last 2 steps until all your stock is glued on
(for some of you in Houston, this could take several weeks of 24-7
decoupaging, but like those cute kitties on the poster say: Hang in there
baby!) Let the glue dry.
6. Now, coat your Enron stocks completely with diluted white glue
(approximately 3 parts glue to 1 part water) or decoupage medium. Let
this dry completely before you let your husband rest Corona bottles or
pretzels on itor they will wind up part of your decoupage!
7. Now, you can continue to add coats of the glue or decoupage medium
or use another sealer (polyurethane, acrylic spray, etc.) until you get the
desired results. You will, however, want to keep adding coats until the
edges of the pictures are smoothor until you are thrown out of your
house for not meeting mortgage, whichever comes first.
Mrs. George W. Bush (Laura)
Several digs are folded into this fake news release. Its Suzy Homemaker
theme and tone may be a dig at Laura Bushs reversion to First Lady as domestic duenna after her predecessors forays into policy making. The piece also
takes a shot at Mrs. Bushs causing a fatal accident when she ran a stop sign
as a seventeen-year-old driver, and at President Bushs supposed ineptitude,
clumsiness, and erstwhile substance-abuse problems, with specific reference

149

150

You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey: Newslore of Commerce

to the time he choked on a pretzel while watching a football game on TV

(see chapter 5). Above all, the suggested craft project underscores the worthlessness of Enron stock. By focusing on the victims of Enrons malfeasance
rather than on the dastardly deeds of the Enron executives themselves, it
bears some thematic similarities to a couple of one-liners about the 20089
crisis:
I went to the ATM this morning and it said insufficient funds.
Im wondering is it them or me?
Variations:
I went to an ATM today, and it asked to borrow a twenty till next week.
With the current market turmoil, whats the easiest way to make a small
fortune? Start off with a large one.

7
Not-So-Heavenly Gates
Newslore of the Digital Age

Going after Gates

While others argue about the relative merits of Macs and PCs or complain
that the machines could be a lot more user-friendly if the techies who
designed them didnt behave like members of a priesthood (this is a recurring theme of Walter Mossbergs technology columns in the Wall Street
Journal), I confess Im more the carnival gawker type when it comes to computers. The first time I cut and pasted on my old Kaypro, I thought it was
the greatest thing that had ever happened to writing. I still think so. When I
went from the glowing green characters on gray background of the Kaypro
to the black-on-white-on-blue of my Gateway, I found the screen as beautiful as a stained-glass window or an illuminated manuscript.
Perhaps because I had both a Mac and a PC on my desk when I was
a newspaper editor, I dont much care which I use. And while I find both
can be maddeningly obtuse at times (why dont they know what Im trying
to do?), I mostly appreciate that they, like air travel, work as well as they
do. But while Steve Jobs of Apple and Bill Gates of Microsoft have both
achieved a new kind of revenge-of-the-nerds celebrity, it is Gates who is the
favorite target of computer jockeys. To the cognoscenti like Larry Brash,
who describes himself as an evangelically zealous Mac user, Microsoft is a
monopolistic octopus that chokes innovation, stifles competition, and produces software that fails too often. Brash is the founder (in 1997) and keeper
of the Microsoft and Bill Gates Joke Page, which is my principal source for
the material in this chapter.1 Entries include a fake news story, Microsoft
151

152

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

Nearing Completion of Death Star, parodies of poems and songs, lightbulb

jokes, top ten lists, anagrams and acronyms, and parodies of Microsoft error
messages. Here is a sampling:
Now We Know
After the Hugh Grant/Devine Brown incident that made the papers, Bill
Gates called up Hugh Grant. Bill asked him Was it really worth $50 to
almost ruin your career?
Hugh replied Bill, actually it was worth a million.
So Bill called up Hughes favorite prostitute, but since she became
so famous, her prices had gone up quite a bit. So Bill paid $10,000 for a
night with Divine.
In the morning he said, That was fantastic! Now I know why professionally you call yourself Divine.
She answered Thank you, and now I know why you call your company Microsoft.
A variation, minus the topical reference to Hugh Grants being charged
with lewd conduct after being caught in a car with a prostitute in 1995:
Q: What did Bill Gates wife say to him on their wedding night?
A: Now I know why you named your company Microsoft!
The implication seems to be that Bill Gates is the quintessential geek and
that geeks are not famed for their virility.
Toddler Property Laws
1. If I like it, its mine.
2. If its in my hand, its mine.
3. If I can take it from you, its mine.
4. If I had it a little while ago, its mine.
5. If its mine, it must never appear to be yours in any way.
6. If Im doing or building something, all the pieces are mine.
7. If it looks just like mine, its mine.
8. If I think its mine, its mine.
9. If I . . . Oops! Im sorry; I goofed! Instead of typing in the Toddler
Property Laws, Ive been typing in Bill Gates primary Business Plan.

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

The Toddler Property Laws list is another bit of photocopier/faxlore with

a Bill Gates punch line tacked on.
3. Acquisition
Microsoft Addresses Justice Department Accusations
REDMOND, Wash. - Oct. 23, 1997In direct response to accusations
made by the Department of Justice, the Microsoft Corp. announced
today that it will be acquiring the federal government of the United
States of America for an undisclosed sum.
Its actually a logical extension of our planned growth, said Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, It really is going to be a positive arrangement
for everyone.
Absurd as it is, this fake news story reads pretty wellapart from the
punctuation problems.
e Worlds innest Books
This is a long listit includes the aforementioned The Wild Years by Al
Gore, My Book of Morals by Bill Clinton, Things I Love About Bill by
Hillary Clinton, and How to Find Osama Bin Laden by George Bush
with three items pertaining to Microsoft. Classic entries from older lists
that spring to mind are The Wit and Wisdom of Jerry Ford [or Dan
Quayle], Polish [or Italian] War Heroes, and my favorite, Great Jewish
Athletes. (My aunt gave me a book with a similar title when I was a kid
that featured profiles of the bullfighter Sidney Franklin, the boxer Barney
Ross, and the baseball stars Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax, among
others.)
23. Microsofts complete guide to virus protection.
22. Microsofts complete guide to data security.
21. Bill Gates guide to creating unique applications and PC operating
systems.
20. Things I Cant Afford - by Bill Gates.
Spreading the Wealth
Gates is not afraid to spread his money around to realize his dream of world
domination. Or so we may infer from this much-circulated chain letter:

153

154

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

Dear Friends,
Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates is sharing his fortune. If you ignore this you will repent later. Microsoft and AOL are
now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that
Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft
and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.
When you forward this e-mail to friends, Microsoft can and will
track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows user) for a two week time
period. For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will
pay you $245.00, for every person that you sent it to that forwards it on,
Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives
it, you will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact
you for your address and then send you a cheque.
I thought this was a scam myself, but two weeks after receiving this
e-mail and forwarding it on, Microsoft contacted me for my address and
within days, I received a cheque for US$24,800.00. You need to respond
before the beta testing is over. If anyone can afford this Bill Gates is the
man. Its all marketing expense to him. Please forward this to as many
people as possible. You are bound to get at least US$10,000.00.
A related chain letter casts AOL and Intel in the role of e-mail testers. This
letter gets the urban legend hat trick for attestations of authenticity. First,
we have a lawyers testimony (Im an attorney, and I know the law. This
thing is for real. Rest assured AOL and Intel will follow through with their
promises for fear of facing a multimillion dollar class action suit similar to
the one filed by PepsiCo against General Electric not too long ago). Then
we have the narrators brothers girlfriend who got in on this when the
narrator visited them on the occasion of the BaylorUniversity of Texas
football game (It was for the sum of $4,324.44 and was stamped Paid In
Full). Best of all, a friend of my good friends Aunt Patricia, who works
at Intel, actually got a check of $4,543.23 by forwarding this e-mail. As the
narrator says, What have you got to lose? These promises of payments to
those who help the new titans of computing and computer-mediated communication are the flip side of an unkillable set of warnings that the days
of free e-mail are about to end unless you forward this to everyone you
know so that there is enough of an outcry to bring AOL or Congress, as
the case may be, to its senses.

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

Is is a Diana Joke or a Microsoft Joke? Both.

Microsoft announced that they are to rename Windows 98 Windows
Diana. They expect that it too will be superficially attractive, consume
lots of resources and crash horribly. [See Chapter 8 for Diana jokes.]
User Unfriendly
Each of the next set of items mocks the vaunted user-friendliness of personal computers by showing, la Mossberg, how unreliable or nonsensical other machines and services would be if they worked the way Microsofts products did. Note, too, that a couple of these items get in their digs at
Microsoft by mentioning the ease of use of Apples version of the product.
The first item started as a joke and developed into an urban legend:
MS vs. GM
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, If
GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we
would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.
In response to Bills comments, General Motors issued a press release
stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all
be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this
part):
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to
buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the street for no reason. You
would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut
off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a manoeuvre such as a left turn would cause
your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would
have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only
five percent of the roads.

155

156

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all
be replaced by a single This Car Has Performed an Illegal Operation
warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask, Are you sure? before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out
and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle,
turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn
how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate
in the same manner as the old car.
10. Youd have to press the Start button to turn the engine off.
Gates gets his comeuppance when his new house proves to be as kludgy
as his computers:
Bill Gates New House
As many people have probably heard by now, Bill Gates built a new
home, a VERY large home, 35 garages, several buildings and so on. However, the problems hes had with the house are much less known. The
following is an excerpt from a conversation Bill had with his new home
contracters:
Bill: There are a few issues we need to discuss.
Contractor: Ah, you have our basic support option. Calls are free for the
first 90 days and a $75 call thereafter. Okay?
Bill: Uh, yeah. The first issue is the living room. We think its a little
smaller than we anticipated.
Contractor: Yeah, some compromises were made to have it out by the
release date.
Bill: We wont be able to fit all our furniture in there.
Contractor: Well, you have two options. You can purchase a new, larger
living room. Or you can use a stacker.
Bill: Stacker?
Contractor: Yeah, it allows you to fit twice as much furniture into the living room. By stacking it, of course, you put the entertainment center on
the couch, the chairs on the table, etc. You leave an empty spot, so that
when you want to use some furniture, you can unstack what you need
and put it back when youre done.

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

Bill: Uh, I dunno . . . Issue two. The second issue is the light fixtures. The
lightbulbs we brought with us from our old house dont fit. The threads
run the wrong way.
Contractor: Oh, thats a feature! The bulbs you have arent plug and play.
Youll have to upgrade to new bulbs.
Bill: And the electrical outlets? The holes are round instead of rectangular. How do I fix that?
Contractor: Thats another feature designed with the customer in mind.
Just uninstall and reinstall the electrical system.
Bill: Your kidding!?!
Contractor: Nope, its the only way.
Bill: (Sighing) Well, I have one last problem. Sometimes when I have
guests, someone will flush the toilet and it wont stop. The water pressure drops so low that the showers dont work.
Contractor: Thats a resource leakage problem. One fixture is failing to
terminate and is hogging the resource, preventing other fixtures from
accessing.
Bill: And how do I fix that?
Contractor: Well, after each flush, you all need to exit the house, turn off
the water at the street, turn it back on, reenter the house. Then you can
get back to work.
Bill: Thats the last straw! What kind of product are you selling me?
Contractor: Hey, if you dont like it, nobody made you buy it.
Bill: And when will it be fixed?
Contractor: Oh, in the next house, which well be ready to release next
year. Actually it was due out this year, but weve had some delays . . .
Sound familiar.....
If Microsoft were to branch out into kitchen appliances, consumers
would face similar challenges:
Microsofts New TV Dinner
You must first remove the plastic cover. By doing so you agree to accept
and honor rights to all Microsoft TV dinners. You may not give anyone
else a bite of your dinner (which would constitute an infringement of
Microsofts rights). You may, however, let others smell and look at your
dinner and are encouraged to tell them how good it is.

157

158

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

If you have a PC microwave oven, insert the dinner into the oven. Set
the oven using these keystrokes: <<\mstv.dinn.//08.5min@50%heat//
Then enter: ms//start.cook_dindin/yummy\| /yum~yum:-)
gohot#cookme.
If you have a Mac oven, insert the dinner and press start. The oven
will set itself and cook the dinner.
If you have a Unix oven, insert the dinner, enter the ingredients of
the dinner (found on the package label), the weight of the dinner, and
the desired level of cooking and press start. The oven will calculate the
time and heat and cook the dinner exactly to your specification.
Be forewarned that Microsoft dinners may crash, in which case your
oven must be restarted. This is a simple procedure. Remove the dinner
from the oven and enter: <<ms.good/tryagain\again/again.please.
The conflation of Microsoft and microwave recalls the legend of the tanningbed user who cooks her insides.2 Where the one plays off both the Microsoft/
microwave name similarity and the superficial resemblance between microwave ovens and computer monitors, the other plays off the lay inability to
distinguish between different kinds of invisible radiation. The next item, a
top ten list plus one, teleports Microsofts glitchy technology back in time.
The Top 11 Differences in the Middle Ages if Microsoft Had Existed
Then
11. Chastity belts require a password rather than a key.
10. Last years pitchfork not compatible with this years hay.
9. Lord Gates claims he has no memory of any memo describing his
intention to wipeth my arse with the Magna Carta.
8. The Good Plague hoax.
7. Horses routinely stop in mid-stride, and require a boot to the rear to
start again.
6. The Microsoft Rack would work, but it would be 3 times larger than it
should be and never completely kill anyone.
5. Forget about William Tell; William Gates shoots Apple off the head of
Steve Jobs.
4. Use of a large, clumsy broadsword instead of yet-to-be- invented scissors helps explain Lord Bills haircut.
3. Archbishop of Canterbury gets hit in the face with a pie.

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

2. Stained Glass Windows MCCCXXXXV actually not released until

Spring of MCCCXXXXVI.
Number 1 Difference in the Middle Ages if Microsoft Had Existed
Then . . .
1. The Y1K bug threatens to cripple high-tech industries, like stonemasonry and weaving.
This brings us to our next set of computer jokes. But before closing out
this section, its worth considering what Bill Gates thinks about all the nonsense that his products have helped disseminate:
Wasting somebody elses time strikes me as the height of rudeness. We
have only so many hours, and none to waste.
Thats what makes electronic junk mail and e-mail hoaxes so maddening. The free distribution of unwelcome or misleading messages to
thousands of people is an annoying and sometimes destructive use of
the Internets unprecedented efficiency.3

The Millennium Bug

In a nutshell, it seemed not to have occurred to computer programmers that
the year 2000 would ever come; thus, it was thought, when we rang out 99
and rang in the year 00, computers worldwide would fail, and chaos would
ensue. An Associated Press story outlined the worst-case scenario: chaos in
the financial markets, electricity shutdowns, disrupted airline schedules and
missed paychecks.4 Another doomsayer predicted loss of electricity and
water, business failures, major infrastructure damage, lawsuits, and municipal bankruptcy.5 Some worst cases were worse than others. The Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette captured the mood in a story headlined Preparing for the End
of the World as We Know It. To the list of impending disasters it added
food riots, the declaration of martial law and the seizure of food stockpiles
by the federal government among the possibilities. One source invoked the
tale of the lazy grasshopper and the industrious antsbest lay in the sorts of
supplies we might need if we were going camping: nonperishable foodstuffs
and devices that generate heat and light without electricity. Another source,
a writer named Sandra Ghost, who was working on a Christian thriller
involving UFOs and the Second Coming, spoke of failed pacemakers and

159

160

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

backed-up sewers at a meeting with her neighbors at a local motel. The

apocalyptic vibe is unmistakable. If anything, the hard-core survivalist types
claimed, the government was soft-peddling the dangers to avoid sowing
panic among the populace.6 The Y2K story connects to urban legends about
harmful technology when it cites those who see the millennium bug as a
punishment for our overdependence on technology.7 Afterward, a Seattle
Post-Intelligencer columnist acknowledged that the news media had blown
things out of proportion.8 But our friends the Internet jokesters knew that
already. As far as they were concerned, the only appropriate course of action
was parody.
Y2K Backup System
Enclosed with this memo is a Y2K Backup System device designed to
meet short time emergency needs in case of a computer operations failure, or operational delay. This device is the companys Primary Emergency Network Computer Interface Liaison device (P.E.N.C.I.L.).
This device has been field tested extensively, including certification
testing, as well as volume and stress testing. Properly maintained, the
device meets all the requirements for coding and data input.
Prior to use, the (P.E.N.C.I.L.) will require preparation and testing. Tools and supplies required will be a sharpened knife or grinding
device; and a supply of computer paper (with or without holes).
Gripping the device firmly in your hand, proceed to scrape or grind
the wooded end until it has a cone-like appearance. The dark core
area must be exposed to properly function. (Left-handed employees
should read this sentence backwards, and then go to your supervisor for
assistance.)
Place a single sheet of computer paper on a smooth, hard surface.
Take the backup device, place the sharpened point against the paper,
and pull it across the paper. If properly done, this will input a single line.
CAUTION: Excessive force may damage components of the device
or damage the data reception device. If either the P.E.N.C.I.L. or the
paper are damaged, go back to the preparation instructions above.
Proper use of the device will require data simulation input by the
operator.
Placing the device against the computer page forming symbols as
closely resembling the computer lettering system you normally use. At
the completion of each of the simulated letters, lift the device off the
page, move it slightly to the right, replace it against the page, and form

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

the next symbol. This may appear tedious, and somewhat redundant,
but, with practice, you should be able to increase your speed and accuracy. The P.E.N.C.I.L. is equipped with a manual deletion device. The
device is located on the reverse end of the P.E.N.C.I.L. Error deletions
operate similarly to the backspace key on your computer. Simply place
the device against the erroneous data, and pull it backwards over the
letters. This should remove the error, and enable you to resume data
entries.
CAUTION: Excessive force may damage the data reception device.
Insufficient force, however, may result in less than acceptable deletion,
and may require re-initialization of action as above.
This device is designed with user maintenance in mind. However, if
technical support is required, you can still call your local computer desk
supervisor at (800)-YOU-DUMMY.
The memo recalls Horace Miners little treatise on the Nacirema, a classic of introductory courses in anthropology.9 One is given various clues early onNacirema and Notgnihsaw in Miners essay, Primary Emergency
Network Computer Interface Liaison herebut the inattentive reader
might not notice that these are American and Washington spelled backward or (less likely) an acronym for pencil, and could get fairly deep into
the essay before realizing that familiar practicestooth brushing in Miner,
writing and erasing hereare being described in ways that make them seem
strange and new. Another low-tech alternative in the event of computer failure is touted in this next bit of memo parody, predicated on the superficial
similarities between the new notebook-sized computers and a classic childrens toy:
Y2K SOLUTION
Corporate has determined that there is no longer any need for network
or software applications support. The goal is to remove all computers
from the desktop by Jan, 1999. Instead, everyone will be provided with
an Etch-A-Sketch. There are many sound reasons for doing this:
1. No Y2K problems
2. No technical glitches keeping work from being done.
3. No more wasted time reading and writing emails.
The following FAQ parody, written in the same spirit, gives a good idea of
how the Etch A Sketch works:

161

162

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

Etch-A-Sketch tech support

Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 14:56:16 -0500
Frequently Asked Questions for Etch-A-Sketch Technical Support
Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has all of these funny little lines all over the screen
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I turn my Etch-A-Sketch off?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: Whats the shortcut for Undo?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I create a New Document window?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I set the background and foreground to the same color?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: What is the proper procedure for rebooting my Etch-A-Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I delete a document on my Etch-A-Sketch?
A: Pick it up and shake it.
Q: How do I save my Etch-A-Sketch document?
A: Dont shake it.
The next parody, of a news release this time, is nothing more than an
extended pun on the term Y2Kand loops us back to Microsoft:
REDMOND, WA (API)MICROSOFT (MSFT) announced today that
the official release date for the new operating system Windows 2000
will be delayed until the second quarter of 1901.
Our staff has completed the 18 months of work on time and on budget. We have gone through every line of code in every program in every
system. We have analyzed all databases, all data files, including backups
and historic archives, and modified all data to reflect the change. We
are proud to report that we have completed the Y-to-K date change
mission, and have now implemented all changes to all programs and all
data to reflect your new standards:
Januark, Februark, March, April, Mak, June, Julk, August, September,
October, November, December
As well as:
Sundak, Mondak, Tuesdak, Wednesdak, Thursdak, Fridak, Saturdak
I trust that this is satisfactory, because to be honest, none of this Y
to K problem has made any sense to me. But I understand it is a global

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

problem, and our team is glad to help in any way possible. And what
does the year 2000 have to do with it? Speaking of which, what do you
think we ought to do next year when the two digit year rolls over from
99 to 00?
Well await your direction.
Finally, a couple of clever writers imagined that people living at the dawn
of the first century and in the year 999 must have had millennial problems
of their own. Note that the first is in the form of a letter; the second, a news
story.
Translated from Latin scroll dated 2BC
Dear Cassius:
Are you still working on the Y zero K problem? This change from BC
to AD is giving us a lot of headaches and we havent much time left. I
dont know how people will cope with working the wrong way around.
Having been working happily downwards forever, now we have to start
thinking upwards. You would think that someone would have thought
of it earlier and not left it to us to sort it all out at this last minute.
I spoke to Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadnt
done something about it when he was sorting out the calendar. He said
he could see why Brutus turned nasty. We called in Consultus, but he
simply said that continuing downwards using minus BC wont work
and as usual charged a fortune for doing nothing useful. Surely, we will
not have to throw out all our hardware and start again? Macrohard will
make yet another fortune out of this I suppose.
The money lenders are paranoid of course! They have been told that
all usury rates will invert and they will have to pay their clients to take
out loans. Its an ill wind. . . .
As for myself, I just cant see the sand in an hourglass flowing
upwards. We have heard that there are three wise men in the East who
have been working on the problem, but unfortunately they wont arrive
until its all over.
I have heard that there are plans to stable all horses at midnight at
the turn of the year as there are fears that they will stop and try to run
backwards, causing immense damage to chariots and possible loss of
life. Some say the world will cease to exist at the moment of transi-

163

164

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

tion. Anyway, we are still continuing to work on this blasted Y zero K

problem. I will send a parchment to you if anything further develops.
If you have any ideas please let me know,
Plutonius
Year 1K Crisis
Canterbury, England. A.D. 999.
An atmosphere close to panic prevails today throughout Europe as the
millennial year 1000 approaches, bringing with it the so-called Y1K
Bug, a menace which, until recently, hardly anyone had ever heard of.
Prophets of doom are warning that the entire fabric of Western Civilization, based as it now is upon monastic computations, could collapse,
and that there is simply not enough time left to fix the problem.
Just how did this disaster-in-the-making ever arise? Why did no one
anticipate that a change from a three-digit to a four-digit year would
throw into total disarray all liturgical chants and all metrical verse in
which any date is mentioned? Every formulaic hymn, prayer, ceremony
and incantation dealing with dated events will have to be re-written to
accommodate three extra syllables. All tabular chronologies with threespace year columns, maintained for generations by scribes using carefully hand-ruled lines on vellum sheets, will now have to be converted
to four-space columns, at enormous cost. In the meantime, the validity
of every official event, from baptisms to burials, from confirmations to
coronations, may be called into question.
We should have seen it coming, says Brother Cedric of St. Michael
Abbey, here in Canterbury. What worries me most is that THOUSAND
contains the word THOU, which occurs in nearly all our prayers, and of
course always refers to God. Using it now in the name of the year will
seem almost blasphemous, and is bound to cause terrible confusion. Of
course, we could always use Latin, but that might be even worse - The
Latin word for Thousand is Mille, which is the same as the Latin for
mile. We wont know whether we are talking about time or distance!
Stonemasons are already reported threatening to demand a proportional pay increase for having to carve an extra numeral in all dates on
tombstones, cornerstones and monuments. Together with its inevitable
ripple effects, this alone could plunge the hitherto-stable medieval economy into chaos. A conference of clerics has been called at Winchester to
discuss the entire issue, but doomsayers are convinced that the matter

Not-So-Heavenly Gates: Newslore of the Digital Age

is now one of personal survival. Many families, in expectation of the

worst, are stocking up on holy water and indulgences.
So there we all were, late in the year 1999, being told to lay in food and
water and cash and candles in the event that utilities and transportation and
banking systems all failed. We felt foolish complying but knew we would feel
even more foolish if the dire prophecies were fulfilled and we found ourselves without power or supplies or the means to acquire them. And then, of
course, nothing happened.

165

8
Dianas Halo
Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

During the fall of 2006, a community group invited me to give a talk at their
February meeting. The topic was up to me, but they needed a title right away.
Little did I know when I came up with Is Contemporary Journalism as Bad
as Everyone Says It Is? that I would end up making my defense of the news
media during the very week that the big story was the death of Anna Nicole
Smith. My strategy that night was preemptive: I brought up the Anna Nicole
problem before anyone else could, then mounted my defense as planned. I
even tried to include celebrity news in that defense. Rather than argue that
the news media do a better job than they are given credit for despite excessive coverage of the lives (and deaths) of celebrities, I tried to make a case
for celebrity coverage as a legitimate part of the mix.
I come at this position as a folklorist, arguing, unoriginally, that these stories are direct descendants of Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty,
and the other fairy tales of tradition. Todays actors, singers, and athletes are
our princes and princesses, our heroes and ogres.1 The arc of news coverage of celebrities lives, from their successes and fairy-tale weddings to their
addictions, arrests, divorces, and deaths, reflects our age-old ambivalence.
On the one hand, we admire the fame, wealth, and beauty of the demigods
in our midst. On the other hand, we know that we can never attain such
boons for ourselves and are therefore comforted to know that all that privilege does not protect them from the problems of life. If anything, it magnifies them: the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Trade places with Anna
Nicole Smith? No, thanks. The price of fame is too high. Better to live a
normal life.

166

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

Students in my journalism ethics class, where we discuss celebrity news

as part of a larger consideration of privacy issues, deplore news media prying into the lives of the rich and famous while overlooking the paradox
of their own fascination: more students try to sign up to give a presentation on this topic than on any other, and on the day when the lucky few do
their stints in front of the class, discussions of whether Paris Hilton, Britney
Spears, and their ilk are getting a fair shake from the news media are both
vehement and knowledgeable.
The three quintessential celebrity stories of our time are the O. J. Simpson, Princess Diana, and Michael Jackson sagas. The OJ story touched on
some of the most resonant themes in American life: A handsome black
man with enormous physical prowess achieves wealth and fame, marries a
beautiful white woman, and moves to Hollywood, where he achieves even
more success as a pitchman and broadcaster. And then: divorce, jealous rage,
murder, flight, capture, and trial. Who needs Othello? Weve got this guy. Of
course were fascinated. Yet people clucked their tongues at the way the story
became a national obsession, just as the audience at my talk in February
2007 clucked their tongues over the way Anna Nicole Smiths death became
a national obsession.
As for Diana: A prince courts a beautiful woman. They have their fairytale wedding, two beautiful baby boys, and live lives of unimaginable splendor and glamourwith a social conscience. Then they stray, divorce, and she
takes up with a dazzlingly wealthy Arabian paramour, with whom she winds
up dead on a Parisian roadway, a victim, seemingly, of the very newshounds
who made her the most photographed and therefore the most recognizable
person in the world.
The fascination with Michael Jackson stemmed first from the way he
transformed himself, almost before our eyes, from a black boy to an androgynous and racially ambiguous and ageless man by sculpting his features and
whitening his skin. And then he stood accused of child molestation chargestwicethough the first case was settled out of court and he was acquitted in the second case. Like Diana, he died suddenly, in the prime of life.
I defend public and news media interest in these stories, but the measured complaint about them is not they should not be covered at all but that
they are covered to excess.2 When you have wall-to-wall coverage of the
death of someone, who, however up-close-and-personal our mediated view
of them has been, we did not know, the wise guys among us will rebeland
that rebellion will take the form of some very disrespectful jokes.

167

168

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

Studies of jokes about the Challenger disaster offer a paradigm.3 Most of

the jokes focused on the schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. NASAs thinking
seemed to be that the presence of a civilian on board would help the public
feel more connected to the shuttles mission. To cynics, the teacher in space
was little more than a publicity stunt and celebrity par excellencea person
who is famous for being famous. Putting it another way, the gap between
McAuliffes prominence and her impact, that is, between her fame and her
actual importance, could scarcely be larger. When people perceive that to be
the case, their sense of proportion is violated. When McAuliffe, along with
the six astronauts, died in the explosion and the news media milked the
pathos of the story for all it was worth, with particular focus on the civilian,
the cynics had a field day.
A modest amount of coverage of a celebritys life would probably prompt
an appropriately modest response to her death. Yes, the worshippers will
be devastated;4 the rest of us might feel a little bit sad. Disproportionate
coverage exasperates us: we dont feel that sad (or if we do, its because of
the medias maudlin coverage). The jokes are a form of collective eye rolling
over the news medias lack of restraint. They have less to do with the foibles
of the celebrities themselves than with the unseemly level of news media
and publicinterest in them. A Web site that invited visitors to weigh in
on the question of whether jokes about the death of Anna Nicole Smith
were inappropriate drew the following response: About her, yes. About the
medias insatiable, vulture-like coverage of her, no.5
The enormous volume of jokes about O. J. Simpson, Princess Diana,
Michael Jackson, and other celebrities who have weathered lurid scandals or
suffered lurid deaths suggests two corollaries to my hypothesis that the more
newsworthy elements a story contains, the likelier it is to generate a folkloric
response (see appendix B): First, a story that is strong on prominence and
novelty but weak on impact is likelier to generate a folkloric response than
a story that is strong on impact but weak on prominence and novelty. Second, a story that is strong on prominence and novelty is likelier to generate
newslore that targets the news media than a story that is strong on impact
but weak on prominence and novelty. Such newslore may be thought of as
a form of folk media criticismthough an element of self-mockery may
also be present here as well: we who get caught up in the mediathon and
thereby make it possible (which is to say, profitable) ought to be ashamed of
ourselves.
Let us begin our survey of dead celebrity jokes with Lady Di.

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

Diana (and Mother Teresa), 1997

Q: What does Princess Diana have in common with Hugh Grant?
A: They both bought it in the backseat of a car.
The actor Hugo Grant was arrested in a car with a prostitute in 1995, as we
know from the Bill Gates joke in chapter 7. Buying it refers to sex in Grants
case and to dying (buying the farm, the derivation of which is obscure) in
Dianas.
Q: Why is Di like a mobile phone?
A: They both die in tunnels.
Prince Charles was out early the other day walking the dog. When a
passer-by said Morning, Charles said No, just walking the dog.
To get this joke, you have to know that Prince Charles and Lady Di were
estranged, and you have to catch the pun: Charles hears the greeting as a
question, Mourning?
Mother Teresa, who appears on the AP Top Ten Stories list for 1997 but
not on Richard Roepers most-talked-about list (see appendix B), mostly
surfaces in Diana-Teresa combo jokes, not so surprising when one considers that the two women died within a week of each other. In fact, thats the
punch line, such as it is, of one of the jokes:
Q: Whats the difference between Mother Theresa and Princess Diana?
A: 5 days.
The same joke was told about Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett in the
summer of 2009:
Q: Whats the difference between Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett?
A: About three hours.
And the same joke was told about Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono,
who, oddly enough, also died within five days of each other and were further linked by virtue of having died in the same freakish wayby skiing
into a tree. Kennedy, the son of Robert F. Kennedy, died on the last day of

169

170

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

1997too late to make Richard Roepers list. Bono, who parlayed his fame
as one half of the 1960s singing duo Sonny and Cher into a political career,
died in January 1998. (Well return to Kennedy and Bono [and Kennedyand-Bono] jokes momentarily.)
A number of Diana jokes parodied the song Candle in the Wind, which
Elton John originally wrote about Marilyn Monroe and then reworked
(opportunistically, some said) as a tribute to Diana. Here is the Mother
Teresa version:
Elton John is writing a tribute for Mother Teresa. Hes calling it Sandals
in the Bin.
Then theres this sick joke:
Mother Teresa is walking around Heaven one day as she notices Princess Diana passing by. What a lovely woman, Mother Teresa thought,
doing all those wonderful things for the sick and starving of our
world. As Princess Diana passes by, Mother Teresa notices that Dianas
halo is much bigger than that of her own. I had dedicated my entire life
on earth to those sick and hungry, and her halo is bigger than mine?!
So, Mother Teresa decides to go find St. Peter and ask him about her
problem.
Upon hearing the problem, St. Peter smiles a little and reassures
Mother Teresa that, Its not a halo; thats the steering wheel.
This joke is one of several in which an accident victims body is so fearfully rearranged that either parts of the vehicle become entangled with the
body or parts of the body become entangled with the vehicle:
Q: What was the last thing to go through Dianas mind?
A: The dashboard.
If Princess Dianas heart was in the right place, why was it found on the
dashboard?
Did you hear that Diana had Blue eyes? Yep, one blew out the left window and the other out the right window.
Did you hear that Princess Di was on the radio a couple of weeks ago?
Yep, and on the dashboard, and on the window, and on the hood. . . .

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

The radio joke goes back at least as far as the crash that killed Princess Grace
of Monaco in 1982. The jokes about what went through Dianas mind and about
her blue eyes were familiar to me from the studies of Challenger jokes (Q:
What was the last thing to go through Christa McAuliffes mind? A: Sheet metal). They have also been adapted in turn to more recent celebrity deaths:
Q: What was the last thing on JFK jrs mind before he died?
A: His planes console.
(The son of the thirty-fifth president was piloting a plane that crashed in the
Atlantic en route to a family wedding on Marthas Vineyard in 1999, killing
Kennedy, his wife Carolyn Bessette, and his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette.)
Q: What was the last thing to go through Michael Kennedys mind?
A: A branch.
Then theres this odd variation, which suggests that Sonny Bono, like a lot
of sixties survivors, emerged drug-addled from the decade of sex and drugs
and rock and roll. Or as the saying goes, if you remember the sixties, you
probably werent really there.
Q: What was the last thing that went through Sonny Bonos mind?
A: The 60s.

Sonny Bono and Michael Kennedy, 19971998

These connections offer a segue into other Sonny Bono jokes. There were
other Michael Kennedy jokes as wellmany rely on weak puns on words
having to do with trees and woodbut Bono was a better-known and more
comical figure. Sonnys lack of success as a solo performer compared to
Chers led people to conclude that she had been the real talent in the duo all
along, as these jokes suggest:
Q: What preceded Sonny Bonos senseless death?
A: Sonny Bonos senseless life.
Police reported it was a quick death. Just like his solo career.
A tree turns out to be Sonnys greatest hit.

171

172

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

The Kennedy and Bono skiing deaths even inspired an OJ joke: Did you
hear Goldman is trying to get OJ Simpson to take up skiing?

Gianni Versace, 1997

Though gays complained that coverage of Gianni Versaces murder in south
Florida at the hands of Andrew Cunanan was riddled with stereotypes about
gay life, the jokes are dominated by popular ideas about the fashion world,
seen as populated with people who are obsessed with appearance, even in
life-and-death situations.
Q: What is Versaces latest line?
A: Chalk.
[Versaces fashion lines are conflated with a police outline around a
corpse.]
Q: Why was Versace killed?
A: He wanted Cunanan to model for him and asked for two head shots.
[Head shots could either be bullets to the brain or photos of models
faces.]
Q: How can you tell its a genuine Gianni Versace blouse?
A: It has 6 holes but only 4 buttons.
Q: Why did Cunanan shoot Versace?
A: Because Gianni was wearing plaids and stripes together.
Q: How did Versace actually die?
A: He died of a heart attack when he saw that the red from his blood
didnt go with the rest of his ensemble.

John F. Kennedy Jr., 1999

Jokes about the death of John F. Kennedy Jr. borrow from other joke cycles
about celebrities who went to watery graves. One even alludes to another
such death, that of the actress Natalie Wood, who fell off a boat and drowned
in 1981 (Q: Who did JFK Jr. meet on his last flight? A: Natalie Wood). Here
are the others, both familiar to me from the Challenger studies:

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

Q: Why did JFK Jr. refuse to take a shower the day of the crash?
A: He figured that later on hed wash up on shore.
Q: What was JFK Jr drinking at the time of the crash?
A: Ocean Spray.
The more interesting JFK Jr. jokes were more specific to the Kennedys. A
surprising number of them worked in his Uncle Teddy and the infamous
1969 incident on Marthas Vineyard, where he drove a car off a bridge, resulting in the death of a campaign staffer named Mary Jo Kopechne:6
Q: Why was JFK Jr flying that night?
A: Teddy Kennedy offered him a lift.
Everyone keeps saying how good looking and popular JFK jr was. It just
goes to show that he was twice the lady killer as his uncle Ted.
Q: Why in the world did JFK Jr. let his plane nosedive into the water like
that?
A: He was hunting up Mary Jo Kopechne souvenirs for Uncle Teddy.
Other jokes brought his cousins, Michael Kennedy and William Kennedy
Smith, into the mix. Smith is the son of Jean Ann Kennedy, the sister of
the late president and his famous brothers, and he is notorious for being
accused of rape (he was acquitted in 1991).
The Kennedy Family was so upset they called off the Sunday wedding.
And William Kennedy Smith was so upset, he postponed his Sunday
night rape.
I have to end the section on JFK Jr. with this bad metajoke:
Q: Why arent there more JFK Jr jokes out there?
A: They just havent surfaced yet.

Michael Jackson, 2009

Along with the Clintons and George W. Bush, Michael Jackson is near the top
of the leader board of most-joked-about public figures. As with jokes about

173

174

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

the Clintons, Michael Jackson jokes have had remarkable staying power. The
oldest ones date to the first set of child molestation charges against him, filed
in 1993. Just when the joking might have died down, Jackson faced another
round of accusations ten years later. Given the volume of jokes, if we limit
the discussion here to the latest and presumably last round of jokes coined
after Jacksons death in 2009, well have a fair idea of the tenor of the jokes,
most of which deploy bad puns to comment on Jacksons supposed pedophilia. The list of double entendre words: rode, nuts, wiener, touch, dates,
meat, buns, come, stroke. First, the touch jokes:
I dont feel any emotion after MJs death . . . He never really touched me
when I was younger . . .
Q: Whats the difference between Michael Jackson and Disney films?
A: Disney films can still touch kids.
Michael Jacksons death is so tragic, he touched so many children in so
many special ways.
The next few are creepier, which is to say, more explicit:
Jockeys at tomorrows race meetings will wear black armbands out of
respect for Michael Jackson, who successfully rode more three yr olds
than anyone in living memory.
Michael Jackson actually died of food poisoning.
He ate some 12 year old nuts.
. . . Er or was it a five-year old wiener?
Whats the difference between Michael Jackson and acne?
Acne doesnt come on your face until youre about 13 . . .
Out of respect, McDonalds has released the McJackson burger, 50 year
old meat between 10 year old buns.
The milder jokes are slightly more clever:
Michael Jackson had to cancel all of his up coming dates.
They were named James (aged 9) and Thomas (aged 11).

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

Say what you like about Jackson, at least he drove past schools slowly.
There were also a few one-liners that we might think of as cause-of-death
jokes:
Michael Jackson suffered his heart attack while racing to a Los Angeles
department store. Someone told him boys trousers were half off.
Michael Jackson died of shock after finding out Boyz II Men was a band
not a delivery service.
Reports of Michael Jackson having a heart attack are incorrect. He was
found in the childrens ward having a stroke.
That last joke leads us to the other hospital ward jokes:
Michael Jackson was taken to the hospital. The maternity ward was
immediately put on lockdown.
Michael Jackson did manage to whisper a brief message to paramedics
on his way to the hospital . . . Put me in the childrens ward.
Perhaps the cleverest pedophilia jokes invoke the language of addiction:
At the autopsy they found childrens underwear strapped to Michael
Jacksons upper arm. According to his doctors it is just a patch, hes been
trying to quit for a while.
At the time of Jackos death he was trying to quit the Cub Scouts . . . he
was down to ONE pack a day!
Also clever are the jokes that allude to the rumors of Jacksons multiple
plastic surgeries:
Since Michael Jackson is 99% plastic, they are going to melt him down and
turn him into lego blocks so that little kids can play with him for a change.
It has been reported on the Angels News Michael Jackson was refused
entry to heaven due to the fact they dont accept plastic.

175

176

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

On the bright side, Michael Jackson had so much plastic surgery, he can
be recycled!
Early reports are that the hospital does not know what to do with the
body, as plastic recycling is not collected until next Thursday.
Several jokes paired the coincident deaths of Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, some of which address head-on what made Jackson such a fascinating
figure:
Todays mourners break into two camps: Farrah Fawcett Majors and
Michael Jackson minors.
[Fawcett married the actor Lee Majors and was known, for a time, as
Farrah Fawcett Majors.]
When Farrah Fawcett arrived in Heaven, God was such a big fan he
decided to grant her one wish. She asked that all the children in the
world could be safe. So God killed Michael Jackson.
First Farrah, now MJ. Yesterday was a horrible day to be a white woman.
Q: Why did Michael Jackson die on the same day as Farrah Fawcett?
A: He didnt want her to be the only white woman grabbing all the
headlines.
Michael is the only person I know who was born a black man and died
a white woman.
A little boy was asking his mom about god. Is god man or woman?
he asked. His mom said, honey, god is both man and woman. the boy
asked, Well is god black or white? Mom replied: god is both black and
white. Boy: but is god gay or straight?? Mom, flustered: Both, honey.
The boy thought for a second, and then asked, Mom, is god michael
jackson?
Clearly, to the jokesters, God is not Michael Jackson. Given the steady
metamorphosis of his appearance, the molestation charges, and the allaround weirdness of his life, I suspect many of the jokesters, like me, were
simply mystified, even dismayed, by the outpouring of grief over his death.
Each joke is like a face slap aimed at curbing the hysteria.

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

Backlash
The abundance of celebrity jokes on the Internet suggests that whatever the
compunctions of newspaper people about offending the delicate sensibilities
of their readers, in the online world, anything goes. Not so. In keeping with
the cyberspace mania for interactivity, many of the jokelore Web sites invite
visitor comments. Arguments between defenders of the harmlessness of the
jokes and those who are censorious of them are inevitable. The Suburbarazzi
Web site is typical. In February 2007 the site asked visitors to weigh in on the
appropriateness of jokes about the death of Anna Nicole Smith. More than
half of the three hundred respondents disapproved of the jokesa surprising number, given that it is not a random sampling of the population but the
people who choose to visit Web sites devoted to jokes. Another site, Answerbag.com, included the following responses to the same question:
Yes. Defaming the dead is detestable.
I think it would be distasteful to make jokes about anyones death
whether it was expected or not. Regardless of their opinion towards Anna
Nicole I think that people should keep their snide comments and jokes to
themselves for a while, you never know who is still grieving the loss.
I dont care who you are, death jokes are NOT funny. As much as I
hate Paris Hilton, Id never make or laugh at any jokes made about her
if she died in the near future. As annoying (or whatever other word
I cant write here lol) as someone is, theyre still human and in death
it should be treated with nothing but respect. When that comedian/
talk show guy, whoever he was, went to a Halloween costume as Steve
Irwin with a barb in his bloody chest for a costume I was fuming what
a *%#@$%$!!! That was SICK! And yes in Annas case, that poor woman
was a misunderstood soul no matter how outrageous or gold digging or
inappropirately flamboyant, she just made some mistakes in looking for
love/acceptance. Just think about being in their shoes, would you want
people making fun or you or making jokes/bad taste comments, etc,
about you after you die, even if it is tragically?
She made a ridiculous, pathetic laughingstock of herself when she was
alive. No reason she should be able to get out of that just by dying.
Yes..it is always distasteful to make jokes about the misfortunes of
others.7

177

178

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

Answerbank asked the same question about jokes about Steve Irwin, the
Australian host of a television show about wildlife who died in 2006 from
a freak stingray attack. The responses were rather more sophisticated (apart
from their orthography and sentence structure):
Maybe it is because we dont know the person and can feel shocked amd
ammused at the same time.
Its a trait of human nature that peoples reaction to death is humour
- almost a psychological re-balancing. People who deal with death on
a daily basis cope with the trauma by indulging in the very blackest
humour, again its simply a way of dealing with death, which we in western society have never learned to deal with properly.
Although sometimes in bad taste, I dont believe they are malicious, just
a way of dealing with bad or shocking news. Sometimes they are very,
very funny, and you feel you shouldnt be laughing.
Im always up for a joke but this is way too soon.
i think sometimes they are technically very clever and funny - as such
if you were a professional joke writer who had done some sort of course
. . . sometimes these jokes are well crafted and fit all the criterior of what
a joke should be - its just unfortunate that they happen to be about a
sad subject and that makes us a bit uncomfortable about recognising it
as just a joke.
Gallows humour has been around as long as people have been coming
to unfortunate ends and others have found themselves being glad it was
someone else and not them.
I think with technology as it is, it is just a bit more noticable as the
jokes spread further, quicker and sometimes to people who might not
appreciate them.8
Along the same lines were the shocked and outraged responses to jokes
about Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman who had been in a coma for fifteen
years until her husband, despite much grandstanding by conservative politicians, was able to have her feeding tube removed in 2005. First, the jokes. I
was in the library on campus when I decided to Google Terri Schiavo jokes.

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

There wasnt anyone around, but I caught myself turning my laptop away
from public view, because I didnt want anyone to think I was the sort of person who hid himself in an obscure corner of the library to visit garish Web
sites (though that was exactly what I was doing). There were sixty Schiavo
jokes on the Web site www.laughline.com. By comparison, the site featured
244 Michael Jackson jokes, 43 George W. Bush jokes, 23 Bill Clinton jokes,
and 19 Iraq jokes. It goes without saying that all the Terri Schiavo jokes were
in poor taste; most were guilty of the worse sin of being insufferably lame.
Picture people with too much time on their hands strainingand failing
to come up with a really nasty zinger. Here are the ones I found interesting
for one reason or another:
Did you hear Teri Schiavo is coming out with a new album?
Schiavounplugged.
[In recent years, a number of musicians who normally play or are
backed by electric instruments have recorded albums on which they
play stripped-down arrangements of their songs on mostly acoustic
instruments.]
What is Jeb Bushs favorite vegetable?
Terry Schiavo.
What is the Florida state vegetable?
Terry Schiavo.
[Governor Bush, who had taken a lead role in efforts to keep Schiavo
alive, made a last-ditch effort to take her into the custody of the state
of Florida to keep her feeding tube from being removed. Jokes about
human vegetables are nothing new.]
What is the worst part about eating a vegetable?
Putting Terri Schiavos diaper back on.
[This is by far the sickest joke of the bunch. It relies on the slang meaning of eating as performing cunnilingus.]
What does Terry Schiavo have in common with the CIA?
Dubya thought they both had intelligence.
[This joke connects conservatives arguments that Schiavo was misdiagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state and was in fact
aware of, and reacting to, what was going on around her with erroneous

179

180

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

intelligenceused to justify invading Iraqabout Saddam Husseins

ability to manufacture and deploy weapons of mass destruction and his
ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist organization.]
Here is a response to the jokes:
What the freak do yall think you are doing making jokes about Terry
Schiavo. Its wrong. It was a serious matter and there should be no jokes.
She was a human being and her and her family went through hell and
every one of you who wrote a joke should be ashamed of yourselves.
This is NOT RIGHT!!!
To bring the discussion back to Princess Diana, one can also find a good
bit of commentary on the propriety of Diana jokes. A story on the London
Net Web site (headline: Pub Brawl Over Di Joke) described a fight in a pub
precipitated by the telling of a Diana joke (Q: Whats the difference between
a Mercedes and a Skoda? A: Diana wouldnt be seen dead in a Skoda), and
noted that psychologists see jokes as an effective means for coming to terms
with grief.9
A story in the Indian Express about the phenomenon quoted a stand-up
comic named Timandra Harkness, who said she joked about the way we
were expected to be very upset.10 Similarly, the Web site Mindspring.com
took issue with the massive drenching of the English speaking world in
syrup as the masses shed tears for a woman they never met, and the papers
took her death as a news event on the order of the first moon landing, or
a major war.11 I even found a metajoke expressing exasperation with those
who disapprove of Diana jokes:
Q: Whats the difference between those who get offended by Princess
Diana jokes and a puppy?
A: Eventually, a puppy will stop whining.

Celebrity DeathsNot!
True stories of celebrities cut down in their prime, which we savor perhaps
more than we would care to admitknowing that it often ends badly for the
rich and famous keeps our envy in checkmake us susceptible to celebrity
death hoaxes, much as real computer viruses or product recalls bolster the

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

credibility of computer virus hoaxes and legends of contaminated goods.12

Who can be surprised to learn that yet another actor/singer/athlete/politician has died in a freak accident? All it takes is a writer with sufficient
command of journalistic conventions (and time on his or her hands) to
craft a plausible-sounding news story. I find it helpful to think of these stories in terms of x and y axes, where the x axis represents the plausibility of
the content, and the y axis represents the plausibility of the mechanics, by
which I mean spelling, grammar, punctuation, story and sentence structure,
and word choice. If the story is improbable yet not preposterous and reads
like a polished piece of journalism, it is going to be pretty believable. If it is
improbable yet not preposterous but deviates from journalistic standards,
its going to fool only the more credulous readers. And if its preposterous
but adheres to journalistic standards, it will probably be a pretty good joke,
with the humor arising from the disconnect between its serious tone and
silly content. Some examples:
(CNN)Former L. A. Laker Earvin Magic Johnson is in a coma
tonight at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and is not
expected to live. Johnson, 44, is suffering from complications related
to HIV, and internal bleeding, a spokesman for Johnsons attorney told
CNN. His eyes are open, but its just a dead stare. He could go any day
now, said the spokesman, who asked that his name not be used. Johnson was last seen publicly on July 27 in Los Angeles when he hosted
A Midsummer Nights Magic, a charity basketball event at the Staples
center. The 6ft - 9in. Johnson, three-times voted the NBAs most valuable player, was admitted to the intensive care unit last weekend under
another name. A hospital spokeswoman refused to confirm reports
Johnson was a patient there.
A press release submitted to media outlets on Sept. 17 announced
Johnsons new production company had signed a multimillion-dollar
Hollywood movie deal with Warner Bros. Pictures. Johnson, the NBA
star-turned-entrepreneur, co-founded Magic Hallway Pictures in July
with producer Paul Hall, whose credits include Higher Learning and
the 2000 remake of Shaft. Hall could not be reached for comment.
On November 7, 1991, Johnson stunned the sports world when he
announced he had tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS,
during a routine physical exam. Johnson also announced his retirement
from basketball but returned in 1992 and again in 1996. He turned his
enthusiasm and leadership skills to business. Among his successes, he

181

182

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

developed movie theaters and shopping malls in poor and neglected

sections of large cities where no one else would invest.
In September 1991, just before he learned he had HIV, Johnson wed
longtime friend Earletha Cookie Kelly. The couple had a son in 1993
and adopted a daughter in 1995. Johnson also has a son from a previous
relationship who lives near his estate. Ever optimistic, Johnson believed
that the right combination of medicine, diet, and exercise would help
him to survive until a cure for AIDS was found.
Johnsons physicians announced in early 1997 that the AIDS virus in
his body had been reduced to undetectable levels. They attributed the
improvement to the use of powerful drugs, including protease inhibitors. His wife Cookie gave the credit to God stating, The Lord has definitely healed Earvin. Doctors think its the medicine. We claim it in the
name of Jesus. The Johnsons attended the West Angles Church of God
in Christ, to which he donated $5 million in 1995. Calls to the Lakers
front office were not returned.
Journalistically speaking, this story is almost flawless, from the formal
rendering of Johnsons full name on first reference to the end-of-sentence
attribution, the judicious use of a quote, and the inclusion of relevant background. In fact, I could detect only one deviation from standard practice
the paragraphs are too longand four minor errors: the style in which Johnsons height is listed is incorrect, and theres one misplaced comma and one
missing comma. The story is entirely plausible primarily because Johnson
does, in fact, have AIDS, but also because the news media feed us a steady
diet of stories of celebrities dying young. If dead celebrity jokes give voice
to the grim satisfaction we may take in knowing that wealth and fame offer
no protection from disease and disaster, fake celebrity death news reports
seem to express folk exasperation with our cultures obsession with celebrity.
Phony grief for dead celebrities deserves to be met with phony stories about
dead celebrities. But the story has to be journalistically sound. On a scale of
1 to 5 from least to most plausible, and 1 to 5 from least to most journalistically sound, Id give the Magic Johnson a 5 for content and a 4 for mechanics.
Compare another dead celebrity story:
Los AngelesActor Will Ferrell accidentally died in a freak para-gliding accident yesterday in Torey Pines, Southern California. The accident
apparently happened somewhere near the famed paragliding site after

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

a freak wind gush basically blew Ferrell and his companion towards
a wooded area where they lost control before crashing into the dense
foilage.
Ferrell and his professional guide, Horacio Gomez of Airtek Paragliding Center attempted the jump at around 2 in the afternoon.
According to witnesses, the conditions were basically ideal for paragliding and the weather didnt pose a problem at all.
The jump started normally as Ferrell and Gomez glided carefully
across the vast area and were seemed headed into the righ direction
just before what witnesses said a freak wind somehow blew them off
course, causing the paragliding professional Gomez to somehow lose
control.
As horrified witnesses looked on, the duo headed straight for the
dense woods near the jump off point and crashed at an estimated 60
mph hitting the trees as they hurtled to the ground.
Some friends of the actor who witnessed the accident immediately
called up 911. The paramedics vainly attempted to revive the two on
their way to the nearby UCSD Thornton Hospital in nearby La Jolla.
The duo suffered major injuries to the head and broken bones that
caused the death of the two.
In an interview with Wills parents who was John W. Ferrell in real
life, Mary and Hubert Ferrell said their sonn died while doing one of
the things he loved the most.
Will was a graduate of the University of California where he finished his Sports Information Degree. Will was born on July 16, 1968.
He was 36.
In the world of celebrity deaths, this story is plausible enoughlets give
it a 4 on my 5-point scalebut for mechanics, it probably doesnt deserve
any higher than a 2.

The lead: Torrey, gust, and foliage are misspelled. The time element, which is the most
indispensable of the five Ws in a hard news lead, is missing. The two adverbs, basically
(which is repeated in paragraph 2) and apparently, are glaring examples of the sort of clutter journalists are trained to eschew. Instead of saying what apparently happened, a real
story would attribute that information to the police.

Paragraph 2: The comma is missing after Paragliding Center. The apostrophe in didnt is
misplaced.

183

184

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

Paragraph 3: The first sentence is poorly written and includes a typo in the word right. Neither
use of the word somehow belongs.

Paragraph 4: The sentence needs a comma.

Paragraph 5: The second nearby is superfluous, as is the word up in called up.

Paragraph 6: The phrase the two is awkward the first time it is used. Its repetition is even
more so. By now, surely some of the details of Ferrells death would be attributed to the police.

Paragraph 7: This sentence begins with a number of unnecessary words and awkward writing.
Son is misspelled. And again, Ferrell would be referred to by his last name, not his first.

Despite all the errors, the story was apparently posted on the i-newswire.
com press release distribution site, according to About.coms urban legends
site. Here is a third celebrity tragedy story:
Multi-platinum artist Marshall Mathers, known by the stage name
Eminem, was killed at 2:30AM EST while driving a rental car on his
way to a late-night party.
Mathers, who authorities believe was under the influence of alcohol
or drugs, was behind the wheel of a Saturn coupe that witnesses say
swerved to avoid a slow moving vehicle, then lost control and slammed
into a grove of trees.
The car was crumpled by the impact, making extraction of Mathers
body very difficult. He was declared dead on the scene by paramedics
who arriced a short time later.
Authorities would not comment on details surrounding the accident
other than to confirm the identity of the victim.
Mathers was 26.
This is a much cleaner piece of writing than the Will Ferrell piece (I count
one typo, one misplaced comma, and a lack of conformity to Associated
Press style on the time of the accident), but it has one glaring weakness:
its missing two of the five Ws. It tells us neither when the crash took place
nor where. The omission of the day might be understandable if we were to
assume the accident happened on the day the story was posted. The omission of the name of the city or town (or the law enforcement agency with
which the authorities are affiliated) where the accident occurred is simply
unheard of. That knocks the storys content plausibility rating down to about
a 2, while its mechanics rating is probably good for a 4. The next one is a
little different from the others:

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

Colts kicker Vanderjagt attempts life

By CLIFF BRUNT, Associated Press Writer
January 17, 2006
INDIANAPOLIS (AP)Colts kicker Mike Vanderjagt attempted to
take his own life yesterday at his Indianapolis home.
Carmel 911 received a frantic call from Janalyn Vanderjagt at
about 4:35 Monday evening. Apparently, Janalyn had just arrived
home along with the couples son Jay Michael. Janalyn found her
husband Mike attempting to hang himself in the couples bedroom.
Janalyn tried to persuade Mike to rethink what he was about to do.
Mike repeatedly attempted to kick the chair out from under him but
was unsuccessful.
Thats when Janalyn called 911. Police along with fire and rescue
were dispatched to the suburban Indianapolis home. Rescue personnel
were able to talk Vanderjagt down after about 10 minutes. Vanderjagt
remained in an area hospital today in stable condition.
Colts fans couldnt believe that the normally dependable Vanderjagt
missed a 46-yard field goal with 21 seconds left that could have sent
the game into overtime. They were equally shocked that the Colts, who
started the season with 13 straight wins and had the leagues best record,
trailed 21-3 heading into the fourth quarter.
The result was all too familiar, as Indianapolis has qualified for the
playoffs the last four seasons but hasnt reached the Super Bowl.
James Dungy, the 18-year-old son of Indianapolis Colts coach Tony
Dungy, was found dead in a Tampa-area apartment last month.
Dungy said that Vanderjagt did a great job for the Indianapolis Colts,
but the bottom line is he came up shortagain.
Initially, this story is even more convincing than our first example. It has
a headline, a dateline, a byline and a solid, no-nonsense lead. But in the
second paragraph it begins to break down in a number of significant ways.
A real news story would not assume everyone knows who Janalyn is. She
would be identified as Vanderjagts wife. The failure to deploy an apostrophe when neededtwicethough all too common among amateur writers,
amounts to a dead giveaway that we are not in the hands of a professional
journalist. Yes, journalists are notoriously sloppy, and its possible that there
are reporters out there who are apostrophe challenged, but its less likely that
no one on the copy desk caught the mistakes.

185

186

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

A story about two people with the same last name wreaks havoc with
the journalistic practice of identifying people by last name only after the
first reference, but in this story, standard procedure would be to consistently
refer to the kicker by his last name.
Finally, the story lacks attribution. The bit about Janalyn trying to talk
her husband out of his suicide attempt, in particular, would certainly be
attributed to the police instead of stated as something that apparently
happened.
The third paragraph contains an inconsistency: Carmel 911 is a specifically local reference, which might be familiar to local readers. But then we
learn that Vanderjagt is being treated in an unnamed area hospital.
But these are the kinds of things a journalism professor would notice.
Here is how some posters responded on a Web site called Sportsgamer.com:
holy ****, thats unbeleivable!....im guessing that will be all over the news
in a few minutes.
Thank god he missed the chair. You never want to see anyone take away
their own life. Its ironic that Vanderjagt tried to kill himself the same
way James Dungy reportedly took his life.
Why would you do that over a football game? I mean comeon there is
always next year!
But not everyone was so gullible:
This is one of the oldest jokes. Hey, the kicker that messed up the game
tried to kill himself . . . but he couldnt kick the chair out from under
him.
LMAO @ people believing this could be a real story. There are some
AHOTW nominees here for sure.
Anyone in here who believed it should be banned immediately. These
kinds of threads can be used as a good member weed out process.
Dont believe it but the guy who wrote it is a pretty good writer.
This last comment is telling: false though the story is, it looks and reads
like a real news story, at least to the untrained eye, though the last couple of

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

paragraphs reveal the fan disgruntlement that gave rise to the false report.
Id give the story a 3 on both content and mechanics.
The back-and-forth comments between those who believe the story, those
who are astonished at the gullibility of those who believe such an obvious
fake, and those who are appalled that anyone would fabricate such macabre tales, play out again and again on Web sites like Museumofhoaxes.com,
which has debunked stories of the demise of Paris Hilton, Britney Spears,
Michael Jackson, John Goodman, Eminem, Lou Reed, Justin Timberlake,
and Carl Lewis, among others.13 In some cases, the hoaxers go so far as to
duplicate the design of legitimate news sites like CNN or ABC News.
At the other extreme was a phony story about the death of the Napoleon
Dynamite star Jon Heder on the Web site Ninjahpirate.com. The writing is
atrocious, and the cheesy photo features a ghostly Heder floating out of the
wrecked car with a halo above his head and two cartoon deer cavorting in
the background (Heders car supposedly hit a deer). Nevertheless the story elicited four pages of hand-wringing comments from fans, along with
skeptics who noted that Ninjahpirate didnt even get Heders name right in
the headline (John instead of Jon) and that the mainstream news media
would certainly have reported Heders death. There were several jibes along
the lines of You guys are retarded, one writer who asked, on page 3, Why is
this conversation still going on? and one who offered the following spoof:
Jon Heder is certainly dead. He died in a five-way car crash among Paul
Mcartney, the ghost Elvis, John Goodman, and Louie Anderson. Next
time check the facts, its all there.
The conversation might have gone on longer had Museumofhoaxes
founder Alex Boese not called a halt: Im turning comments off on this
thread, because I think that just about everything interesting that could be
said about this topic has now been said.14 Responses to news of the alleged
suicide of Jaleel White, who played the nerdy character Steve Urkel on the
TV show Family Matters, went on for twelve pages. Some offer insight into
the peculiar relationship between actors and their fans:
I recd an email last week stating that Jaleel committed suicide. I sat at
my desk and cried. I so love this young man and was grieving over the
news.
O my word. I thought he was dead and I didnt know what to do. I dont
know him personally but i grew up watching him on t.v. and had me a

187

188

Dianas Halo: Newslore as Folk Media Criticism

little crush on some Steve. I kind of panicked and had to do a search for
him, thank God its not true.
I am so glad that he is alive. I have had the biggest crush on Jaleel White.
As Urkel, he was beautiful, I was totally into him.
My mom told me..and my heart started to race like you were a relative
of mine...
Other commentators had so little patience for celebrity worship, one
wonders why they were reading the posts at all:
I think its sad and pathetic that so many people even CARE. I mean,
hes a kid on a tv show, not Mother Teresa! Its one thing if you actually
KNOW him (and Im betting that 100% of you dont!), but its another to
put so much time and energy into worrying about someone youll never
even meet.
Stand up, walk away from the computer, and go do something productive with your lives! Feed the poor! Protest an unjust war! Teach
someone to read! DO SOMETHING!
Remarkably, Jaleel White himself weighed in, unless it was someone who
was claiming to be Jaleel White:
Im heartened to hear that so many people still love me all these years
after Family Matters aired. Im encourage by your love and support, but
sadly I have retired from acting and just want to live a quiet life with
my wife and daughter now. But who knows, maybe someday when my
daughter is grown and Im looking for something to replace my fulltime parenthood Ill try my hand at acting once again. Look for Urkel:
The Next Generation in about 15 years!
That broke at least one readers heart, or so she claimed:
WIFE AND KIDS???!!! NNooooo!!! Somebody stole my man!!!! She
bedda not slip up. Ima be at your door with a roast and potatoes. This is
Wifey material right hur!!15

Conclusion
Attention Must Be Paid, but for How Much Longer?

The Future of Newslore

When I started working on this book in the winter of 2006, I was surprised
at how much old newslore was still kicking around. Bill and Hillary Clinton jokes, in particular, remained popular although his presidency was long
past and her campaign for president had not yet begun. Jokes about the
2004 presidential candidates had not entirely supplanted jokes about the
2000 presidential candidates. Even jokes about many of the biggest newsmakers of the 1990sO. J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, Princess Diana, and
otherspersisted.
Before I finished the first draft of this book in 2008, I felt obliged to make
one final tour of cyberspace in search of the most up-to-date newslore. I did
so with trepidation, expecting to have to incorporate a substantial body of
new material pertaining to the 2008 presidential campaign. But there was
much less new material than I expected. Much of the Hillary Clinton lore
was recycled from her years as First Lady. One new set of related jokes, at
least to me, centered on her supposed lack of personal warmth:
Hillary Clinton is very concerned with the threat of global warming.
Shes afraid of melting.
There has been a cold front moving across the country during Hillarys
presidential campaign. It was coinciding with her campaign stops.
Hillary Clinton wont commission a Presidential portrait if shes elected.
Shell commission an ice sculpture instead.
However this campaign turns out, Stanley Fish predicted in early 2008,
Hillary-hating, like rock n roll, is here to stay.1 Barack Obama lore was
limited to a handful of rumors: he is a Muslim who used the Koran when he
189

190

Conclusion

was sworn into office and refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance; he was
endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan (!);Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez provided financial backing; hes the anti-Christ; he was not born in the United
States; he is a socialist/communist/fascist; and his health care reform proposal (really, it was Congresss health care reform proposal) would establish
government death panels charged with deciding which lives were worth
saving. Rumors, though related to folklore, particularly legends, lack an
artistic dimension; theyre not clever. They are more fake news than commentary on the real newswhich makes them more dangerous.2
A How to Tell Barack Obama Jokes entry on the eHow.com Web site
(How to Do Just About Everything) noted that Obama jokes were in short
supply and cautioned would-be jokers that hes on the road to sainthood
and mocking him in front of his faithful followers might lead to you being
stoned for blasphemy.3 A Barack Obama Jokes Web site alluded to the small
handful of Obama jokes on the Web and claimed to be the REAL Barack
Obama Jokes Website, but most of the jokes turned out to be recycled lawyer jokes, and one was a joke about the lack of Obama jokes:
Q: Why are there so few real Barack Obama jokes?
A: Most of them are true stories.4
At least as surprising was the paucity of jokes about New York governor
Eliot Spitzers sudden fall from grace when it was reported that he was consorting with high-priced hookers. On March 10, 2008, the Web site freerepublic.com put out the call: The Eliot Spitzer prostitution ring scandal is
the PERFECT situation for jokes. I am sure there will be a plethora of such
jokes. Therefore please post on this thread all Eliot Spitzer jokes that you
hear. Let this be the Eliot Spitzer Joke Resource Center.5 The last post, number 136, is dated March 16, 2008. Neither that one nor any of the previous 135
is especially funny.
Closer to the date when I put the manuscript to bed once and for all, I
searched for jokes about Sarah Palin, Wall Street swindler Bernie Madoff,
disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, and the latest sex-crazed politicians, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford and Nevada senator John
Ensign (and, while I was at it, former North Carolina senator John Edwards
and former Idaho senator Larry Craig, in case I had missed anything on
any of my earlier tours)and was again surprised at the slimness of the
pickings. Most of the Sarah Palin material, for example, was either recycled
numbskull-politician jokes (which is to say that most of them had already

Conclusion

been applied to Dan Quayle and then George W. Bush) or photoshopped

images of her head on a scantily clad body.6
Most of the jokes about John Edwards centered on his perfect blowdried hair, especially when news broke in 2007 that he had paid $400 for
a haircut. A parody of a classic soft-focus ad for Breck hair-care products
photoshopped Edwardss face onto the head of a model with flowing locks.
YouTube has a clip of Edwards combing his hair, then being hair-sprayed by
an aide, then checking his hair and making adjustments in a mirror, set to
the song I Feel Pretty from West Side Story.7 Then, the National Enquirer
reported that Edwards had fathered a child with a campaign worker with
whom he had an adulterous affair. Edwards eventually admitted to the affair
but denied he was the father of Rielle Hunters child. But the scandal inspired
this joke:
How do you get John Edwards to play with his illegitimate child?
Put it in front of a mirror.
Is it possible that the period around the turn of the twenty-first century
was the golden age of newslore? Possibly. I think back to when telephone
answering machines were new. The first users felt obliged to instruct callers in their use: Leave your name and number at the beep. As the recorders became more commonplace and their use spread from the office to the
home, owners began to assume that callers knew what to do. The announcement could be more personal and more playful. Some were so clever that
people who had called them before would urge their friends to call for their
sheer entertainment value, the way we might be eager to show a friend a
new YouTube clip today. Eventually, though, the clever answering machine
announcement became a clich. In deference to frequent callers who would
tire of even the wittiest song or patter after a while, one would have to continually update ones announcement, and it began to feel like one ought to
have better things to do.
I bought my first computer in the mid-1980s. I had my first experience
with e-mail around the same time: I was working at my first newspaper job,
and I was able to exchange messages with my newsroom colleagues (when I
complained, in response to an e-mail announcing that there were chocolate
chip cookies in Sports, that it was cruel to tantalize us bureau reporters with
treats that we couldnt get our hands on, someone photocopied the plate of
cookies and faxed the image to me). I had my first computer with a graphic
capability beyond glowing text on a dark background in the early 1990s.

191

192

Conclusion

My second such computer, bought in the late 1990s, provided a new thrill:
the ability to look at video clips. Each computer Ive used since has been
faster than the previous one, but not appreciably different. The little thrill of
anticipation triggered by AOLs Youve got mail prompt is long gone. These
days I feel about e-mail the same way I feel about snail mail: Sorting through
the junk has become another chore. I keep threatening to switch from being
alerted whenever new e-mail arrives to a system where I only check a couple
of times a day, but I havent done it yet. I use a computer so much for work
that Im less inclined to use it for play. If a lot of people are experiencing
this kind of e-mail fatiguein 2001 the Pew Internet and American Life
Project registered a shift in the Internets status from dazzling new thing to
purposeful tool8it might explain a decline in the amount of new e-mail
jokes and photoshops in circulation. In a similar vein, a 2005 survey of two
hundred e-mail users found that long-term users were less likely to forward
e-mailed folklore than new users.
I also notice a decline in the quality of the newer material, which, if true,
suggests that the early adopters, like the early answering machine wags,
have moved on and the Johnny-come-latelies simply arent as clever. The
Pew report found that newcomers tend to have lower levels of educational
attainment and lower incomes than the long-wired.9 One of the things people may have moved on to is the development of audio jokeseither song
parodies or remixes that combine audio clips from more than one source (if
you search for jokes about Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont
who ran for president in 2004, what you mostly find are multiple versions
of his famous scream speech after the Iowa caucuses, set to music)and
video jokes, whether homemade animations or recuts, defined by the New
York Times reporter Virginia Heffernan as videos that take existing photography and film and use music and new juxtapositions to create a story
thats at odds with a master narrative.10 Writing in 2005, William Gibson
declared that the remix is the very nature of the digital.11 In 2006 most of
the MasterCard Priceless parodies were send-ups of print ads. By 2008
many more of them were mock TV commercials. There is more humor on
YouTube pertaining to Madoff, Blagojevich, and the other recent additions
to the national rogues gallery than there is on the countless Web sites devoted to jokes, but most of the material consists of song parodies. Many of the
old joke Web sites, meanwhile, seem to have scarcely been updated since the
turn of the millennium.
The other thing Ive noticed about the humor Web sites is that many of
them are dominated by the latest bons mots of the late-night comedians.

Conclusion

Before the Internet, if Johnny Carson got off a particularly snappy one-liner, people might retell it around the water cooler the next day, but all but
the absolute classics would quickly fade away. Now, though, more people
probably hear the jokes from a secondary source than from the television
broadcast. As a result, perhaps, the output of the professional gag writers
may be crowding out the amateurs witticisms. Why wrack your brains trying to come up with an apt response to the days news when the pros are
right on top of it? For that matter, when youve got a guy like Vice President
Joe Biden routinely putting his foot in his mouth, why do anything at all
beyond posting footage of his latest gaffe on YouTube?
Netlore will be around as long as we use computers, just as face-to-face
folklore will be around as long as we continue to communicate face-toface, but now that the novelty has worn off, perhaps the mania for netlore
has peaked. Or at least thats what I thought until my in-box began filling
with Michael Jackson jokes in July 2009. It is interesting to note that I didnt
receive a single e-mailed joke in 2010 pertaining to the succession of women
who claimed to have had affairs with Tiger Woods after news broke that he
crashed his car near his home in the wee hours of the morning, but theyre
out there:
Q: Whats the difference between a car and a golf ball?
A: Tiger Woods can drive a ball 400 yards.
Q: What should Tiger Woods change his name to?
A: Cheetah Woods.
Obviously 19 holes wasnt enough for Tiger Woods.
Q: Whats the difference between Tiger Woods and Santa Claus?
A: Santa stops at three hos.
And here is a late-breaking variation on the joke with which I started this
book:
It is near the Christmas break of the school year. The students have
turned in all their work and there is really nothing more to do. All the
children are restless and the teacher decides to have an early dismissal.
Teacher: Whoever answers the questions I ask, first and correctly
can leave early today.

193

194

Conclusion

Little Johnny says to himself Good, I want to get outta here. Im

smart and will answer the question.
Teacher: Who said Four Score and Seven Years Ago?
Before Johnny can open his mouth, Susie says, Abraham Lincoln.
Teacher: Thats right Susie, you can go home.
Johnny is mad that Susie answered the question first.
Teacher: Who said I Have a Dream?
Before Johnny can open his mouth, Mary says, Martin Luther King.
Teacher: Thats right Mary, you can go.
Johnny is even madder than before.
Teacher: Who said Ask not, what your country can do for you?
Before Johnny can open his mouth, Nancy says, John F. Kennedy.
Teacher: Thats right Nancy, you may also leave.
Johnny is boiling mad that he has not been able to answer to any of
the questions.
When the teacher turns her back Johnny says, I wish these bitches
would keep their mouths shut!
The teacher turns around: NOW WHO SAID THAT?
Johnny: TIGER WOODS. CAN I GO NOW?
Before we take it entirely for granted, it is worth remarking on how much
our ability to instantaneously communicate with each other at a distance has
expanded in just a few decades. The change from telling stories and jokes
face-to-face and, in the twentieth century, by telephone to sharing them by
e-mail and Web site is a relatively small one, at least as far as content is
concerned. The ability to tell stories and jokes visually and aurally, through
the long-distance exchange of still and animated photographs and cartoons,
and through short audio and video clips, has launched what amounts to
a whole new branch of folklore that has few antecedents. For folklorists,
myself included, it will never be as much fun to study virtual storytelling
and joke telling as it is to observe the face-to-face variety, however rich the
material, but the one will never entirely supplant the other.
And the material is rich. Or, to put it more precisely, the phenomenon is
rich. That is, even if much of the material is utterly sophomoric, it is giving
the public a voice it never had before. The exchange of newslore may be
more slacktivist than activist, but it puts the politicians and the celebrities
and the news media on notice: the public is wise to them. People know when
theyre being deceived and when theyre being manipulated. By the time
George W. Bush left the White House, he was virtually naked. The same may

Conclusion

be said of all the media giants and media creations whose claims to authority or stature are stripped away in the material that fills this book.
Yet heres a paradox: while much newslore is grounded in skepticism, if
not cynicism, much of it feeds on credulousness. It is because we disbelieve
the noble version of President Bush offered to us by his handlers and the
respectful version offered by the news media that we are susceptible to the
most preposterous caricatures of President Bush. The explanation lies in the
steady erosion of trust in the mainstream news media. A July 2009 survey
of attitudes toward the press by the Pew Research Center for the People and
the Press found that the number of people who think the press is influenced
by powerful people/organizations or tends to favor one side had reached
all-time highs of 74 percent for each of those propositions. The number who
said the press was politically biased matched the all-time high of 60 percent
reached in 2005.12 Suggest to a person who swallows the Got Fish? photo
hook, line, and sinker (so to speak) that if the photo were authentic, we
would have seen it in the New York Times, and you will either be pitied or
scorned. The Times wouldnt print that. Theyre in bed with the powers that
be. If you want the real story, you have to go to www.wackadoo.com. (Of
course, when the Times prints something that one thinks it should not have
printed, it did so just to sell papers or because it has a bias that is opposite
to ones own.)
A curious state of affairs, to be sure. I dont profess to understand it. But
I hope I have at least convinced you of this: if you want to know who and
what Americans found ludicrous and dangerous around the beginning of
the third millennium, all you need to do is look at the newslore.

195

This page intentionally left blank

Appendix A

A Week in the Life of My In-Box: A Newslore Miscellany

On Sunday afternoon, February 12, 2006, I check the New York Times Web site, as has been
my custom since 9/11, to see if anything horrendous has happened since the morning papers
arrived on my doorstep. The breaking news is that Vice President Dick Cheney has accidentally shot a quail-hunting buddy in Texas. What strikes me immediately about the story is
not just that the vice president had shot somebody, but how he and the White House staff
seemed to be handling it. The accident happened on Saturday night. The story wasnt made
public until Sunday afternoon, and it came out in an odd manner: not from any announcement by Cheney or the White House but from a story on the Web site of the Corpus Christi
Caller Times, the result of a call Cheneys host made to the local paper. Then, while the vice
president remained out of view, members of the hunting party blamed the victim, Harry
Whittington, for failing to observe hunting protocol. My reaction, which turned out to be
the typical one, was that the incident perfectly illustrated the modus operandi of the Bush
administration: when things go wrong, try to suppress the news; then, if you cant, try to
blame somebody else.
The timing of the story was remarkable for me personally. I had asked my friend Michael
Yonchenko to help me collect e-mailed folklore from his friends on the day before the
shooting. The column in which I asked my readers to help me with this project appeared on
the day after the shooting. Here is what poured into my in-box in the days that followed:

Sunday, February 12

Two photoshops under the helpful subject line German Pope Makes Changes in Mass. The first shows
Pope Benedict XVI raising a glass of beer instead of a chalice of wine. The second shows him bearing a
pretzel where the Eucharist would be.

A talking parrot joke.

A set of attorney-witness exchanges supposedly taken from transcripts of real trials. The exchanges were

A joke about a psychiatrist and a proctologist.

A joke letter to the IRS:

preceded by a friendly warning to me: You may get more e-mail than you really want.

Dear IRS:
Enclosed is my 2005 tax return showing that I owe $3,407.00 in taxes. Please note
the attached article from USA Today, wherein you will see that the Pentagon is paying
$171.50 for hammers and NASA has paid $600.00 for a toilet seat.
197

198

Appendix A: A Week in the Life of My In-Box

I am enclosing four toilet seats (value $2,400) and six hammers (value $1,029),
bringing my total remitted to $3,429.00.
Please apply the overpayment of $22.00 to the Presidential Election Fund, as noted on my return. You can do this inexpensively by sending them one 1.5 Phillips Head
screw (article from USA Today detailing how HUD pays $22.00 each for 1.5 Phillips
Head Screws is enclosed for your convenience.)
It has been a pleasure to pay my tax bill this year, and I look forward to paying it
again next year.
Sincerely,
A Satisfied Taxpayer

Subject line: E-junk, followed by a series of amusing and, presumably, real, road signs. (My favorite: A
yellow, diamond-shaped sign says Open Range. Next to the sign is an oven with its door open.)

Monday, February 13

An outsourcing joke, in which the photoshop shows a man pedaling a stationary bicycle-like generator
that he is using to power up his laptop, the lid of which is labeled Microsoft Tech Support Center #25
Bombay.

Two Bush jokes (see chapter 5).

Tuesday, February 14
I, along with a hundred or so other people, received an extraordinary response to a rather
innocuous message that I and the same hundred or so other recipients had received the
day before. Here, in its entirety, is the first message (Ive changed the names and withheld the common denominator of this group of addressees to spare those involved any
embarrassment):
Everyone,
Hopefully, weve solved my e-mail problems . . . you can go back to using my original e-mail address. Thanks for your patience.
Dave
And here was the response:
Dave,
Ive asked you twice in private (once last year and once recently - both with no
response) so now Ill try asking in public and see if that gets any results...

Appendix A: A Week in the Life of My In-Box

Please....please, please, PLEASE stop listing everyone on the To line of your emails!
There is something called a BCC line that will still deliver the email to everyone, but
will hide the addresses from the recipients. [The URL for an online tutorial followed.]
Why should you do this?
1) My email address is now vulnerable to every email worm that may infect the
computer of anyone on this list.
2) It violates the privacy of everyone on this list. What if my email address was
[email protected]? Maybe I dont want it splashed all over the place after I submitted it to you in confidence.
3) My email address is now free for anyone on the list to grab and use for spam.
4) Everyone has to scroll through the whole thing in order to get to the meat of the
email. The headers of the email Im replying to were longer than the email itself!
While Im at it, may I suggest you clean up your list? I took the liberty of sorting
it all out for you. Here is a list of duplicate addresses and the number of times they
appear on your To line: [The list followed.]
As I said, Dave, Ive asked you to stop doing this twice before in private emails - you did not respond and did not stop. Im sure youre a nice guy and all but please be
more considerate and cautious when it comes to other peoples private information!
That message was followed, inevitably, by a succinct e-mail from another member of
that interminable list of addressees: I think youre nuts. In the future, kindly spare me your
rantings. And finally, a mea culpa message from the ranter:
To all (and particularly to Dave),
Rash actions are flattering to no one, nor is there any honor in refusing to admit to
mistakes. My mistake was including you all in my message to Dave who . . . does not
deserve public flogging.
Thus, in response to my public diatribe, I offer a public apology in its place.
I also offer a subscription-based email list which I can host for free. This would
allow users to add and remove themselves and provide moderation control if desired. I
will leave it up to Dave and the rest of you to decide if you want it.
Again . . . my apologies.
Aaron
Theres much to be learned from this little exchange. First, as Aarons message makes
clear, people handle their mass e-mailing chores in ways that reveal not only their technical
expertise but their familiarity with what has come to be called netiquette. Aaron obviously
finds it rude of Dave to make him scroll past all those addresses when they could all be
suppressed. As one who, for the purposes of this book, is interested in getting some idea
of how many generations of forwards preceded an item of newslores arrival in my in-box,
Im disappointed when the addresses have been deleted or suppressed, but generally, I see
Aarons point. Whats surprising about his diatribe is that in berating Dave about his breach
of netiquette he committed two more egregious breaches himself: he sent a message that

199

200

Appendix A: A Week in the Life of My In-Box

was meant only for one person to an entire list of people, which compounds the second sin
of flaming. All this hints at our growing impatience with the sheer volume of e-mail pouring into our in-boxes, and our inexperience at presenting our social selves in this strange
new world of communication. Both issues, volume and netiquette, underscore the risks of
forwarding newslore.
Here is what else arrived on Tuesday:

Lyrics to The Kennebunkport Hillbilly, sung to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song.

Another Bush joke (see chapter 5).

A Bill and Hillary joke dated February 7, 2001 (see chapter 2).

A Bill ClintonGeorge W. Bush joke dated February 9, 2001 (see chapter 5).

Then came the Cheney jokes:

A fake news story from the Onion, not attributed.

A list of Cheneys Top Ten Excuses from the Letterman show, not attributed.

An exchange between host Jon Stewart and correspondent Rob Corddry from The Daily Show.

A triple one-liner, the humor of which depends on ones knowing that Cheney has a heart problem, that
the Bush administration was fending off charges that it was engaging in illegal domestic surveillance,
and that the United States has been accused of torturing suspected terrorists in Iraq and through proxies in other countries:

After Cheney shot the guy he called out to the Secret Service: Save his heart! [Leno]
And then: OK, anyone else have a problem with domestic wiretaps?!
Before he shot him he reportedly tortured him for 30 minutes.

Two editorial cartoons and a photo collage of Cheney making a number of hand gestures, with the caption
Ten Ways Dick Cheney Can Kill You.

Wednesday, February 15

A transcript from Ye Olde Briefing Room, in which a presidential spokesman stonewalls questions about

Actual SAT answers from Arkansas.

Vice President Aaron Burrs role in the death of Alexander Hamilton, attributed to salon.com.

Thursday, February 16
There were the usuals: Russell Frank, I am calling from Benin republic West Africa and
Congratulations, You Have Won US$500,000.00. Funny that we dont even bat an eyelash
anymore when we see such tidings. Then came a poem consisting of verbatim quotes from

Appendix A: A Week in the Life of My In-Box

George W. Bush, attributed to a Washington Post writer, a fake news story from Salon, and
still more Bush jokes (see chapter 5).
While Im getting all this e-mail, and the late-night comedians are doing their thing,
the newspapers are printing sidebars to the hunting accident story about the jokes. The key
to this departure from standard operating procedure is that the shooting victim was not
considered to be in any danger. On Wednesday, Cheney comes out from behind various
administration spokespersons and takes responsibility for the accident. This does not stem
the tide of e-mailed jokes about the incident.
How about this one? a colleague asks. Its an animated game. Cheney raises his
shotgun. A covey of quail flies up from the trees. Click your mouse when you want
Cheney to shoot. I do so. Cheney spins and shoots one of the three people standing off
to the side.

Friday, February 17

Unconfirmed Urban Myth (1/19/02): Hard Laughter:

A female news anchor in Michigan, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and
didnt, turned to the weatherman and asked, So Bob, wheres that eight inches you
promised me last night?
Not only did the weatherman have to leave the set, but half the crew did too,
because they were laughing so hard.

Five Enron/Arthur Andersen jokes (see chapter 6).

Two unattributed political jokes (one of which is a metajoke):

I dont approve of political jokes . . . Ive seen too many of them get elected.
How come we choose from just two people for President and 50 for Miss America?

A Social Security joke:

Kathy and Suzy are having a conversation during their lunch break.
Kathy asks, So, Suzy, hows your sex life these days?
Suzy replies, Oh, you know. Its the usual, Social Security kind.
Social Security? Kathy asked quizzically.
Yeah, you get a little each month, but its not really enough to live on.

A couple of Bill Clinton jokes, one of which is in chapter 2. Here is the other:

Clinton is in the supermarket picking up some things for the new office in New York
when a stock boy accidentally bumps into him.

201

202

Appendix A: A Week in the Life of My In-Box

Pardon me, the stock boy says.

Sure, Clinton replies, but itll cost you.

An oversexed and hypocritical pastor joke:

Jesse Jackson, Jim Baker, and Jimmy Swaggert have written an impressive new book. . . .
Its called: Ministers Do More Than Lay People.

A George W. Bush joke (see chapter 5).

The Cheney joke of the day is a two-panel photo cartoon. In the first panel, Dick Cheney is
on the phone; in the second, Bill Clinton is on the phone. Cheney is saying, Billinterested
in doing a little quail hunting next weekend?? Bring the wife!

Saturday, February 18

An Arthur Andersen joke (see the introduction).

Three Bush jokes, two of which are in chapter 5. Heres the other:

Q: How many members of the Bush administration does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Ten.
1. One to deny that a light bulb needs to be changed;
2. One to attack the patriotism of anyone who says the light bulb needs to be changed;
3. One to blame Clinton for burning out the light bulb;
4. One to tell the nations of the world that they are either for changing the light bulb or
for eternal darkness;
5. One to give a billion dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton for the new light bulb;
6. One to arrange a photograph of Bush, dressed as a janitor, standing on a step ladder
under the banner Bulb Accomplished;
7. One administration insider to resign and in detail reveal how Bush was literally in
the dark the whole time;
8. One to viciously smear No. 7;
9. One surrogate to campaign on TV and at rallies on how George Bush has had a
strong light-bulb-changing policy all along;
10. And finally, one to confuse Americans about the difference between screwing a light
bulb and screwing the country.

A newspaper joke:

Five cannibals get jobs at a newspaper. During the welcoming ceremony the managing
editor says, Youre all part of our team now. You can earn good money here, and you

Appendix A: A Week in the Life of My In-Box

can go to the cafeteria for something to eat. So please dont trouble any of the other
employees. The cannibals promised.
Four weeks later the boss returns and says, Youre all working very hard, and Im
very satisfied with all of you. However, one of our janitors has disappeared. Do any of
you know what happened to him?
The cannibals all shake their heads no.
After the boss has left, the leader of the cannibals says to the others, Which of you
idiots ate the janitor?
A hand raises hesitantly, to which the leader of the cannibals replies, You fool! For
four weeks weve been eating copy editors and supervisors and no one noticed anything, and you have to go and eat the janitor!

25 Rules for Being a Loyal Republican

1) You have to believe that the nations recent and sorrowfully-missed 8-year prosperity
was due to the work of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but that yesterdays gas prices
are all Clintons fault.
2) You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.
3) You have to be against government programs, but expect your Social Security and
farm subsidy checks on time.
4) You have to believe that government should stay out of peoples lives, yet you want
government to ban same-sex marriages and determine what your official language
should be.
5) You have to believe that pollution is ok, so long as it makes a profit.
6) You have to believe in prayer in schools, as long as you dont pray to Allah or
Buddha.
7) You have to believe that only your own teenagers are still virgins.
8) You have to believe that a woman cannot be trusted with decisions about her own
body, but that large multinational corporations should have no regulation or interference whatsoever.
9) You believe Jesus loves you, and by the way, Jesus shares your hatred of AIDS victims, homosexuals, and President Clinton.
10) You have to believe that society is colorblind and growing up black in America
doesnt diminish your opportunities, but you still wont vote for Alan Keyes.
11) You have to believe that it was wise to allow Ken Starr to spend $50 million dollars
to attack Clinton because no other U.S. presidents have ever been unfaithful to their
wives.
12) You have to believe that a waiting period for purchasing a handgun is bad because
quick access to a new firearm is an important concern for all Americans.
13) You have to believe it is wise to keep condoms out of schools, because we all know
if teenagers dont have condoms they wont have sex.

203

204

Appendix A: A Week in the Life of My In-Box

14) You have to believe that the ACLU is bad because they defend the Constitution,
while the NRA is good because they defend the Constitution.
15) You have to believe that socialism hasnt worked anywhere, and that Europe doesnt
exist.
16) You have to believe the AIDS virus is not important enough to deserve federal
funding proportionate to the resulting death rate and that the public doesnt need to be
educated about it, because if we just ignore it, it will go away.
17) You have to believe that biology teachers are corrupting the morals of 6th graders
if they teach them the basics of human sexuality, but the Bible, which is full of sex and
violence, is good reading.
18) You have to believe that Chinese communist missiles have killed more Americans
than handguns, alcohol, and tobacco.
19) You have to believe that even though governments have supported the arts for 5000
years and that most of the great works of art were paid for by governments, our government should shun any such support. After all, the rich can afford to buy their own
and the poor dont need any.
20) You have to believe that the lumber from the last one percent of old-growth U.S.
forests is well worth the destruction of those forests and the extinction of the several
species of plants and animals that live there.
21) You have to believe that we should forgive and pray for Newt Gingrich, Henry
Hyde, and Bob Livingston for their marital infidelities, but that bastard Clinton should
have been convicted.
22) You have to believe that 50,456,169 is a higher number than 50,996,116.
23) You have to believe that having a mandate is defined as losing the popular vote.
24) You have to believe a woman should be pretty and in her place, unless she is a
right-wing spokesperson or radio advice show hostess, in which case she should be
petty and in your face.
25) You have to believe that even though you attack scientists and the intellectual elite
as godless, and try to prevent their discoveries and theories from being discussed in
the public schools, you should take advantage of their labors to extend your life and
improve its quality.

A week later, my friend Michael and I exchange the following e-mails:

Michael: Are my sources coming through for you?
Me: Loud & clearits a big help.
Michael: Your sources? I dont understand.
Me: YOU wrote Are my sources coming through for you? ya nimrod.
Michael: Let me try to explain again. You see the highlighted part below? So I thought
you wrote that back to me, not realizing that it was the attachment of my email to you.
So you see....oh, nevermind.

Appendix A: A Week in the Life of My In-Box

Michael, later the same day:
OK...its been a very crazy day. Let me set the record straight on the email exchange we
had today. But first, let me sound off. I love to sound off.
I hate all digital means of communications. Yes! Commander Buttons wants to
resign his commission. I cant take it anymore. I had to replace my cell phone/Palm
Pilot this week. I wanted the same model as the one I lost on a fishing expedition on
Kauai (the second time Ive done this in 2 years....a personal best). It is no longer made.
So I get the new Treo 650 (which has already been replaced by the Treo 700). Because
I need a phone that is Mac compatible, the only other choice was a Blackberry and for
too many reasons to explain right now I definitely didnt want one. So Im saddled with
the Treo 650.
This thing can do everything but make an espresso. It may be able to, but I havent
figured out how to make it work. It can do so many things that I will never use. But in
order for all of these things to work I will need an engineering degree. I dont want a
memo pad that is different from a task application which is different from a graffiti
pad which is different from a graffiti-2 pad. I dont need 3 different email applications. I dont need the camera or camcorder. I suspect I can launch a missile attack with
this thing....or maybe Im looking at one of the many games I can play. ALL I WANT IS
A CELL PHONE, CONTACT LIST, CALENDAR AND EMAIL!!! I can even live without the email!!!
The buttons are tiny. And given that Arthur Itis is beginning to set up housekeeping
in my body, this presents problems. (If the body is the temple of my soul, then mine is
the Temple of Doom). I make too many wrong mistakes...as Yogi would say (hes the
Zen Master of my temple).
I have spent a week trying to eliminate all the applications I call the fluff stuff ...too
much fluff stuff on this damn thing. I have been on the phone with tech support several times this week. Not because Im making too many wrong mistakes, but because this
thing is full of bugs. Although they insist it is Mac compatible, they did not thoroughly
test or debug the applications. They are doing this in the marketplace using customers as test subjects. I am their beta-test site. And at the risk of sounding intolerant, I
dont like talking to the support people in India because their accents are impossible
to understand on bad phone lines. I have had to apologize and ask politely to speak to
someone else because I cant understand what is being said. And these people are so
wonderfully patient and polite that I cant even consider getting frustrated or annoyed!
So instead I snarl at Pinky and he doesnt understand that he didnt do anything wrong.
So then he runs to Lea and she knows that I am having a problem with the Treo and
she yells at me. I hide under my desk. Im a bad dog.
And dont get me started on email. It is as primitive a form of modern communications as can be. It is fast, but it leaves you without enough information or understanding. There is no tone of voice. There is no body language. And on top of it all nobody

205

206

Appendix A: A Week in the Life of My In-Box

writes good (I know....Im just making a point). The language is clipped, cryptic and
full of acronyms, abbreviations and is written without punctuation. I went to the store
to do my grocery shopping, becomes: went to store. groceries. I find out that people
are feeling insulted by my emails because they cant hear that I am joking about the
subject of our discussion. Puns are pointless. Sarcasm cant be understood. The laughter in my voice cant be heard. So now I have to say something with (a joke) typed
next to what I have written.
Just look at the simple email exchange we had today.
I wrote:
Are my sources coming through for you?
This is the response I got from you:
Loud & clearits a big help.
Are my sources coming through for you?
I responded:
Your sources? I dont understand.
You responded:
YOU wrote Are my sources coming through for you? ya nimrod.
Your sources? I dont understand.
The previous sentence is the very core of our misunderstanding each other. As
is usually the case, your email listed my original question without the date and time
quotation of my original email. Therefore, I thought you were also asking me Are my
sources coming through for you? Get it?
Me neither.
Huh? Im thinking Why are Russs resources talking to me, who are they and what
did I need from them or what does Russ think I need? Am I really being a Nimrod? Or
is Russ making a joke? Or is he angry that Im confused and taking up too much of his
time? Is he really that busy? How can folklore be busy work? You cant rush folklore.
Theres no rushing in folklore. Perfessers dont ever rush. Thats what makes Russ a
good folklore perfesser. Am I being insulted? Should I tell him to go to hell? So now
we are no longer addressing the simple subject at hand. We are now talking about what
we THOUGHT we were talking about and what the intent of our words may or may
not, have or have not, will or will not be or been.
And Im trying to do this on Treo 650 that doesnt work in American English, that
has tiny buttons. Im trying to do this while Im driving and listening to the NPR report
on the copyright infringement lawsuit brought against the makers of the Blackberry.
You know how much I love the buttons. But they dont love me anymore. I could
make them sing in the past, but now their tune seems like an aria from a Wagner (pronounced VAHGNUH) opera. Just give me a crayon, a piece of paper and a stamped
envelope and Im cool.
Murray Gotz,
Cmdr. Buttons (ret.)

Appendix A: A Week in the Life of My In-Box

Here are the totals for the week: 12 Bush jokes, 9 Cheney jokes, 6 Enron jokes, 3 Bill and/
or Hillary Clinton jokes, and 14 miscellaneous jokes, half of which I would consider newslore in the sense that you have to have been paying attention to the news to understand the
jokes.
One other postscript. On March 1, 2006, I received an e-mail with the following subject line, misspelling and all: FWD: Chenney shot a lawyer. Oh good, I thought, another
Cheney joke. Here is what was in the body of the message: Its time to save on medicines!
More than 900 medsincluding Cialis, Viagra, and Levitra. Discreet package to your
door! Shipped from Canada! I must salute whoever sent this e-mail. Such stuff pours into
my in-box every day, and its usually obvious enough that I can route it right into the trash
without opening it. This one fooled me, and the way it fooled me is a measure of the mania
for Cheney hunting jokes in the winter of 2006.

207

This page intentionally left blank

Appendix B

Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

Hot Topics
The idea that there was a book to be written about newslore began to take shape as I contemplated the growing body of e-mailed jokes and urban legends forwarded by friends or
family. I would have been happy to limit my study to this material if I thought I could get
enough of it, because I like the way e-mailed newslore, unlike many humor Web sites, is
subjected to the quality control standards of this peculiar marketplace.
As the volume of e-mail has grown and the percentage of it that could be considered
junk mail has risen, most of us have become reluctant to forward netlore to our friends
unless we believe it will be worth their time to look at. In a review of Send: The Essential
Guide to Email for Home and Office,1 Dave Barry, in his hyperbolic style, gives us a good idea
of the widespread scorn for Internet sludgeand the people who forward it:
You received a message addressed to many recipientsoften a much-recycled joke,
story, list, urban myth, etc. There are millions of these floating around; many of us simply delete them unread. But you, the Reply All abuser, read it and decide to respond
with some clever comment of your own (such as LOL). And instead of hitting Reply,
which would inflict your reply only on the sender, you hit Reply All, thereby forcing everybody on the recipient list to receive, and delete, yet another useless piece of
e-mail. Please do not take this personally, Reply All people, but: everybody hates you.
We hate you almost as much as we hate the people who mass-mail this Internet sludge
in the first place.2
In other words, the same considerations that govern our decision to seize the floor in
face-to-face conversations apply in cyberspace. Though we are not the creators of the material, our judgment is under scrutiny. We get mildly irritated at those who waste our time;
we appreciate those who offer welcome diversion from our laborsand give us something
good to pass along in turn, to our own credit. I am struck, in this regard, by the various ways
forwarders vouch for the quality of their material. Common subject lines include:

This is interesting

Thought-provoking

This is VERY important

AMAZING

209

210

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

Please read this!!!

This you have to SEE!!!!!

ABSOLUTELY a MUST READ

And so on. Within the body of the e-mail, one sees apologia like these:

Please do not take this for a junk letter.

I thought this was a scam myself, but . . .

To all of my friends, I do not usually forward messages, but . . .

I know everyone receives jokes and junk mail and tends to forward nonsense through their mailing lists
[but . . . ]

Though forwarding tells us nothing specific about any given recipients response to an
item of netlore, it tells us one important thing: that the forwarders had enough confidence
in their audiences response to believe that forwarding would enhance their prestige or at
least do it no harm. The risks of forwarding may be slight compared to the risks of live
performance3but forwarding is a choice. One makes it with the awareness that addressees
might be either grateful or annoyed to receive the item in question. (On the other hand,
notes Brad Templeton, founder of the Rec.funny.net site, the forwarders of written humor
have none of the advantages at the disposal of the oral joke teller: You dont get the advantage of delivery, surprise or a funny face. You dont get a drunk audience [usually] or a
chance to use your great German accent. You must prepare a joke that stands on its own.4)
A fair question at this point is, why be concerned with quality at all? If the ethnographers job is to offer a representative, if not complete, accounting of a given cultural phenomenon, why not present the lead balloons as well as the zingers? Here it must be admitted that folklore studies have long been driven by researchers aesthetic appreciation of the
material. Appreciation has driven advocacy: we exhibit or write about what we collect in
the field not just to help complete the record of human culture but to expose the beauty
or power of the work to a wider audience and thereby engender respect for the makers
of the work.5 In folklore as in journalism, documentation and advocacy often go hand in
hand. Conversely, inferior items of folklore, which include objects that exhibit shoddy
workmanship, unfunny jokes, dull stories, or musically or lyrically insipid songs, would only
reinforce notions that nothing but the output of professional or elite artists or performers is
worthy of our attention and respect. As it is, the discipline of folklore has had to struggle to
overcome a sense that the arts it champions possess, at best, a crude or simple charm, which
pales in comparison with the canonical works of fine literary, musical, or visual art. A similar hierarchical view obtains even in the world of humor: as we have seen, the jokes of the
professionals who write material for Jay Leno, David Letterman, and the other mainstays of
late-night television are accorded a privileged place on Web sites devoted to humor.
So yes, if Im writing a book about jokes, I do so conscious that critical and market reception of the book will depend, in part, on whether readers agree with my assessment of the
cleverness of the material. But we mustnt overlook the functional dimension of aesthetics.

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

Items of folklore circulate and remain in circulation because theyre good. We might even
say that the circulation of jokes and stories is what makes them folklore. Whats useful about
this formulation is that it solves one of the thorniest problems of dealing with Internet
humor, the problem of professionalism and copyright. As broad as the definition of folklore
has become, we stop short of saying that the jokes Jay Leno tells on The Tonight Show or the
parodies that appear on the Onion Web site are folklore, at least initially. But netizens are
notoriously casual when it comes to attribution. If people see or hear a joke they like, they
pass it on, usually without bothering to say where they got it. So one of the things that has
troubled me as I grappled with the material that fit the theme of this book is what would
happen if I traced an oft-e-mailed joke back to a professional source.
The day after the news broke that Vice President Cheney had accidentally shot a hunting companion in February 2006, for example, I received a list of Top Ten Cheney Excuses,
unattributed to any source (see appendix A for a detailed accounting of the Cheney lore that
circulated that week). Top Ten lists are a regular feature of the Letterman show, but they also
inspire people to compose their own. Was this a Letterman list or a Letterman-like folk
list? It was easy to find out it was from Letterman. Does this disqualify it from consideration
as folklore though it may closely resemble a joke whose provenance cannot be determined?
Is known authorship or payment for services rendered a meaningful disqualifier? Tracing a
joke to its source is a practical matter. Its silly to make the success or failure of this sort of
detective work determinative of whether the joke is folklore or something else. If we make
circulation a criterion, provenance ceases to matter. Whatever its source, a joke retold (and
retold and retold) becomes folklore by virtue of the retelling. Its creator, even if he or she
wants to sue for copyright infringement, should be flattered.
Thus my preference for forwarded e-mail, or forwards (or forwardables).6 But knowing that all the items that came my way were popular was not the same as knowing that all
the popular items were coming my way. I had to consider the possibility that I was out of the
loop, relatively speaking. My network of acquaintances may not be as large as that of, say, my
friend Michael Yonchenko, who travels often on business and, as an independent video producer, works with many clients and freelancers. I suspect he also has geekier friendstechie
types who spend more time on the Internet than my friends do. To augment my certainly
incomplete and possibly even woefully incomplete trove of newslore, I did several things.
First I asked Yonchenko to ask his e-mail cohort to add me to the group of addressees to
whom they usually send items that tickle their fancy, and I took shameless advantage of my
position as a columnist with my local newspaper to let my readers know what I was looking
for. Those pleas bore fruit, but I still felt obliged to augment the e-mailed material with the
overwhelmingly vast collections on various Web sites.
There are a lot of them, especially for jokes. The folklorist Elliott Oring pinpoints the
problem with this kind of Web site: often its more like an archive than a repertoire.7 Putting it another way, the Web masters dont see themselves as gatekeepers, deciding which
material deserves a wider audience. In keeping with the democratic spirit that informs
much of the Web, they would rather let site visitors rate the jokes than do it for them. Some
of the sites keep lists of the most frequently e-mailed items; others tout their most popular

211

212

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

categories. In January 2006, for example, About.coms political humor page guided visitors
to funny pictures, political cartoons, doctored photos, and parodies mocking President
Bush, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Jenna and Barbara Bush, and the 2004 presidential election. By August
2010 an updated version of the list replaced doctored photos and parodies with dumbest
quotes and late-night jokes. Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, John Kerry, Bill Clinton,
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jenna and Barbara Bush, and the 2004 election were subtracted;
Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, and Joe Biden were added.8 Thus do the public world of the
Web sites and the private world of personal e-mail recipient lists overlap: a surfer can find
a good joke on a Web site, copy and paste it into an e-mail, and let the forwarding begin.
Web sites such as Jokesgallery.com make it easier for us. The site enables one to compose
a message and send a joke to as many as ten friends, or post it to ones social network. One
can also subscribe to the JokesGallery online newsletter and receive hundreds of jokes each
week via e-mail.9
Much of the material on the humor Web sites, I was relieved to discover, was pretty
lame, from which I inferred that it had not circulated as much as the material I received
via e-mail or material that made the lists of most e-mailed. The most useful humor site
for my purposes was Rec.funny.net, which subjects all submissions to the site moderators
own critical eye, with a view toward keeping the archive a manageable size. Since keeping
the data set to a manageable size was an important consideration for me also, I wound up
relying on Rec.funny.net as my guide to the best jokes. But first I had to decide which joke
topics to include. For that I went to the Associated Press annual lists of the top ten stories
of the year. If newslore is folk commentary on the news, I reasoned, the most newsworthy
stories of the year would generate the most jokes. But what makes a story newsworthy? Pick
up any news-writing textbook, and somewhere near the beginning the authors will offer a
list of the elements of newsworthiness that usually looks something like this:

Impact: occurrences that affect large numbers of people in significant ways are more newsworthy than
either occurrences that affect small numbers of people in significant ways or occurrences that affect
large numbers of people in insignificant ways.

Prominence: the doings of prominent peopleoffice holders, captains of industry, celebrity actors, ath-

Proximity: people are more interested in the nearby than the faraway. For a national press organization

letes, artists and intellectualsare of greater interest than the doings of ordinary citizens.
like the AP, that means stories that directly affect America or Americans are of greater interest than stories that do not. The same would turn out to be true when it came to folklore: I found much less material
pertaining to foreign disasters and political upheavals than to domestic ones.

Novelty: we are more interested in unusual occurrences than we are in usual ones.

Conflict: clashes of ideas, nations, constituencies, and individuals are inherently dramatic.

Timeliness: obviously the news concerns itself with whats new. World War II contained all the elements
listed earlier in ample measure, but it isnt newsworthy now unless theres a timely hook such as an
anniversary, publication of a book, release of a film, or death of someone who played a prominent role.

Death and destruction: though death and destruction are inherently high-impact events and may be a
result of conflict or unusual occurrences, like the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, some textbook

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

writers break them out into their own category in acknowledgment of our interest in fatal car accidents
or structure fires that might not involve large numbers of people or any prominent people but are still
considered worthy of notice, perhaps because they remind us of the transient nature of life and material
goods.

It stands to reason that the more of these elements that come into play, the more newsworthy an occurrence becomes. Though coverage of the 1994 case in which O. J. Simpson
was accused of murdering his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman
was widely criticized for being excessive, which is to say, out of all proportion to its impact,
if we look at how many other newsworthy elements were involved, its easy to see why it got
the coverage it did, and why, despite many peoples protestations to the contrary, they followed it so avidly. A corollary hypothesis might be that the more elements of newsworthiness involved in a story, the more we are likely to see a folkloric response. (The OJ story was
a huge folklore generator.)
The AP lists, it turns out, are a mixed bag. On one hand, they tend to include stories that
were big on impact, but short on the other elements. Stories about the economy, taxes, or rising oil prices are hardy perennialsthey appeared on the AP list six times in ten yearsbut
they arent about events or people so much as they are about ongoing trends. As such, I did not
expect to find much newslore in response to these kinds of stories, and, in fact, I did not.
The AP lists are also partial to stories about the deaths of well-known personages: Princess Diana, Mother Teresa, John F. Kennedy Jr., Ronald Reagan, Yasir Arafat, Michael Jackson, and Ted Kennedy all made the lists. These seemed more promising. In a column about
APs top ten for 1997, which included both Diana and Mother Teresa, Richard Roeper had
no quarrel with the sensational and unexpected death of Diana but took exception to the
unsurprising death of Mother Teresa at eighty-seven.10 Roeper invoked the water cooler
standard in crafting his own alternative top ten list for 1997: he didnt deny that the APs top

AP

Roeper

1. The death of Princess Diana

1. Princess Diana

2. The conviction and sentencing of Oklahoma

City bomber Timothy McVeigh

2. The [Andrew] Cunanan saga

3. The death of Mother Teresa

3. Au pair trial

4. Bullish U.S. stock markets

4. The Iowa septuplets

5. The cloning of a Scottish sheep

5. Tiger Woods

6. Birth of McCaughey septuplets

6. Heavens Gate cult suicide

7. Tobacco settlement

7. The JonBenet Ramsey investigation

8. Pathfinder explores Mars

8. O. J. Simpsons civil trial

9. Fund-raising scandals dog the Democrats

9. Marv Albert scandal

10. Suicide of Heavens Gate cult members

10. Ellen DeGeneres leaps out of the closet

213

214

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

stories were important, but he argued that other stories were more talked about.11 Here are
APs list and Roepers list side by side (items that appear on both lists are in bold):
Newsworthiness aside, Roeper wrote, thats what people were talking about in 1997.12
What people were talking about, what captured peoples imaginations, would probably be
as good a predictor of newslore as one might find. No one, to my knowledge, has followed
Roepers lead in compiling an annual alternative most-talked-about stories list, but the Center for Media and Public Affairs compiles a list of the most-joked-about topics by televisions late-night comedians year in and year out, and it stands to reason that what those
guys find joke-worthy is fodder for amateur jokesters as well, especially when we factor in
the likelihood that the late-night comedians set the joking agenda for the country.13 (When
Dan Quayles name surfaced as a possible presidential candidate in 2000, a joke suggested
that the late-night comedians would be glad to have him back in public life: I recently saw
a poll on the news showing that Dan Quale had 7% of the Republican support. I found this
very disturbing - I had not realized that such a large majority of our nations comedians were
Republicans.) So I also relied on CMPAs lists to point me toward my subject matter. Here,
for example, is the CMPA list for 1997:
1. Bill Clinton
2. O. J. Simpson
3. Al Gore
4. Janet Reno
5. Hillary Clinton
6. Newt Gingrich
7. Boris Yeltsin
8. Bob Dole
9. Paula Jones
10. Rudy Giuliani

Looking at a dozen years worth of CMPA lists reveals several distinct patterns. First,
the joke targets are all people, not topics like the economy or oil prices. Second, most of the
people are politicians. (They are also mostly men, but that follows from their being mostly
politicians.) Third, Bill Clinton has had remarkable staying power as a joke target, remaining at or near the top of the list even after he left the White House. Here is my own composite list of top joke targets based on years on the CMPA list from 1997 to 2008 (numbers for
2007 are missing from the CMPA Web site):
1. Bill Clinton (11 for 11)
2. George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton (9 for 11)
3. Dick Cheney, Al Gore (8 for 11)
4. Saddam Hussein, Arnold Schwarzenegger (4 for 10)
5. O. J. Simpson, Janet Reno, Monica Lewinsky, Martha Stewart, Osama bin Laden (3 for 10)

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

The only other surprise on this list apart from Bill Clintons dominance is former U.S.
attorney general Janet Reno. My suspicion, soon confirmed, was that most of the jokes had
to do with her central role in the protracted battle over custody of the six-year-old Cuban
refugee Elian Gonzalez in 2000. But I was also reminded that she ran (unsuccessfully) for
governor of Florida in 2002 and took some of the blame for the FBIs disastrous raid on
the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993 (the raid itself proved to be fertile
ground for jokes).14 The crucial limitation of the CMPA list as a guide to joking in general is that sick jokes are underrepresented. Specifically, the late-night comedians are much
more circumspect about celebrity deaths than they are about celebrity sex scandals. Note
the absence of Princess Diana.
As for the APs annual top ten list, these are the stories that generated the most newslore
over the past ten years and that I therefore examined or at least mentioned in this book,
along with most of the names in my top five CMPA list earlier:

Princess Diana (no. 1 in 1997)

The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal (no. 1 in 1998)

Y2K and the millennium (no. 4 in 1999)

John F. Kennedy Jr. dies (no. 5 in 1999)

Presidential elections (no. 1 in 2000, 2004, and 2008)

Elian Gonzalez custody dispute (no. 2 in 2000)

Microsoft breakup ordered (no. 6 in 2000)

September 11 attacks (no. 1 in 2001)

Corporate scandals (no. 4 in 2002) / economic meltdown (no. 2 in 2008)

Hurricane Katrina (no. 1 in 2005)

Michael Jackson dies (no. 7 in 2009)

Hot Genres
Every new communication medium becomes a new way to transmit folklore. Jokes and stories told face-to-face can easily be told and quickly spread over the telephone, and though
jokes and stories may arise that involve the phone itselfthe urban legend about the babysitter who takes a call from a murderer on the premises comes to mind15it is hard to see how
the medium has given rise to new forms of folklore. Fax machines and computers, on the
other hand, have not only served as media for the communication of folklore but provided
the tools for the creation and transmission of new forms of folklore. Forms of expression
like the composite photograph, the phony document, or the video production may not be
new, but computer applications have so reduced the cost and labor-intensiveness of producing them that they are available to amateurs and may be disseminated by amateurs on
a scale that was simply not possible before. Here I will discuss in greater detail the forms of
newslore we have encountered in this book.

215

216

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

e Fake Photograph: Beyond the Jackalope
There is nothing new about the doctored photograph.16 The apparent verisimilitude of the
photographic image drew pranksters right from the start. Photos could be faked before the
film was exposed, by arranging a tableau, and after, by cutting out one image and pasting
it onto another. Folklorists have been interested in two types of hoax photograph: spirit
photographs, which purport to capture ghosts and other otherworldly manifestations on
film,17 and tall-tale photographs, which typically show a gigantic fruit or vegetable on a
farm wagon or railroad flatcar, or a chimerical beast like the jackalopehalf jackrabbit, half
antelope.18 As the name implies, the tall-tale postcard is offered as real; gullible souls like I
was at age twelve when I saw my first jackalope card might even believe it.
The best of these images are pretty seamless; if you disbelieve them, it isnt because the
cutting and pasting were poorly executed but because you know enough about the world
to doubt the existence of super-sized potatoes or antlered rabbits. But when the cutting
and pasting involved real scissors or knives and real paste, the task took considerable skill.
And still there was the problem of the slightly raised surface of the superimposed image,
resolved only by taking a photograph of the photograph. At that point, the project became
not just labor-intensive but costly.19 Computers, then, dont allow us to do what could not be
done before as much as they allow us to do it better, more easily, and, aside from the initial
outlay for hardware or softwarepresumably purchased for purposes other than doctoring photographsless expensively. This, logically, makes it more likely that people with a
modicum of skill will doctor photographs just for the fun of it. As a result, digitally altered
photographs, or photoshops, as they are called by aficionados, have become part of that
virtual Niagara of lore flowing over the electronic grapevine.20
In his survey of what he refers to as World Trade Center humor, Bill Ellis expresses his
surprise at the proliferation of computer-generated cybercartoons . . . a phenomenon that
will need much closer study in the future.21 Cybercartoon is a good term to the extent that
the closest analogue for most of this material is the political cartoon, but I prefer the term
photoshop to cybercartoon or computer-generated art22 for two reasons. First, most of
the images I examined in this book are digitally altered photographs rather than cartoons,
which I think of as drawings, whether they are drawn by hand or with the aid of the computer. Second, photoshops is the preferred (emic) term among people who create, upload,
and archive the images.23
Evidence of the robustness of the culture of photoshopping is found on Web sites like
Worth1000.com, where veteran photoshoppers offer step-by-step instruction in how to
achieve effects such as zombifying, gender bending, face swapping, fattening and aging.
Also included are guides for making a specific image:

How I turned a stack of pancakes into something you probably wouldnt want to find on your plate.

How to turn Tom Cruise into an Alien.

How I chocolatized a skull.

How I puppetized Charlize [Theron].24

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

Worth1000 hosts what it calls a daily manipulation contest. Those who would enter
photoshopped images involving Britney Spears, President Bush, scantily clad women (i.e.
in bikinis) for no practical reason, Star Wars references, the Statue of Liberty, the World
Trade Center, and Hitler or Nazi references are advised that these are annoying overused
entries (clichs) and therefore unlikely to win.25
Digitally altered photographs circulate among friends via e-mail and turn up on a host
of netlore sites, just as jokes and urban legends do. (And less innocuously, they turn up on
Web sites run by pranksters and propagandists.) In fact, jokes and urban legends have their
photographic counterparts. Joke photographs are the obvious fakes, intended to amuse;
photographic urban legends are the subtle fakes, intended to amaze. And, as with verbal
jokes and legends, there are hybrid forms: the subtle fakes intended to amuse and the parodies of the subtle fakes. There are also various kinds of verbal-photographic compounds:
legends consisting of both photo and text, true photographs with false back stories,26 and
legends that claim a true photograph is a hoax.
e Photographic Urban Legend
In light of several decades of scholarship on the urban legend, a photograph would have to
meet three criteria to be given serious consideration as a visual manifestation of the genre:
1. It must tell a story.
2. It must be extraordinary, yet believable.
3. It must express, at least obliquely, anxiety about threats to our health, safety, and psychic equilibrium.

1. It must tell a story. Urban legends are narratives. A picture may be worth a thousand
words, but all those words do not necessarily add up to a story. One could use a thousand
words to describe an Edward Weston photo of a nautilus or a pepper, but the description
is not likely to include narrative elements. A photo of an occurrence, howeverwhether it
shows something that has already happened, or something that is happening or about to
happenimplies a plot as defined by one of my folklore mentors, Robert Georges: a series
of incidents set in a specific locale and presented in a logical time sequence that builds to a
kind of climax.27 The idea of a photographic urban legend is predicated on the notion that
there can be such a thing as a narrative photograph.
2. It must be extraordinary, yet believable. It is difficult to imagine how the urban legend could exist independently of the documentary tradition. Though fiction (usually), it
hitchhikes, as John McPhee might put it, on the credibility of nonfiction.28 Like news stories, urban legends are third-person accounts that derive much of their credibility from
the attribution of information to supposedly reliable sources. Whether a State Department
official or the narrators aunts hairdresser, the source is implicitly someone who possesses
firsthand knowledge. The reporters credibility, additionally, is implicitly buttressed by the
institutional integrity of the newspaper. Lacking that institutional support, the legend narrator can only attest to the truthfulness of the tale. Listeners believe it, or are at least willing

217

218

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

to entertain the possibility of it, because the documentary tradition offers ample evidence
that truth is stranger than fiction and men will occasionally bite dogs. In the case of the
photographic urban legend, credibility rests on the credibility of the documentary photo
tradition.
A photographic urban legend, then, is a narrative photo that, like many a news photo,
appears to be strange but true but, unlike the news photo, is ultimately false.
3. It must express, at least obliquely, anxiety about threats to our health, safety, and psychic
equilibrium. Urban legends are a reliable guide to what keeps us up nights. They reflect
doubt about the competence and integrity of the institutions that dominate our lives, namely, the government and big business, including big media, big health care, and big education.
We worry whether these institutions can protect us from harm, and we worry whether they
are themselves agents of harm. Specifically, we worry about:

Our health and safety, especially the threat of sexually transmitted diseases, contaminated food and
drink, insufficiently tested technologies, transportation accidents caused by incompetent operators or
designers, and natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tidal waves, and meteorites.

Life in a multiracial, multiethnic society bound to a global economy.

Monsters, large and small, human and inhuman, real and imaginary, including insects, spiders, snakes,
rats, sharks, attack dogs, rapists, murderers, extraterrestrials, despots, and terrorists.

Thus while the news brings us word of product recalls, photoshoppers offer us a tiny
frog in a can of peas or a snake in a computer. The news alarms us with tales of illegal immigration, while a photoshop regales us with an image of an undocumented worker smuggled
over the Mexican border behind a cars dashboard. From the news we learn that many of
the goods that were once manufactured in the United States are now produced overseas; a
photoshop of a larvae-infested breast shows us the dangers of wearing imported clothing
without washing it first. A news photo shows a single waterspout; a photoshopped version
of the image shows three waterspouts. And so on. Most of the photoshops we looked at
might be thought of as folk editorial cartoons: they combine or manipulate news photographs to offer biting commentary on the news and the newsmakers.
To summarize the discussion, a photographic urban legend is a narrative photo that circulates on the Internet, appears to be strange but true (but isnt), and compels our attention
by depicting contemporary fears and anxieties.
News Jokes
There is nothing of which we are more communicative than of a good jest, wrote the eighteenth-century philosopher Francis Hutcheson. Whether one is sitting down to compose a
poem or song or joke, the easiest way to go about it is to find a tried-and-true form and fill it
with (slightly) new content. Most jokes are either riddles or stories with punch lines. Riddles
are questions with unexpected answers. Look at enough of them and you see variations on
several questions. Examples will be jokes I did not use elsewhere in this book.

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

Whats the difference between X and Y?
Q: What is the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?
A: One is a flaming Nazi gasbag, while the other is just a dirigible.
A subtype of the whats the difference riddle involves a bawdy spoonerism:
Q: Whats the difference between a cross-eyed hunter and a constipated owl?
A: One shoots and cant hit.
What do X and Y have in common? (or, How is an X like a Y?)
Q: What do the state of California and Taco Bell have in common?
A: Both can give O.J. gas.
What does/did X say to Y?
Q: What did the Zen Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
A: Make me one with everything.
Whats the first/last thing X saw/said?
Q: Whats the last thing Christa McAuliffe said?
A: Whats this button for?
What does X (if it were an acronym) stand for?
Q: What does WACO stand for?
A: We arent coming out/We all cremated ourselves, etc.
Other perennial riddle jokes include What do you get when you cross an X with a Y?;
How many Xs does it take to screw in a lightbulb?; and Why did the X cross the road?
The story jokes are more various. One persistent motif is the presence of three or more
characters who engage in some form of one-upsmanship. In a common subtype, the three
characters have arrived at the pearly gates. Another story joke type involves a magic lamp, a
genie, and three wishes.
A third joke type, inspired by a staple of the David Letterman show, is the Top Ten
list. A fourth type is the parody, with a wide assortment of subtypesparodies of Dear
Abby letters, newspaper stories and television news reports, press releases, chain letters,
commercials, movie posters, office memorandums, and instruction manuals in general and
frequently asked questions (FAQs) in particular.
Legends at Sound Like News Stories, Press Releases, or Interoffice Memorandums
I tell students in my news-writing classes that reporters obtain information in three ways:
via observation, interviews, and documentary research. If they hear on the scanner that

219

220

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

theres a house fire at the corner of Maple and Elm, theyll race over so they can describe the
charred belongings on the lawn and the residents weeping as they watch their house being
consumed by the flames. Then theyll ask the firefighters how the fire started and ask the
residents about discovering the fire and getting out of the house. When they get back to the
newsroom, they might look at back issues of their own paper or fire department records
to find out how many house fires there have been in the past year, or how many have been
caused by faulty furnaces, and so on.
This three-pronged approach to information gathering has served journalistsand the
publicwell for the past century. Other witnesses can challenge the accuracy of the reporters observations. Interviewees can complain if they believe they were misquoted or misrepresented. Anyone with a mind to can consult the same public records the reporter consulted.
Thus even today, despite reporters getting caught inventing the news or being accused of
bias, when Noam Chomsky reads that Ted Kennedy has a brain tumor, he believes it.
Urban legends have their own authenticating conventions. By setting the tales in specific
locations, attributing them to a supposedly reliable source (a friend of a friend), and attesting to their veracity, narrators attempt to convince their audiences and possibly themselves
that these improbable events really happened or could have happened. Flimsy as these
devices are, they seem to give legends an air of what Stephen Colbert calls truthiness.
Though journalism has tightened the rules governing the use of anonymous sourcesthere
had better be a good reason for withholding the name, and the information the source is
providing had better be importantthe use of such sources is par for the course in conversational storytelling. When a storyteller has the floor, the clock is ticking. The pressure is on.
Clutter up your narrative with irrelevant information, and you might lose your audience.
If Im telling you about people you dont know and youll probably never meet, I might not
bother telling you their names. Its enough that it happened to my mechanics sister.
Now, though, in the age of electronic reproduction, when legends have become as much,
if not more, of a written phenomenon than an oral one, some legends are deriving their
authority by assuming the guise of supposedly authoritative written genres, such as the
news story, the business memorandum, and the press release, and visual genres, specifically
the news photograph. Where the typical written legend aggressively asserts its factuality
through the use of exclamation points, the senders expression of disdain for junk e-mail, or
even claims that the story has been verified by Snopes, the stories that parody official forms
of communication rely on the rhetorical trappings of those forms. The result is what Rob
Rosenberger, who writes about computer virus hoaxes, calls false authority syndrome.29
We can debate whether these parodies are subgenres of the contemporary legend, but they
certainly possess some of the essential features of legends: they are narratives (implicitly so
in the case of the phony news photo), they are fictions presented as matters of fact, and their
subject matter tends, broadly, to engage with one modern bedevilment or another.
The News Story
Our first example riffs on the academic study story, a longtime newsroom staple. So routinely are readers exposed to the arcane researches of academics, they are unlikely to be
surprised by what scholars study, only the results.

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

70% OF EXISTING MARRIAGES MAY ALREADY BE GAY
New Study Jolts White House
The Bush White Houses plan to push for a constitutional amendment banning gay
marriages suffered a surprising setback today as a new study revealed that well over
seventy percent of existing marriages may already be gay.
The study, conducted by Dr. Charles Cranborn of the University of Minnesota, confirmed what many social scientists have long suspected: that within the first five years
of marriages, most men become, for all intents and purposes, gay.
Soon after marrying, most men stop hitting on women and start shopping for furniture, Dr. Cranborn said. Scientifically speaking, how gay is that?
Within ten years of marriage, Dr. Cranborn added, a significant number of married
men stop having sex with women altogether.
Theres only one way to describe someone who does not have sex with women,
does not hit on women, and spends his free time shopping for furniture, Dr. Cranborn
added. That word, to be scientific about it, is gay.
When news of the University of Minnesota study hit Washington, the White House
immediately abandoned its plans for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage for fear of alienating the seventy percent of married voters who are already in a
gay marriage whether they know it or not, to quote Dr. Cranborn.
Instead, the Administration will ask Congress for over 1.2 billion dollars in funds to
promote gay divorces.
According to those familiar with the Bush proposal, gay couples who come forward
and ask for a divorce will be granted total amnesty, a dividend tax cut, and a major
reconstruction project in Iraq.

Note all the news-writing conventions this story invokes:

Headline: The story has not only a headline but also whats known as a deck-heada smaller headline
below the main headline. Note the command of headlinese: the headline is written in the present tense
with no articles.

Lead: The first sentence includes the time element, today. It uses the conventional synecdoche The
White House to stand in for members of the Bush administration. The writer withholds details about
the provenance of the study under the assumption that such information would clutter up the lead and
is less important than the studys findings and its conclusion. Suffered a surprising setback is an apt
bit of journalese, which is to say, a formulation that one only sees in a news story.

Second paragraph: the second graf elaborates on the lead while revealing the provenance of the study

Third graf: The attribution of the quotation is placed in the middle of the quote rather than at the end so

parenthetically, between commas.

that readers will know quickly who is being quoted. On second reference, the first name of the author of
the study is omitted.

Fourth graf: here we switch to an indirect quote (reporters do not like to stack quotes), again with attribution in the middle.

221

222

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

Fifth graf: The first little slip-up. A good reporter wouldnt write, Dr. Cranborn added in back-to-back

Sixth graf: Another slip. Reporters are likelier to write, as Dr. Cranborn put it rather than to quote.

Eighth graf: the phrase according to those familiar with the Bush proposal is a deft way of introducing

paragraphs.

information given to the reporter on background.

The story, though obviously absurd, maintains a deadpan tone apart from the quotes
from Dr. Cranborn, which seem a bit too colloquial or flip for the context. But if the quotes
didnt arouse your suspicions, the last six words, which throw in the Iraq reconstruction
project, function as the punch line. If you didnt know your leg was being pulled before, you
know it now. Silly as it is, the story has much to tell us about contemporary male attitudes
or folk beliefs about the emasculating effects of marriage. Real men, we may infer, are both
promiscuous and lustful, and have little interest in female pursuits such as shopping for
home furnishings.
Our second example is also a sex study story, legitimated by its touting of the health
benefits of a sexual practice.
Study: Fellatio may significantly decrease the risk of breast cancer in women
(AP)Women who perform the act of fellatio and swallow semen on a regular basis,
one to two times a week, may reduce their risk of breast cancer by up to 40 percent, a
North Carolina State University study found.
Doctors had never suspected a link between the act of fellatio and breast cancer,
but new research being performed at North Carolina State University is starting to
suggest that there could be an important link between the two.
In a study of over 15,000 women suspected of having performed regular fellatio
and swallowed the ejaculatory fluid, over the past ten years, the researchers found that
those actually having performed the act regularly, one to two times a week, had a lower
occurance of breast cancer than those who had not. There was no increased risk, however, for those who did not regularly perform.
I think it removes the last shade of doubt that fellatio is actually a healthy act,
said Dr. A.J. Kramer of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who was not involved in
the research. I am surprised by these findings, but am also excited that the researchers
may have discovered a relatively easy way to lower the occurance of breast cancer in
women.
The University researchers stressed that, though breast cancer is relatively uncommon, any steps taken to reduce the risk would be a wise decision.
Only with regular occurance will your chances be reduced, so I encourage all
women out there to make fellatio an important part of their daily routine, said Dr.
Helena Shifteer, one of the researchers at the University. Since the emergence of the
research, I try to fellate at least once every other night to reduce my chances.
The study is reported in Fridays Journal of Medical Research.

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

In 1991, 43,582 women died of breast cancer, as reported by the National Cancer
Institute.
Dr. Len Lictepeen, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society,
said women should not overlook or play down these findings.
This will hopefully change womens practice and patterns, resulting in a severe
drop in the future number of cases, Lictepeen said.
Sooner said the research shows no increase in the risk of breast cancer in those
who are, for whatever reason, not able to fellate regularly.
Theres definitely fertile ground for more research. Many have stepped forward to
volunteer for related research now in the planning stages, he said.
Almost every woman is, at some point, going to perform the act of fellatio, but it
is the frequency at which this event occurs that makes the difference, say researchers.
Also key seems to be the protein and enzyme count in the semen, but researchers are
again waiting for more test data.
The reasearch consisted of two groups, 6,246 women ages 25 to 45 who had performed fellatio and swallowed on a regular basis over the past five to ten years, and
9,728 women who had not or did not swallow. The group of women who had performed and swallowed had a breast cancer rate of 1.9 percent and the group who had
not had a breast cancer rate of 10.4 percent.
The findings do suggest that there are other causes for breast cancer besides the
absence of regular fellatio, Shafteer said. Its a cause, not THE cause.
Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Absurd as it is, this news story is particularly deft in its use of statistics, technical-sounding terms like ejaculatory fluid, and the bogus AP copyright at the end to create an aura of
trustworthiness.30 The only errors are the repeated misspelling of occurrence, a word that
appears on everyones list of frequently misspelled words, and of research, and the inconsistent spelling of Shifteer/Shafteer. Bafflingly, a source identified only as Sooner is quoted.
The mystery is resolved by consulting other versions of the story in which Dr. A. J. Kramer
of Johns Hopkins is called Dr. B. J.blowjob, presumablySooner.
Assuming we accept the just barely plausible premise that academic researchers had
hypothesized a link between fellatio and breast-cancer reduction and were able to recruit
subjects to test the hypothesis, the only elements of the story that would strain our credulity
would be the female researcher who volunteers the rather titillating information about her
own oral sex regimen, the vaguely salacious-sounding names, and the rather insistent promotion of frequent fellatio, which reveals the story to be a fairly transparent male fantasy.
Like the fake news story, the fake press release and fake memo employ the rhetorical
conventions of their genres, though their tone and their liberal use of exclamation points
and capital letters make many of them seem a good deal less formal or bureaucratic sounding than one would expect such documents to be. Consider these three warnings:

223

224

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

Identity Theft
Department of Public Safety and Corrections
Public Safety Services
July 26, 2007
To All Employees:
DO NOT write checks at any Wal-Mart. There is a multi-city fraud and theft ring
currently operating in Wal-Mart involving numerous employees. When you pay by
check the clerk takes a picture of your check using the camera on their cell phone. This
information is then downloaded, fraudulent checks made from your account, and then
let the fun begin for the thieves. One individual that this was done to had two checks
totaling over $4000.00 posted against their checking account.
Some of you are thinking well there is no way this will affect me because I dont
keep that kind of money in my account. WRONG!!!! As stated, this involves numerous
employees. The picture is taken and after the data is downloaded the checks are printed. Later, this fake check is given to same or another cashier. The cashier DOES NOT
run the check through the check fax inquiry to verify the funds. The check is placed
in the drawer for deposit and no one is the wiser until some days later when the check
hits your account. One of the main things being purchased by the fraudulent checks
are gift cards. How nice. With a gift card from Wal-Mart, any member of the theft ring
can purchase items from any Wal-Mart or Sams Club in the nation. No identification is
required to purchase with a gift card, so Sally or Sam in Shreveport can be buying that
fabulous plasma TV they have always wanted with the gift card bought by a fraudulent
check drawn on YOUR account and no one is any the wise until you get your bank
statement or you begin to get NSF notices in the mail.
This activity has become so widespread and so numerous have been the occurrences that not only is local law enforcement authorities involved in the case, i.e. City,
Sheriff, and LSP, but the FBI and the Secret Service is now investigation as well.
So, you have been warned. Protect yourself and your money. Its 2007 and the
criminals only seem to get smarter.
Spb/Rjp
Sergeant Rick Martinez
9105 Northwest 25th Street
Doral, FL 33172-1500 USA
There is much to admire about this item. The scam sounds devilishly clever and plays on
media-hyped fears that no digital communication is safe from cyber-outlaws. Then there is

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

all the verisimilitude offered by the monograms of the typist and writer and an address that
includes a nine-digit zip code. The address, by the way, checks out as a Miami-Dade County
law enforcement building; the warning, however, does not. In fact, according to Snopes, the
warning came from the Louisiana Department of Safety and Corrections, which claimed
that the message was not supposed to have been made public, but did not address the accuracy of the allegationsor why the department would be warning only its own employees.31 Incidentally, the item is one of about twenty-five mostly fraudulent stories Snopes has
chronicled about dangerous products, reprehensible policies, abductions, and other criminal acts at Wal-Mart stores. Yes, the stories seem to suggest, the prices are low, but you dont
get something for nothing in this world, so here are the hidden risks and costs. At least this
one spells occurrences correctly (though it is not exactly error free: the Secret Service is
now investigation as well).
The next example, inspired by post-9/11 fears of terrorism, includes the injunction to
forward that is characteristic of other Internet chains:
Terrorists in Disguise
Subject: UPS Uniforms - Be Aware
UPS Uniforms
Government Warning regarding purchase of UPS uniforms:
There has been a huge purchase, $32,000 worth, of United Parcel Service (UPS) uniforms on eBay over the last 30 days. This could represent a serious threat as bogus
drivers (terrorists) can drop off anything to anyone with deadly consequences! If you
have ANY questions when a UPS driver appears at your door they should be able to
furnish VALID I.D.
Additionally, if someone in a UPS uniform comes to make a drop off or pick up,
make absolutely sure they are driving a UPS truck. UPS doesnt make deliveries or
pickups in anything, except a company vehicle. If you have a problem, call your local
law enforcement agency right away!
TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY! Tell everyone in your office, your family, your friends,
etc. Make people aware so that we can prepare and/or avoid terrorist attacks on our
people! Thank you for your time in reviewing this and PLEASE send to EVERYONE
on your list, even if they are friend or foe. We should all be aware!
Kimberly Bush-Carr
Management Program Specialist
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Bureau Customs and Border Protection
Washington, DC 20229

225

226

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

The key to this warning, I think, is the role of a rented truck in the bombing of the
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. The ease with which Timothy
McVeigh and Terry Nichols were able to fill a Ryder truck with fertilizer and explosives and
crash it into a public building with horrific results made it easy to imagine similar deployments of any of the delivery trucks we routinely see on city streets.32 The curious allure of
the men in brown who drive the UPS trucks33 would seem to make their uniforms perfect
protective coloration for terrorists.
The last example plays on public fear and ignorance about AIDS.
Dangerous Gas Pumps
Please read and forward to anyone you know who drives.
My name is Captain Abraham Sands of the Jacksonville, Florida Police Department.
I have been asked by state and local authorities to write this email in order to get the
word out to car drivers of a very dangerous prank that is occurring in numerous states.
Some person or persons have been affixing hypodermic needles to the underside of
gas pump handles. These needles appear to be infected with HIV positive blood. In the
Jacksonville area alone there have been 17 cases of people being stuck by these needles
over the past five months.
We have verified reports of at least 12 others in various states around the country.
It is believed that these may be copycat incidents due to someone reading about the
crimes or seeing them reported on the television. At this point no one has been arrested and catching the perpetrator(s) has become our top priority.
Shockingly, of the 17 people who where stuck, eight have tested HIV positive and
because of the nature of the disease, the others could test positive in a couple years.
Evidently the consumers go to fill their car with gas, and when picking up the
pump handle get stuck with the infected needle. IT IS IMPERATIVE TO CAREFULLY
CHECK THE HANDLE of the gas pump each time you use one. LOOK AT EVERY
SURFACE YOUR HAND MAY TOUCH, INCLUDING UNDER THE HANDLE.
If you do find a needle affixed to one, immediately contact your local police department so they can collect the evidence.
******* PLEASE HELP US BY MAINTAINING A VIGILANCE AND BY FORWARDING THIS EMAIL TO ANYONE YOU KNOW WHO DRIVES. THE MORE PEOPLE
WHO KNOW OF THIS THE BETTER PROTECTED WE CAN ALL BE. *******
A Freudian interpretation of this warning is irresistible: just think of the male gas pump
nozzles insertion into the female gas tank.34 In variations, the needle is secreted in a movie
theater seat or a public phone booth coin slot.35 It all rests on the curious notion that people
with AIDS avenge themselves against the world by deliberating infecting others.

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

Chains and Chain Parodies
Back when I was doing my dissertation research on the history and lore of gold mining, I
read J. S. Hollidays magnum opus about the Gold Rush, The World Rushed In.36 Holliday
argues convincingly that the Gold Rush changed Americas psyche by introducing the idea
of not just making a living but making a killingof striking it rich. Mining turned out to
besurprisebackbreaking work. Most forty-niners returned to the States no better off,
and in many cases worse off, than when they left, though glad they had seen the elephant.
But the dream of getting rich (or fit or sexually adept) quick persistsas do all fantasies of
accomplishment without effort, gain without pain. Now we are told of all the good we can
do or the harm we can prevent or the boons we can obtain just by clicking a mouse.
Some folk beliefs tapped into by the culture of Internet forwarding:

There are evildoers out there who intend to do us harm, and the people charged with keeping us safe from

Like prayer, good wishes are a form of action: they can heal the sick.

People come into money not by working hard but by being in the right place at the right time when oppor-

harm are either inattentive, incompetent, or intent on keeping us in the dark so as not to alarm us.

tunity knocks.

Urbanlegends.com helpfully divides chains into freebie, charity, and fearmongering

chains.37 As with urban legends, the chains are rife with attestations of legitimacy and insistence on the importance of forwarding:

This is for real. This was on the news.

Please pass this on.

Please do not take this as a junk letter.

If you ignore this you will repent later.

Please forward this to as many people as possible.

I thought this was a scam myself, but . . .

I do not usually forward messages, but . . .

After all, what have you got to lose?

I am asking you all, begging you to please, forward this email onto anyone and everyone you know,

This isnt a chain letter, but a choice for all of us to save a little girl thats dying of a serious and fatal

PLEASE.
form of cancer.

The last example in the list is particularly interesting. The item in question clearly is a
chain letter. The disclaimer suggests that chain letter has become synonymous with some
sort of bogus appeal. The writer means that this is not a bogus chain letter but a legitimate one. Folklorists will recognize the attestations of legitimacy as the hallmarks of urban
legends.

227

228

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

On the off chance that the money really will flow in or the child will be cured of cancer
or suspicious packages will come in the mail, why not forward? Better be safe than sorry.
What will it cost you? Yet forwarding is a public act. As with telling a joke, its an implicit
endorsement. Skeptical recipients of the appeal will impugn your judgment. If it sounds
too good to be true, we say, it probably is. And so the chains have, inevitably, inspired parody (and YouTube rants). Here are several metachain letters that serve as concise guides to
the world of chains and urban legends. You will note that there are several references to the
warnings we have just seen or saw earlier in this book.
To all my friends, thanks to you sending me chain letters in 2003:
I stopped drinking Coca Cola after I found out that its good for removing toilet
stains.
I stopped going to the movies for fear of sitting on a needle infected with AIDS.
I smell like a wet dog since I stopped using deodorants because they cause cancer
or Alzheimer.
I dont leave my car in the parking lot or any other place and sometimes I even have
to walk about 7 blocks for fear that someone will drug me with a perfume sample and
try to rob me.
I also stopped answering the phone for fear that they ask me to dial a stupid number and then I get a phone bill from hell with calls to Uganda, Singapore and Tokyo.
I stopped consuming several foods for fear that the estrogens they contain may
turn me gay.
I also stopped eating chicken and hamburgers because they are nothing other than
horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers that are bred in a lab.
I also stopped drinking anything out of a can for fear that I will get sick from the
rat feces and urine.
I think Im turning gay because when I go to parties, I dont look at any girl no matter how hot she is, for fear that she will take my kidneys and leave me taking a nap in a
bathtub full of ice.
I also donated all my savings to the Amy Bruce account, a sick girl that was about to
die in the hospital about 7,000 times. Funny that girl, shes been 7 since 1993 . . .
I went bankrupt from bounced checks that I made expecting the $15,000 that
Microsoft and AOL were supposed to send me when participated in their special e-mail
program. My Erickson phone never arrived and neither did the passes for a paid vacation to Disney land.
But I am positive that all this is the cause of a stinking chain that I broke or forgot
to follow and I got a curse from hell.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you send this e-mail to at least 1200 people in the next 10 seconds, a bird will crap on you today at 7pm.

Here is another version, included because of the scourges it adds to the previous list.

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

I want to thank all of you who have taken the time and trouble to send me your damn
chain letters over the past few years. Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of whats left of my heart for making me feel safe, secure, blessed, and wealthy.
Because of your concern . . . I no longer can drink Coca Cola because it can remove
toilet stains.
I no longer drink anything out of a can because I will get sick from the rat feces
and urine.
I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.
I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a
needle infected with AIDS.
I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo
on a hot day
I no longer use margarine because its one molecule away from being plastic.
I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume
sample and rob me.
I no longer receive packages from UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al Qaeda
in disguise.
I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a stupid number
for which I will get the phone bill from hell with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore,
and Zebekistan.
I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with
no eyes or feathers.
I no longer date the opposite sex because they will take my kidneys and leave me
taking a nap in a bathtub full of ice.
I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their
recipe.
I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me
and St. Theresas novena has granted my every wish.
Thanks to you, I have learned that God only answers my prayers if I forward an
email to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes. (Geez, the BIBLE
did not mention it works that way!)
I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl who is about to die in
the hospital (for the 1,387,258th time).
I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000
that Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail
program.
Yes, I want to thank all of you soooooooo much for looking out for me!
I will now return the favor.
If you dont send this e-mail to at least 1200 people in the next 60 seconds, a large
bird with diarrhea will crap on your head at 5:00 PM this afternoon and the fleas of a
thousand camels will infest your armpits.

229

230

Appendix B: Collecting and Analyzing Newslore

I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of a friend of a
friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of my next door neighbors exmother-in-laws 8th husbands 2nd cousins 3rd husbands ex-wifes mothers beautician!
Aint spam great?!?!?
The final compendium is written as a first-person urban legend rather than as a thankyou note.
I know this guy whose neighbor, a young man, was home recovering from having been
served a rat in his bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
So anyway, one day he went to sleep and when he awoke he was in his bathtub and
it was full of ice and he was sore all over. When he got out of the tub he realized that
HIS KIDNEYS HAD BEEN STOLEN and he saw a note on his mirror that said, Call
911! But he was afraid to use his phone because it was connected to his computer, and
there was a virus on his computer that would destroy his hard drive if he opened an
e-mail entitled, Join the crew!
He knew it wasnt a hoax because he himself was a computer programmer who was
working on software to save us from Armageddon when the year 2000 rolls around.
And its a little-known fact that the Y1K problem caused the Dark Ages.
His program will prevent a global disaster in which all the computers get together
and distribute the $600 Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe under the leadership of Bill
Gates. (Its true, I read it all last week in a mass e-mail from BILL GATES HIMSELF,
who was also promising me a free Disney World vacation and $5,000 if I would forward the e-mail to everyone I know.)
The poor man then tried to call 911 from a pay phone to report his missing kidneys, but reaching into the coin-return slot he got jabbed with an HIV-infected needle
around which was wrapped a note that said, Welcome to the world of AIDS.
Luckily he was only a few blocks from the hospital-the one where that little boy
who is dying of cancer is, the one whose last wish is for everyone in the world to send
him an e-mail and the American Cancer Society has agreed to pay him a nickel for
every e-mail he receives.
I sent him two e-mails and one of them was a bunch of xs and os in the shape of
an angel (if you get it and forward it to 20 people you will have good luck but 10 people
you will only have OK luck and if you send it to less than 10 people you will have BAD
LUCK FOR SEVEN YEARS).
So anyway the poor guy tried to drive himself to the hospital, but on the way he
noticed another car driving along without its lights on. To be helpful, he flashed his
lights at him and was promptly shot as part of a gang initiation.
STOP THE INSANITY! NO URBAN LEGEND EMAIL STRINGS IN 1999!
Needless, to say, the e-mail strings continue unabatedas do the fears of AIDS, cancer, homosexuality, food contamination, scams, computer viruses, terrorists, and gangs that
inspire them.

Notes
Preface
1. Rheingold (2000, 350) cites J. McClellans term mouse potatoes for people who
hide from real life and spend their whole life goofing off in cyberspace. I steel myself for
charges that I share Orings apparent allergy to fieldwork (Fine 2004, 225) and thus am
offering little more than denatured collactanea (Ellis 1991, 123).

Introduction
1. Apte (1985, 1617) is among the many scholars who stress the culture-boundedness
of humor. Familiarity with a cultural code, he writes, is a requisite for the spontaneous
mental restructuring of elements that results in amusement or laughter.
2. The Arthur Andersen version may be found at http://politicalhumor.about.com/
library/jokes/bljokehistory101.htm, among other places.
3. I confess to having given short shrift to video and audio newslore in this book
because they have come later than texts and still images and were not part of what I will
argue was a golden age of newslore that lasted from the 1990s to the early 2000s.
4. Oddly, my own experience as a newspaperman and a folklorist recapitulated this
orientation toward male-dominated occupational groups. As a reporter, I covered my fair
share of local government meetings and court trials, but the Sierra Nevada mountains and
foothills are prone to winter floods and summer fires, and they attract skiers and hikers
who get lost in the woods, so I also spent a lot of time tagging along with firefighters,
loggers, and search-and-rescue teams. During this same period, I was occasionally hired
as a freelance folklorist to conduct fieldwork with fishermen, longshoremen, ranchers, coal
miners, and steelworkers. Little wonder, then, that the profession as a whole, and I, as one
of its foot soldiers, have a sort of macho view of fieldwork: real folklorists (and reporters)
get dirty, get seasick, crawl on their hands and knees, and wear hardhats and goggles. I
handled plenty of dirty material in the writing of this book, but none of it was the kind
that washes off.
5. Mullen 1978.
6. McCarl 1984.
7. Santino 1989.
8. Nader 1974.
9. Green 1978.
10. Reuss 1974.
231

232

Notes
11. Dundes 1980, 7.
12. Dundes and Pagter 1975/1992, xxii.
13. Ibid., xxiii.
14. Dundes and Pagter 1987, 11.
15. Dundes and Pagter 1991b, 17.
16. Dundes and Pagter 1996, xiv.
17. Dundes and Pagter 2000, xvii.
18. See Dorst 1990, 185.
19. For a detailed discussion of how I obtained the material in this book, see
appendix B.
20. Baym 1993, 1.
21. Pew Internet and American Life Project 2008.
22. Some support appears in the scholarly literature for drawing on ones own
experience as a cyberspace traveler: An ethnographer of the Internet cannot hope to
understand the practices of all users, but through their own practices can develop an
understanding of what it is to be a user (Hine 2000, 52).
23. Dundes 1987, vii.
24. Oring 1992, 17.
25. Douglas 1991, 297.
26. Quoted in Powell and Paton 1988, 40.
27. Fine (2005, 5) calls it an expression of apathy and powerlessness. Rheingold (2000,
351) writes of critics who believe that online discussion disempowers citizens who would
otherwise be engaged in authentic civic involvement.
28. The quote is originally from James Russell Lowell, according to the World of Quotes
Web site, http://www.worldofquotes.com/topic/Sarcasm/index.html.
29. http://www.snopes.com/info/glossary.asp.
30. Benton 1988, 540.
31. Jones 1997, n.p. See also Hathaway (2005, 52), who describes netlore as light-hearted
resistance to media domination, a way of seizing the masters tools to construct ones own
response. Then theres Freud (1928/1987, 113): Humor is not resigned; it is rebellious. It
signifies the triumph not only of the ego, but of the pleasure principle.
32. Jones cites a Times-Mirror survey that found that computer users tend to read more
newspapers, books and magazines than others (1997).
33. Gamson 1994, 10. Gamson also cites Neil Postmans (1985, 16061) call for a
demystification of media whereby citizens become aware of how they are being
manipulated.
34. Dundes and Pagter 1975/1992.
35. Brunvand 2001, 64.
36. This isnt true only of netlore. In general, David Weinberger (2002, 10) observed,
for all the overheated, exaggerated, manic-depressive coverage of the Web, wed have to
conclude that the Web has not yet been hyped enough.
37. Dorst 1990. The term comes from Redfield 1947.

Notes
38. Dorst 1990, 180.
39. Ibid., 183.
40. Ellis 2002, 1.
41. Ibid.
42. Baym 1993.
43. Fernback 2003.
44. Mason 1996. The term is also the title of a book by Christine Hine (2000).
45. Hine (2000, 15) notes that e-mail has stripped out social context cues (features
such as gender, age, race, social status, facial expression and intonation) routinely used in
understanding face-to-face communication.
46. Media technology, write Drucker and Cathcart (1994, 264), has emancipated
social interaction from place and redistributed it through space.
47. Joke scholars still know little about joke authorship. Christie Davies (1999, 254)
proposes that jokes begin as spontaneous witticisms, then get polished in subsequent
tellings, but he doesnt actually observe the process.
48. Weinberger 2002, 139.
49. Dundes 1987, 38. See chapter 1 for a longer defense of looking at offensive jokes.
50. Jokes and other popular arts, writes Lawrence E. Mintz (1983, 130), are collectively,
at the very least, as important as any other social institution (e.g., church, school, family)
in determining and revealing who and what we are.
51. Horrigan and Rainie 2002, 3, 16, 20.
52. Joel Best (2005, 181) writes that topical jokes achieve very broad circulation
remarkably quickly, and with minimal support from the mass media.
53. Lowney and Best (1996, 78) make the same point in their study of Waco jokes:
Ordinary peoples constructions of particular issues . . . largely go unexamined; we hear
the voices of the committed few, but too often ignore the reactions of the many who are
less directly involved.
54. See Schudson 1978; Gans 1980.
55. University of Missouri School of Journalism 1998, 4.
56. Sims 1984, 3.
57. See, for example, Knowlton 1997.
58. Boorstin 1962.
59. Langellier 1989, 243.
60. The latest iteration of the code was adopted in 1995. http://www.spj.org/ethicscode
.asp.
61. See Bird and Dardenne 1990.
62. Sims 1984, 3.
63. Myerhoff and Ruby 1982, 13.
64. See Frank 2003b.
65. See Brunvand 1981, 6265.
66. For details, see Snopes, http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/chili.asp.
67. DeFao 1995.

233

234

Notes
68. Rivers 2000.
69. Bridges 2001.
70. Boule 2004.
71. Benedetti 2001.
72. Ibid.
73. Beatty 2002.
74. Benedetti 2001.
75. Never distort the content of news photos or video, says the code. Image
enhancement for technical clarity is always permissible. Label montages and photo
illustrations. http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp.
76. Irby 2003.
77. Los Angeles Times 2003.
78. Quoted in Knowlton 1997, 189.
79. Frank 2003c.
80. McClain 2002. Another version of the accompanying text differs in only two
respects. The photo of the year nomination is attributed to Geo magazine, and there is a
teaser headline: And you think youre having a bad day at work!! The headline echoes the
captions that accompany the cartoons exchanged by beleaguered office workers: instead
of faxing the joke to a friend and then tacking it to the wall of ones cubicle, as soldiers of
the paperwork empire might have done in the 1970s and 1980s, the computer jockeys of
today commiserate with each other by sharing the photo via e-mail. Selachophobia, or fear
of sharks, would seem to make shark attacks an inevitable theme for urban legends. Every
summer, millions of people head for the shore, and every summer brings a smattering
of encounters with these creatures, whose nightmarish teeth and hydrodynamics make
them the closest things to living monsters on earth. The news media, driven, as ever, by the
conflicting imperatives of sensationalism and responsibility, provide overblown coverage
of the attacks, even as they drum up experts to reassure their audience that the threat of
shark attacks is statistically insignificant.
Surprisingly, then, Brunvand finds few examples of shark attack stories to include in
his collections of urban legends. One is an animals revenge story about a fisherman who
feeds an explosive to a shark that then swims under the boat and blows it up (Brunvand
1986, 39). The other, a variation on the small pet devoured by a larger animal theme, tells
of a dog that jumps into the Marineland shark tank at feeding time, with disastrous results
(130). It may be that the quantity of news accounts of shark attacks obviates the need to
invent them.
81. Barringer 2001.
82. Ibid.
83. Degh and Vazsonyi 1976.
84. Gibson 2001.
85. Irby 2001.
86. John Stevens (1985) notes that people who complain about sensationalism in the
news have always buttressed their arguments by fretting about the tender sensibilities of
younger readers.

Notes
87. Soloski 1999, 151.
88. Siegal and Connolly 1999.
89. Ibid.
90. Holley 1981, 157.
91. Lippman 1989, 7.
92. Ibid., 6.
93. See Snopes, http://www.snopes.com/quotes/starr.asp.
94. Maykuth 2006.
95. Heffernan 2006.
96. Oldenburg 2006.
97. Horowitz 2008.
98. Pitts 2001.
99. Benjamin 1935/1969.
100. Quoted in University of Missouri School of Journalism 1998.
101. Douglas 1991, 292. As Arthur Asa Berger (1976, 115) writes, Dissecting a joke is a very
complicated operation, one in which the patient almost always dies. Or the eighteenthcentury writer Francis Hutcheson (1750/1987, 35): To treat this subject of laughter gravely
may subject the author to a censure like to that which Longinus makes upon a prior treatise
of the Sublime, because wrote in a manner very unsuitable to the subject.

1. Where Is the Humor?

1. Some insults aimed at women (dyke, bulldyke, butch, lesbian) may be based on the
notion that women are supposed to be passive and feminine. These terms may be used
when the woman in question acted assertively, aggressively or with masculine behavior
(Jay 1992, 80).
2. See Davies 1996, 301: This image of the unfit woman may have emerged in response
to her early, visible involvement in health care reform, which is a departure from the
traditional, more passive role of first lady.
3. Alan Dundes (1989, 49) argues that the rash of Gary Hart jokes helped seal this
particular politicians fate.
4. Dundes 1987, 29, 38. I might also have invoked Goodwin (1995, 161), who wrote: Such
material must be documented and analyzed to be understood; it must be understood to be
challenged and to promote social change. . . . Ignoringor denouncinga subject will not
make it go away.
5. Frank 2006b.
6. Frank 2007.
7. See Thomas 1997, 302. This joke recalls a Spy magazine cover photoshop of Hillary
with her dress billowing la Marilyn Monroe, revealing a masculine bulge in Hillarys
drawers.
8. Fish 2008.
9. Horowitz 2008.

235

236

Notes

2. I Could Throw All of You out the Window

1. Oring 2003, 129.
2. For a detailed discussion of lightbulb jokes, see Dundes 1987.
3. Meyrowitz 1994, 73.
4. For a good discussion of this story, see Rosenberg 2000.
5. It may be found at http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/kerry2.asp.
6. Light 2004. One of the better journalistic discussions of the Kerry-Fonda photo and
of photoshopping generally may be found at Hafner 2004. Playing with and circulating
digital images, Hafner writes, has become something of a national pastime, the visual
equivalent of e-mailed jokes.

3. When the Going Gets Tough

1. For the full text of Sinclairs column, see http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/
sinclair.asp.
2. Pitts 2001. The column earned Pitts the Pulitzer Prize for commentary the following
year.
3. Kurtzman 2001.
4. Malinowski 1948/1954.
5. The jokes began flowing into the in-box of the Washington Post columnist Gene
Weingarten (2001) a little sooner: The time, for all those keeping score, was 5 days 2
hours 8 minutes and 1 second. That was the hiatus between the arrival of the first plane
at the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and the arrival of the first known attempt
at Internet humor on the subject. The jokes were anagrams of the name Osama bin
Laden: Is a banal demon. I am a bland nose. No! A mad lesbian. Animals on a bed.
Weingarten was unimpressed. Christie Davies (1999, 253) reports receiving his first two
Princess Diana jokes within forty-eight hours of her death.
6. Kuipers (2005, 78) and Ellis (2002, 4) include this image in their studies of the
humor of 9/11.
7. Goodwin 2001; Ellis 2001.
8. Ellis 2001.
9. Much of the newslore of September 11 echoed the folkloric responses to the Iranian
hostage crisis in 1979 and the Gulf War in 1991. See Dundes and Pagter 1991a.
10. Ibid., 303.
11. See Snopes for further discussion of the Klingerman virus: http://www.snopes.com/
medical/disease/klingerman.asp.
12. Harmon 2001.
13. For a discussion of the Halloween warning, see http://americanhistory.about.com/
cs/blmall-terror.htm.
14. Anderson and Mihalopoulos 2001.

Notes
15. Bronner 1995, 17376.
16. See http://www.snopes.com/racial/business/hilfiger.asp and http://www.snopes
.com/racial/business/claiborne.asp.
17. See Fine 1992.
18. Klebnikov 2003.
19. http://www.coca-colabottling.co.id/eng/ourcompany/index.php?act=faq.
20. Roeper 2001.
21. Ibid.
22. See Gibes 2001.
23. Hathaway (2005, 42) aptly compares Tourist Guys wanderings to the phenomenon
of the traveling garden gnome.
24. Connor 2002.
25. Wall Street Journal 2001.
26. Tomsho, Carton, and Guidera 2001. Similar headlines appeared in San Francisco
Bay Area newspapers in the immediate aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
27. In many ways, we are all Tourist Guy to the events of 9/11, writes Hathaway
(2005, 43).
28. Lule 2001, 282.
29. For further discussions of Tourist Guy, see http://www.touristofdeath.com;
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/mishapsdisasters/ig/Tourist-Guy/touristguy.htm;
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/photos/tourist.asp.
30. Dundes and Pagter 1991a, 303.
31. See Jay 1992, 2.
32. Oring 1987.
33. Dorst 1990.
34. Ellis 2002, 2.
35. Ibid., 5.
36. Kuipers (2005, 78) mentions these degrading pictures in her study.
37. Dundes and Pagter 1991a.
38. Dundes 1997, 27.
39. Ellis 2002, 8.
40. Ibid., 5.
41. Oring 1987.
42. Ellis 2002.
43. Ibid., 4.
44. Perkins 2001.
45. Bearak 2001.
46. Morse 2001.
47. Hinckley 2001. Kuipers (2005) and Ellis (2002) cite the lake maps.
48. Dundes and Pagter 1991a, 316.
49. Ellis 2002, 8.
50. Quoted in deSousa 1987, 234.

237

238

Notes
51. Tierney 2008.
52. Kuipers 2005, 81.
53. Peterson 2001.
54. Caldwell 2001.
55. Harden 2001.
56. Tierney 2001.
57. New York Times 2001.
58. Oring 1987; Smyth 1986.
59. See, for example, Gans 1980; Fishman 1980; Schudson 1989; Bird and Dardenne
1997.
60. Goodwin 2001.
61. Oring 1987; see also Smyth 1986.
62. Kornblum 2001.
63. Smith 2001.
64. Davies 1999, 254.
65. Rainie et al. 2002, 4.
66. Ibid., 31.
67. Ibid., 48.
68. Found at http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushtwofaces.htm (and
credited to politicalstrikes.com).

4. Got Fish?
1. New York Times 2005.
2. Nichols 2005.
3. http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbusheatcake.htm.
4. http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushenduringvacation.htm.
5. Christensen 2005.
6. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/photos/recreate.asp.
7. Silva and Tackett 2005.
8. According to the rec.humor.funny Web site, Julian Bond originally made a similar
joke about Vice President Quayle during a speech at the University of Colorado in 1989.
The site says Bond was quoted in the Boulder Daily Camera as having said, He thinks Roe
v. Wade are options for crossing the Potomac.
9. Weeks 2006.
10. http://www.snopes.com/katrina/humor/churches.asp.
11. Carr 2005.
12. Dao, Treaster, and Barringer 2005.
13. Duncan 2005.
14. Dwyer and Drew 2005.
15. Haygood and Tyson 2005.

Notes
16. Dwyer and Drew 2005.
17. Carr 2005.
18. Dwyer and Drew 2005.
19. Britt 2005.
20. Carr 2005.
21. Thevenot and Russell 2005.
22. See Frank 2003a.
23. Carr 2005.
24. Britt 2005.
25. The photos may seen at Snopes, among other places: http://www.snopes.com/
katrina/photos/looters.asp.
26. Azine (Asian American Movement Ezine), http://www.aamovement.net/
news/2005/katrinacoverage.html.
27. I owe my knowledge of this phenomenon to Diane Goldstein, who presented a
paper about it at the conference of the International Society for Contemporary Legend
Research in July 2008 in Dublin.
28. http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/currentevents/a/katrinaquotes.htm.
29. http://www.snopes.com/photos/tsunami/tsunami2.asp.
30. Baer 1982.

5. It Takes a Village Idiot

1. Dundes 1987, vii.
2. Ibid.
3. http://www.idealog.us/2004/03/correction_on_p.html.
4. http://www.anvari.org/fun/Political/Bush_Reading_Upside_Down.html.
5. http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/binoculars.asp.
6. See http://www.snopes.com/quotes/bush.asp and http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/
outrage/bushwave.asp.
7. This version is attributed to one Michael Dare by Philip Greenspun at http://philip
.greenspun.com/humor/bush-nigerian-spam.html.
8. http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/nyt.html.
9. This letter is attributed to Barrett Brown by the Daily Kos, http://www.dailykos.com/
story/2004/9/22/13121/2893.
10. Boule 2004.
11. Vlach (1971) coined the term anti-legend to refer to jokes that masquerade as
legends.
12. Center for Media and Public Affairs 2006.
13. Lvi-Strauss 1966, 19.
14. See Brunvand 1984, 1828.

239

240

Notes

6. You Cant Raffle Off a Dead Donkey

1. Fine 1992.
2. Turner 1993.
3. http://www.snopes.com/photos/signs/bombus.asp.
4. Goodman 2004.
5. Cooper 2004.
6. http://www.snopes.com/photos/military/crossed.asp.
7. Ivanovich 2006.
8. See Dundes and Pagter 1975/1992, 4041. An updated version: Im not pregnant, Im
not engaged, I dont have syphilis and there is no boyfriend of another race or religion in
my life; however, I DID vote for Gov. Bush, and I just wanted you both to see this in its
proper perspective. Your loving daughter, Chelsea.
9. Ibid., 3738.
10. Ibid., 1516.
11. http://www.opensecrets.org/alerts/v6/alertv6_31.asp.

7. Not-So-Heavenly Gates
1. http://members.ozemail.com.au/~lbrash/msjokes/msjokes.html.
2. Brunvand 1989, 2936.
3. Gates 1998.
4. Allbritton 1999.
5. Hinkle 1999.
6. Logan 1999.
7. The classic technology-as-menace tale is the story of the panicked pet owner who
puts her wet and shivering poodle in the microwave oven. See Brunvand 1989.
8. Ramsey 2000.
9. Miner 1956.

8. Dianas Halo
1. See Lule 2001.
2. In an age of hype and sensationalism, Kovach and Rosenstiel (2001) argue
persuasively for a journalism that is proportional to the impact of events.
3. Oring 1987; Smyth 1986.
4. Scornful and skeptical as we may be of the outpourings of grief at the death
of Michael Jackson or Princess Diana, Joshua Meyrowitz reminds us that among the
mourners, the sense of connection is real, and the emotions are genuine. Such relationships,

Notes
he writes, compensate for the impermanence of many real-life relationships. Moreover,
unlike real-life relationships, they demand nothing of us (Meyrowitz 1994, 66).
5. http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/138725.
6. The death of Ted Kennedy in August 2009 occasioned a number of jokes that
alluded either to Chappaquiddick, to the senators supposed drinking problem, or to both:
Q: How did people find out Ted was dead?
A: He didnt show up at the bar this morning.
Saint Peter: I dont care how drunk you were, Ted, its still murder.
Much like his brother, Ted Kennedy will also have an eternal flame in Arlington Cemetery, but for his they are just going to strike a match to his liver.
7. http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/138725.
8. http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question287167.html.
9. LondonNet n.d.
10. Indian Express 1998.
11. http://www.mindspring.com/~squicker/di.html. Davies (1999, 25859) calls the
Diana jokes a rebellion against the torrent of sentimentality that poured out of the medias
treacle well.
12. See Kibby 2005, 77577.
13. http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Hoaxipedia/Celebrity_Death_Hoaxes.
14. http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/2489.
15. http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/4180.

Conclusion

1. Fish 2008.
2. Fine 2005.
3. http://www.ehow.com/how_2224292_tell-barack-obama-jokes.html.
4. http://barackobamajokes.googlepages.com.
5. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1983609/posts.
6. Mitchell (1992, 209) refers to this process as recapitation.
7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kCAFkfFLQQ.
8. Horrigan and Rainie 2002, 2.
9. Ibid., 7.
10. Heffernan 2008.
11. Gibson 2005.
12. Pew 2009.

241

242

Notes

Appendix B
1. Shipley and Schwalbe 2007.
2. Barry 2007.
3. Hine notes that the lack of social context cues in computer-mediated
communication has a disinhibiting effect (2000, 15). See also Kibby 2005, 3. Joel Best
(2005, 181) suggests that the lack of performance dimension allows not very good jokes to
survive longer.
4. Templeton n.d.
5. Henry Glassie has made this argument more passionately and consistently than
most. See, for example, his Passing the Time in Ballymenone (1982).
6. Kibby 2005.
7. Oring 2003, 139.
8. http://politicalhumor.about.com.
9. http://www.jokesgallery.com/joke.php?joke=676&id=1.
10. Roeper 1997.
11. Rheingold (2000, xvi) refers to computer-mediated communication as taking place
around an electronic water cooler.
12. Roeper 1997.
13. The CMPA lists may be found at http://www.cmpa.com/media_monitor.html.
Its more recent surveys of the late-night comedians include Jay Leno, David Letterman,
Conan OBrien, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert.
14. See Lowney and Best 1996.
15. Brunvand 1981, 5362.
16. Remarkably, Horace anticipated these kinds of shenanigans by about two thousand
years: If a painter chose to join a human head to a horses neck, and to spread feathers of
many colors over limbs brought together from everywhere, so that what was at the top a
beautiful woman ended below as an ugly black fish, would you, my friend, allowed to see
such a picture, be able to hold back your laughter? (Quoted in Hutcheson 1750/1987, 31).
17. Wojcik 1996.
18. Welsch 1974.
19. See Mitchell 1992, 7.
20. Brunvand 2001, 65.
21. Ellis 2002, 13.
22. Ibid., 1.
23. See Choe 2001; Park 2002.
24. http://www.worth1000.com/tutorials.asp.
25. http://www.worth1000.com/faq.asp#C4.
26. Mitchell (1992, 49) notes this phenomenon. The fifty or so images in Snopes.coms
fauxtography photo gallery include real photos that have been given false backstories.
Similarly, about a third of the twenty faux photos on the urbanlegend.miningco.com site
are actually misrepresented rather than doctored photos. In recognition of the mixing

Notes
of fake documents and real documents, Snopes does not just debunk false stories but uses
a color-coding system to indicate which are false (red), which are true (green), which can
neither be verified nor be disproved (white), which are disputed (yellow), and which are
part true and part false (multicolored).
Ive encountered several items on About.com that prompted me to do a little sleuthing
to find out if they were true. One was a photo of President Bush with a bruise on his
cheek: real or photoshopped? Real: The bruise was a result of Bushs fall when he fainted
while eating a pretzel in January 2002. Another was the graphic Bush: One of the Worst
Disasters to Hit U.S. History that supposedly appeared on television. Well, it didnot, as
it seemed, as a piece of editorializing but as a paraphrase of what the president said about
Hurricane Katrina. The graphic was a Sky News (Ireland) Flash.
Others photos that I thought might be fake that turned out to be real caught Bush
picking his nose at a Texas Rangers game while he owned the team and flipping the bird
while he was governor of Texas. Then there was Bert the Muppet of Sesame Street fame
appearing on posters carried by supporters of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in October
2001surely a photoshoppers handiwork. As Snopes.com reports, with corroboration
from stories from the Associated Press, Reuters, and elsewhere, a Pakistani poster
manufacturer created a collage from images downloaded from the Internet, one of which,
unbeknownst to the collagist, was a photoshop of bin Laden and Bert.
Finally there was the story that cracks in the space shuttle Columbias wings were
visible before it exploded. The photo is a still made from footage supposedly shot by Israeli
astronaut Ilan Ramon during a live interview on Israeli television. All true, except the
cracks in the wing are actually seams in the shuttles cargo bay. The image expresses the
same doubts about the competence of NASA engineers that were voiced in jokes about the
Challenger disaster in 1986.
27. Georges 1976, 9.
28. McPhee is quoted in Sims 1984, 15.
29. Rosenberger 1995/1997.
30. See Kibby 2005, 785.
31. http://www.snopes.com/crime/warnings/checktheft.asp.
32. See Snopes, http://www.snopes.com/rumors/upsuniforms.asp.
33. See, for example, Robert Frank 2002.
34. See David Emerys About.com discussion, http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/
crime/a/abraham-sands.htm.
35. See Brunvand 2000, 2078.
36. Holliday 1981.

37. http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/internet/f/chain_letter.htm.

243

This page intentionally left blank

References
Scholarly Works
Altheide, David. 1996. Qualitative Media Analysis. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
Apte, Mahadev L. 1985. Humor and Laughter: An Anthropological Approach. Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press.
Baer, Florence E. 1982. Give Me . . . Your Huddled Masses: Anti-Vietnamese Refugee Lore
and the Image of the Limited Good. Western Folklore 41:27591.
Barkin, Steve M. 1984. The Journalist as Storyteller: An Interdisciplinary Perspective.
American Journalism 1:2733.
Baym, Nancy K. 1993. Interpreting Soap Operas and Creating Communities inside a
Computer-Mediated Fan Culture. Journal of Folklore Research 30:14376.
Bell, Allan. 1991. The Language of News Media. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Ben-Amos, Dan. 1972. Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context. In Toward New
Perspectives in Folklore, ed. Richard Bauman and Americo Paredes, 315. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Benjamin, Walter. 1935/1969. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
In Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. New York: Schocken.
Benton, Gregor. 1988. The Origins of the Political Joke. In Humour in Society, ed. Chris
Powell and George E. C. Paton, 3355. London: Macmillan.
Berger, Arthur Asa. 1976. Anatomy of the Joke. Journal of Communication 26:11315.
Best, Joel. 2005. Fashion, Topical Jokes, and Rumor as Short-Term Enthusiasms. In
Rumor Mills, ed. Gary Alan Fine, Veronique Campion-Vincent, and Chip Heath, 17387.
New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction.
Bird, S. Elizabeth. 1987. Folklore and Media as Intertextual Communication Processes:
John F. Kennedy and the Supermarket Tabloids. In Communication Yearbook, ed. M. L.
McLaughlin, vol. 10, 75872. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage.
Bird, S. Elizabeth, and Robert W. Dardenne. 1990. News and Storytelling in American
Culture: Reevaluating the Sensational Dimension. Journal of American Culture 13:3337.
. 1997. Myth, Chronicle, and Story: Exploring the Narrative Qualities of News. In
Social Meanings of News, ed. Dan Berkowitz, 33350. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
Boorstin, Daniel. 1962. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America. New York:
Atheneum.
Bronner, Simon. 1995. Piled Higher and Deeper: The Folklore of Student Life. Little Rock:
August House.
Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1981. The Vanishing Hitchhiker. New York: Norton.
245

246

References
. 1984. The Choking Doberman. New York: Norton.
. 1986. The Mexican Pet. New York: Norton.
. 1989. Curses! Broiled Again! New York: Norton.
. 2000. The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story. Urbana: University of
Illinois Press.
. 2001. Folklore in the News (and on the Net). Western Folklore 60:4766.
Center for Media and Public Affairs. 2006. The President as Punchline: Political Humor
on Late-Night TV during the Bush Years. Media Monitor 20. http://www.cmpa.com/
files/media_monitor/06janfeb.pdf.
Davies, Christie. 1996. Ethnic Humor around the World. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
. 1999. Jokes on the Death of Diana. In The Mourning for Diana, ed. Tony Walker,
25368. New York: Berg.
Degh, Linda. 1994. American Folklore and the Mass Media. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Degh, Linda, and Andre Vazsonyi. 1976. Legend and Belief. In Folklore Genres, ed. Dan
Ben-Amos, 95123. Austin: University of Texas Press.
deSousa, Ronald. 1987. When Is It Wrong to Laugh? In The Philosophy of Laughter and
Humor, ed. John Morreall, 22649. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Dorst, John. 1990. Tags and Burners, Cycles and Networks: Folklore in the Telectronic
Age. Journal of Folklore Research 27:17990.
Douglas, Mary. 1991. Jokes. In Rethinking Popular Culture, ed. Chandra Nukerji and
Michael Schudson, 291310. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Drucker, Susan J., and Robert S. Cathcart. 1994. The Celebrity and the Fan: A Media
Relationship. In American Heroes in a Media Age, ed. Susan J. Drucker and Robert S.
Cathcart, 26069. Creskill, N.J.: Hampton Press.
Dundes, Alan. 1968. Folk Ideas as Units of World View. Journal of American Folklore
81:14358.
. 1980. Interpreting Folklore. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
. 1987. Cracking Jokes. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press.
. 1989. Six Inches from the Presidency: The Gary Hart Jokes as Public Opinion.
Western Folklore 48:4351.
. 1997. From Game to War and Other Psychoanalytic Essays on Folklore. Lexington:
University Press of Kentucky.
Dundes, Alan, and Carl Pagter. 1975/1992. Work Hard and You Shall Be Rewarded. Detroit:
Wayne State University Press.
. 1987. When Youre Up to Your Ass in Alligators. Detroit: Wayne State University
Press.
. 1991a. The Mobile Scud Missile Launcher and Other Persian Gulf Warlore: An
American Folk Image of Saddam Husseins Iraq. Western Folklore 50:30322.
. 1991b. Never Try to Teach a Pig to Sing. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
. 1996. Sometimes the Dragon Wins. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press.

References
. 2000. Why Dont Sheep Shrink When It Rains? Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University
Press.
Ellis, Bill. 1991. The Last Thing. . . . Said: The Challenger Disaster Jokes and Closure.
International Folklore Review 8:11024.
. 2001. A Model for Collecting and Interpreting World Trade Center Disaster Jokes.
New Directions in Folklore 5. http://www.temple.edu/isllc/newfolk/wtchumor.html.
. 2002. Making a Big Apple Crumble: The Role of Humor in Constructing a Global
Response to Disaster. New Directions in Folklore 6. http://www.temple.edu/isllc/
newfolk/bigapple/bigapple1.html.
Fernback, Jan. 2003. Legends on the Net: An Examination of Computer-Mediated
Communication as a Locus of Oral Culture. New Media and Society 5:2946.
Fine, Gary Alan. 1992. Manufacturing Tales. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
. 2004. Review of Engaging Humor, by Elliott Oring. Journal of American Folklore
117:225.
. 2005. An Introductory Essay. In Rumor Mills, ed. Gary Alan Fine, Veronique
Campion-Vincent, and Chip Heath, 17. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction.
Fine, Gary Alan, and Irfan Khawaja. 2005. Celebrating Arabs and Grateful Terrorists.
In Rumor Mills, ed. Gary Alan Fine, Veronique Campion-Vincent, and Chip Heath,
189205. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction.
Fishman, Mark. 1980. Manufacturing the News. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Frank, Robert. 1995/2002. Men in Brown. In Floating off the Page, ed. Ken Wells, 7275.
New York: Wall Street Journal Books.
Frank, Russell. 2003a. These Crowded Circumstances: When Pack Journalists Bash Pack
Journalism. Journalism: Theory, Practice, and Criticism 4:44158.
. 2003b. Folklore in a Hurry: The Community Experience Narrative in Newspaper
Coverage of the Loma Prieta Earthquake. Journal of American Folklore 116:15975.
. 2004. When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go Photoshopping: September 11
and the Newslore of Vengeance and Victimization. New Media and Society 6:63358.
. 2006a. Worth a Thousand Words: The Photographic Urban Legend and the
Illustrated Urban Legend. Contemporary Legend 6:11945.
. 2006b. Can the News Media Censor Themselves? Media Ethics 18 (1): 838.
Freud, Sigmund. 1928/1987. Humor. In The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor, ed. John
Morreall, 11116. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Gamson, Joshua. 1994. Claims to Fame. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gans, Herbert. 1980. Deciding Whats News. New York: Random House.
Gates, Bill. 1998. On Spam: Wasting Time on the Internet. 25 March. http://www.
microsoft.com/billgates/columns/1998Essay/3%2D25col.asp.
Georges, Robert. 1976. The General Concept of Legend: Some Assumptions to Be
Reexamined and Reassessed. In American Legend: A Symposium, ed. Wayland D. Hand,
120. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Glassie, Henry. 1982. Passing the Time in Ballymenone. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press.

247

248

References
Goodwin, Joseph. 1995. If Ignorance Is Bliss, Tis Folly to Be Wise: What We Dont Know
Can Hurt Us. Journal of Folklore Research 32:15564.
. 2001. Unprintable Reactions to All the News Thats Fit to Print: Topical Humor
and the Media. New Directions in Folklore 5. http://www.temple.edu/isllc/newfolk/
reactions1.html.
Green, Archie. 1978. Industrial Lore: A Bibliographic-Semantic Inquiry. Western Folklore
37:21344.
Grundberg, Andy. 1990. Crisis of the Real. New York: Aperture.
Hathaway, Rosemary. 2005. Life in the TV: The Visual Nature of 9/11 Lore and Its Impact
on Vernacular Response. Journal of Folklore Research 42:3356.
Hine, Christine. 2000. Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage.
Holley, Frederick S. 1981. Los Angeles Times Stylebook. New York: New American Library.
Holliday, J. S. 1981. The World Rushed In. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Horrigan, John B., and Lee Rainie. 2002. Getting Serious Online. Pew Internet and
American Life Project. http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Getting_Serious_
Online3ng.pdf.
Hutcheson, Francis. 1750/1987. From Reflections upon Laughter. In The Philosophy of
Laughter and Humor, ed. John Morreall, 2640. Albany: State University of New York
Press.
Irby, Kenny. 2001. The Photographer behind the Image (and Smoke). September 21.
http://www.poynter.org/Terrorism/kenny7.htm.
. 2003. L.A. Times Photographer Fired over Altered Image. April 2. http://www
.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=28082.
Jay, Timothy. 1992. Cursing in America. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Jones, Steve. 1997. Using the News: An Examination of the Value and Use of News
Sources in Computer-Mediated Communication. Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication 2. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol2/issue4/jones.html.
Kibby, Marjorie. 2005. Email Forwardables: Folklore in the Age of the Internet. New
Media and Society 7:77090.
Knowlton, Steve. 1997. Moral Reasoning for Journalists. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
Kovach, Bill, and Tom Rosenstiel. 2001. The Elements of Journalism. New York: Crown.
Kuipers, Giselinde. 2005. Where Was King Kong When We Needed Him? Public
Discourse, Digital Disaster Jokes, and the Functions of Laughter after 9/11. Journal of
American Culture 28:7084.
Kurtzman, Daniel. 2001. America Attacked. http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/
weekly/aa091301a.htm.
Langellier, Kristin. 1989. Personal Narratives: Perspectives on Theory and Research. Text
and Performance Quarterly 9:24376.
Lasky, Melvin J. 2005. Profanity, Obscenity, and the Media. New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transaction.
Lvi-Strauss, Claude. 1966. The Savage Mind. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

References
Lippman, Thomas. 1989. Washington Post Deskbook on Style. New York: McGraw Hill.
Lowney, Kathleen S., and Joel Best. 1996. What Waco Stood For: Jokes as Popular
Constructions of Social Problems. Perspectives on Social Problems 8:7797.
Lule, Jack. 2001. Daily News, Eternal Stories: The Mythological Role of Journalism. New
York: Guilford Press.
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1948/1954. Magic, Science, and Religion. Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday Anchor.
Mason, Bruce L. 1996. Moving toward Virtual Ethnography. American Folklore Society
News 25, no. 2 (April): 46. http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~bmason/phd/afsnews.html.
McCarl, Robert. 1984. An Analysis of Performance in Fire Fighting Culture. Journal of
American Folklore 97:393422.
. 1986. Occupational Folklore. In Folk Groups and Folklore Genres: An Introduction,
ed. Elliott Oring, 7190. Logan: Utah State University Press.
Meyrowitz, Joshua. 1994. The Life and Death of Media Friends: New Genres of Intimacy
and Mourning. In American Heroes in a Media Age, ed. Susan J. Drucker and Robert S.
Cathcart, 6281. Creskill, N.J.: Hampton Press.
Mills, Alice, and Jeremy Smith, eds. 2001. Utter Silence: Voicing the Unspeakable. New York:
Peter Lang.
Miner, Horace. 1956. Body Ritual among the Nacirema. American Anthropologist 58:5037.
Mintz, Lawrence E. 1983. Humor and Popular Culture. In Handbook of Humor Research,
vol. 2, ed. Paul E. McGhee and Jeffrey H. Goldstein, 12942. New York: Springer.
Mitchell, William J. 1992. The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-photographic Era.
Cambridge: MIT Press.
Morreall, John, ed. 1987. The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor. Albany: State University of
New York Press.
Mullen, Patrick. 1978. I Heard the Old Fishermen Say. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Myerhoff, Barbara, and Jay Ruby, eds. 1982. A Crack in the Mirror: Reflexive Perspectives in
Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Nader, Laura. 1974. Up the AnthropologistPerspectives Gained from Studying Up. In
Reinventing Anthropology, ed. Dell Hymes, 14756. New York: Vintage Books.
Oring, Elliott. 1987. Jokes and the Discourse on Disaster. Journal of American Folklore
100:27686.
. 1992. Jokes and Their Relations. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
. 1995. Arbiters of Taste: An Afterword. Journal of Folklore Research 32:16574.
. 2003. Engaging Humor. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Pew Internet and American Life Project. 2008. Demographics of Internet Users. May.
http://pewinternet.org/trends/User_Demo_2.15.08.htm (accessed June 2, 2008).
Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. 2009. Press Accuracy Rating Hits Two
Decade Low. September 13. http://people-press.org/report/543 (accessed September 28,
2009).
Postman, Neil. 1985. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York: Penguin.

249

250

References
Powell, Chris, and George E. C. Paton, eds. 1988. Humour in Society. London: Macmillan.
Preston, Michael J. 1994. Traditional Humor from the Fax Machine: All of a Kind.
Western Folklore 53:14769.
Rainie, Lee, et al. 2002. One Year Later: September 11 and the Internet. Pew Internet
and American Life Project. September 5. http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_
9-11_Report.pdf.
Redfield, Robert. 1947. The Folk Society. American Journal of Sociology 52:293308.
Reuss, Richard. 1974. That Cant Be Alan Dundes! Alan Dundes Is Taller than That!
Journal of American Folklore 87:30317.
Rheingold, Howard. 2000. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic
Frontier. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Rosenberger, Rob. 1995/1997. Computer Viruses and False Authority Syndrome. http://
www.vmyths.com/fas/fas.pdf.
Santino, Jack. 1989. Miles of Smiles, Years of Struggle: Stories of Black Pullman Porters.
Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Schudson, Michael. 1978. Discovering the News. New York: Basic Books.
. 1989. The Sociology of News Production. Media, Culture, and Society 11:26382.
Shipley, David, and Will Schwalbe. 2007. Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Home and
Office. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Siegal, Allan M., and William G. Connolly, eds. 1999. The New York Times Manual of Style
and Usage. New York: Times Books.
Sims, Norman, ed. 1984. The Literary Journalists. New York: Ballantine.
Smith, Moira, and Rachelle H. Saltzman, eds. 1995. Arbiters of Taste: Censuring/Censoring
Discourse. Special issue, Journal of Folklore Research 32.
Smyth, Willie. 1986. Challenger Jokes and the Humor of Disaster. Western Folklore
45:24360.
Soloski, John. 1999. News Reporting and Professionalism: Some Constraints on the
Reporting of News. In News: A Reader, ed. Howard Tumber, 30819. Oxford, U.K.:
Oxford University Press.
Sontag, Susan. 1977. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Stevens, John D. 1985. Sensationalism in Perspective. Journalism History 12:7879.
Templeton, Brad. n.d. RHF Submission Guidelines. Rec.Humor.Funny. http://www
.netfunny.com/rhf/submit.html.
Thomas, Jeannie B. 1997. Dumb Blondes, Dan Quayle, and Hillary Clinton: Gender,
Sexuality, and Stupidity in Jokes. Journal of American Folklore 110:277313.
Turner, Patricia. 1993. I Heard It through the Grapevine. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
University of Missouri School of Journalism. 1998. Can Good Storytelling Sell Newspapers?
Van Dijk, Teun A. 1991. The Interdisciplinary Study of News as Discourse. In A Handbook
of Qualitative Methodologies for Mass Communication Research, ed. Klaus B. Jensen and
Nicholas W. Jankowski, 10820. New York: Routledge.
Vlach, John. 1971. One Black Eye and Other Horrors: A Case for the Humorous AntiLegend. Indiana Folklore 4:95140.

References
Weinberger, David. 2002. Small Pieces Loosely Joined. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus.
Welsch, Roger. 1974. Biggern Life: The Tall Tale Postcard. Southern Folklore Quarterly
38:31123.
Wojcik, Daniel. 1996. Polaroids from Heaven. Journal of American Folklore 109:12948.
Zelizer, Barbie. 1993. Journalists as Interpretive Communities. Critical Studies in Mass
Communications 10:21937.

Newspaper and Magazine Stories

Allbritton, Chris. 1999. Industry Springs Up around Y2K Bug. Miami Herald, 2 January, 14A.
Anderson, Lisa, and Dan Mihalopoulos. 2001. A Grim Search in a Shattered City. Chicago
Tribune, 13 September, 1.
Barringer, Felicity. 2001. A False Challenge to News Photos Takes Root on the Web. New
York Times, 24 September, C9.
Barry, Dave. 2007. Youve Got Trouble. New York Times Book Review, 6 May, 13.
Bearak, Barry. 2001. Taliban Plead for Mercy to the Miserable in a Land of Nothing. New
York Times, 13 September, A18.
Beatty, Shannon. 2002. Back on the Chain Gang. Columbus Dispatch, 25 February, 1E.
Benedetti, Winda. 2001. Are You Being Forward with E-mail? Stop! Seattle PostIntelligencer, 23 October, 1.
Boule, Margie. 2004. Check Those Political Tales Before You Spread Dumb Hoaxes.
Oregonian, 26 August, E1.
Bridges, Tony. 2001. Urban Legends Ride in Wake of Terrorist Attacks. Tallahassee
Democrat, 20 October.
Britt, Donna. 2005. In Katrinas Wake, Inaccurate Rumors Sullied Victims. Washington
Post, 30 September, B1.
Caldwell, Alicia. 2001. Whatever It Takes. St. Petersburg Times, 18 September, 1B.
Carr, David. 2005. More Horrible than Truth: News Reports. New York Times, 19
September, C1.
Choe, Stan. 2001. What Is Photoshopping? A New Sport on the Web. Knight Ridder
Newspapers, printed in Centre Daily Times (State College, Pa.), 10 March, E1.
Christensen, Charles. 2005. Letter to the Editor. Newsday, 1 September, A38.
Connor, Tracy. 2002. Running Late Saved Them from Trade Center Death. New York
Daily News, 8 September, Wrap 8.
Cooper, Marc. 2004. Among the NASCAR Dads. Nation, 22 March. Posted March 4 at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040322/cooper2 (accessed January 17, 2006).
Crary, David. 2007. Top 2007 Stories. Evansville Courier Press, 27 December. http://www
.courierpress.com/news/2007/dec/21/top-2007-stories.
Dao, James, Joseph B. Treaster, and Felicity Barringer. 2005. New Orleans Is Awaiting
Deliverance. New York Times, 2 September, 15.
DeFao, Janine. 1995. LSD-Tattoo Story Updatedbut Still Nonsense. Sacramento Bee,
2 July, 1B.

251

252

References
Duncan, Jeff. 2005. Superdome Laid Waste by Those Who Sheltered. Times-Picayune,
12 September, A5.
Dwyer, Jim, and Christopher Drew. 2005. Fear Exceeded Crimes Reality in New Orleans.
New York Times, 29 September, 1.
Fish, Stanley. 2008. All You Need Is Hate. New York Times, 3 February. http://fish.blogs.
nytimes.com/2008/02/03/all-you-need-is-hate.
Frank, Russell. 2003c. Altered Photos Break Publics Trust in Media. Los Angeles Times,
7 April, B11.
. 2007. Cho the Warrior. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 29 April, 29.
Gibes, Al. 2001. Online Wit Turns Hoax to Humor. Las Vegas Review-Journal, 15 October.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2001/Oct-15-Mon- 2001/business/17198704.
html.
Gibson, Owen. 2001. New Media: The Truth about that CNN Email. Guardian,
24 September, 3B.
Gibson, William. 2005. Gods Little Toys: Confessions of a Cut and Paste Artist. Wired 13
(July). http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.07/gibson.html.
Goodman, Ellen. 2004. Forgetting the Dad in NASCAR Pitch. Boston Globe, 19 February.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/02/19/
forgetting_the_dad_in_nascar_pitch (accessed January 17, 2006).
Hafner, Katie. 2004. The Camera Never Lies, but the Software Can. New York Times, 11
March, G1.
Harden, Blaine. 2001. After the Attacks: The Reaction. New York Times, 13 September, A15.
Harmon, Amy. 2001. FBI Debunks E-mail Threat. New York Times, 12 October.
Haygood, Wil, and Ann Scott Tyson. 2005. It Was As If All of Us Were Already
Pronounced Dead. Washington Post, 15 September, A1.
Heffernan, Virginia. 2006. Brokeback Spoofs: Tough Guys Unmasked. New York Times, 2
March.
. 2008. Narrow Minded. New York Times Magazine, 25 May.
Hinckley, David. 2001. Rants in Their Pants. New York Daily News, 30 September,
Showtime15.
Hinkle, Alice. 1999. Area Towns Scramble to Cure Y2K Bugs. Boston Globe, 3 January, 1.
Horowitz, Jason. 2008. The Hillary Haters. GQ, February. http://men.style.com/gq/
features/landing?id=content_6249.
Indian Express. 1998. Britan [sic] Now Sheds Tears of Laughter over Princess
Diana. Indian Express, 21 August. http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/ie/
daily/19980821/23350024.html.
Ivanovich, David. 2006. Everybody Knows Enrons Name, for Better or Worse. San
Francisco Chronicle, 16 March. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/
enron/2655424.html.
Klebnikov, Paul. 2003. Cokes Sinful World. Forbes, 22 December. http://www.forbes.com/
forbes/2003/1222/086.html.

References
Kornblum, Janet. 2001. Humor Returns to the Web, but Sites Are Careful in Their Topics.
USA Today, 26 September, 4D.
Light, Ken. 2004. Fonda, Kerry, and Photo Fakery. Washington Post, 28 February, A21.
Logan, Michael. 1999. Preparing, for the End of the World as We Know It. Pittsburgh PostGazette, 3 January, A-1.
LondonNet. n.d. Death of the Princess. http://www.londonnet.co.uk/ln/talk/news/
diheadlines_previous2.html.
Los Angeles Times. 2003. Editors Note. Los Angeles Times, 2 April, A1.
Maykuth, Andrew. 2006. Few U.S. Outlets Showing Muhammad Cartoons. Philadelphia
Inquirer, 4 February, A6.
McClain, Dylan. 2002. Another Big Fish Story Comes Unraveled. New York Times, 7
October, C3.
Morse, Rob. 2001. Get Out Your Map, This War Wont Be Over by Christmas. San
Francisco Chronicle, 16 September, A22.
Moss, Mitchell L. 1999. Has Something Gone Wrong with Suburban Culture? Houston
Chronicle, 23 April, A39.
New York Times. 2001. Wartime Rhetoric. New York Times, 19 September, A26.
. 2005. Barbara Bush Calls Evacuees Better Off. New York Times, 7 September.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/07/national/nationalspecial/07barbara.
html?scp=1&sq=barbara%20bush%20calls%20evacuees&st=cse.
Nichols, John. 2005. Barbara Bush: Its Good Enough for the Poor. Nation, 6 September.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/20080.
Oldenburg, Ann. 2006. Its Open Season on Dick Cheney. USA Today, 14 February, B10.
Park, Michael Y. 2002. Online Art Form Gains Popularity. FOXNews.com, 18 March.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,48116,00.html.
Perkins, Joseph. 2001. We Should Make Perpetrators Pay with Their Blood. San Diego
Union-Tribune, 12 September, B7.
Peterson, Karen. 2001. Do We Seek Revenge or Justice? USA Today, 19 September, 1D.
Pitts, Leonard. 2001. September 12, 2001: Well Go Forward from This Moment. Miami
Herald, 12 Sept. http://www.miamiherald.com/living/columnists/leonard-pitts/
story/374188.html.
Ramsey, Bruce. 2000. Y2K Debacle an Embarrassment for the Media. Seattle PostIntelligencer, 12 January, D1.
Rivers, Bryon. 2000. Believe Every Warning That Comes in Your E-mail? Eagle-Tribune
(Mass.), 22 September.
Roeper, Richard. 1997. Biggest Stories of 97? Have I Got News for You. Chicago SunTimes, 29 December, 11.
. 2001. Its All Right to Laugh at Ground Zero Geek. Chicago Sun-Times,
17 October, 11.
Rosenberg, Scott. 2000. Did Gore Invent the Internet? Salon, 5 October. http://archive
.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2000/10/05/gore_internet/index.html.

253

254

References
Silva, Mark, and Michael Tackett. 2005. President Needs to Get, Give Answers. Chicago
Tribune, 4 September, 1.
Smith, Jerd. 2001. Worries from the Web: Modern Day Grapevine Speeds Dissemination
of False Rumors. Rocky Mountain News, 15 October, 1B.
Thevenot, Brian, and Gordon Russell. 2005. Rape. Murder. Gun Fights. Times-Picayune,
26 September, A1.
Tierney, John. 2001. Fantasies of Vengeance, Fed by Fury. New York Times, 18 September.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/18/nyregion/the-big-city-fantasies-of-vengeance-fedby-fury.html?scp=1&sq=fantasies+of+vengeance&st=nyt.
. 2008. Living in Fear and Paying a High Cost in Heart Risk. New York Times,
15 January. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/science/15tier.html.
Tomsho, Robert, Barbara Carton, and Jerry Guidera. 2001. She Got Laid Off, He Missed a
Train; Such Lucky Breaks. Wall Street Journal, 13 September, A1.
USA Today. 1998. A Nation Stunned by School Mayhem Searches for Answers. USA
Today, 26 March, 14A.
Wall Street Journal. 2001. Fiery Escapes, Surreal Stories at Trade Center. Wall Street
Journal, 17 September, B1B4.
Weeks, Linton. 2006. In the Nawlins Muck, Theyre Yukking It Up. Washington Post,
27 February, C2.
Weingarten, Gene. 2001. Not Funny: The Rules of Humor Changed on Sept. 11.
Washington Post (F ed.), 18 September, C1.

index
About.com: humor, 26, 212, 231n; urban
legends, 1819, 68, 74, 9697, 105, 117, 184,
23639n, 24243n
Abramoff, Jack, 27
Abu Ghraib prison photos, 94
Afghanistan: invasion of, 65, 82, 98; news
coverage of, 8788; in newslore of 9/11,
66, 72, 8889; and Osama bin Laden,
13334
AIDS: and Magic Johnson, 18182; in
the news, 24; and Republicans, 2034;
urban legends about, 18, 226, 22830
Al Qaeda, 86, 180, 229
Alabiso, Vin: on World Trade
Center/devil photo, 22
Albert, Marv, 213
Allbritton, Chris, 240n
Americanhistoryabout.com, 236n
Amoss, Jim, on Hurricane Katrina legends,
104
Anderson, Lisa, 236n
Answerbag.com, 240n
Answerbank.com, and Steve Irwin jokes,
178, 241n
Anvari.org, on Bush reading upside-down
photoshop, 109, 239n
AOL, 154, 192, 22829
Apple Computer, 151, 155
Apte, Mahadev L., 231n
Arafat, Yasir, 127, 213
Arsenio Hall Show, and Bush/Clinton
saxophone joke, 111
Arthur Andersen, 34, 143, 14546, 2012,
231n

Associated Press, 22, 159, 169, 18485, 222

23, 243n; Top Ten Stories lists, 32, 21215
Auschwitz jokes, 14, 3839
Azine (Asian American Movement Ezine),
239n
Baer, Florence, 106, 239n
Baker, Jim, in sex scandal joke, 202
Barney Rubble, in Osama bin Laden joke,
88
Barringer, Felicity, coverage of September
11 photos, 21, 234n, 238n
Barry, Dave: on e-mail spam, 209; and
humor in the news, 25
Baym, Nancy, 10, 13, 23233n
BBC, and September 11 photos, 21
Bearak, Barry, on bombing Afghanistan,
87, 237n
Beatty, Shannon, on e-mail spam, 19, 234n
Benedetti, Winda, on e-mail spam, 19,
234n
Benjamin, Walter, 28, 235n
Bennett, Charles, 65, 68
Benton, Gregor, 12, 232n
Berger, Asa, 235n
Bernstein, Carl, and Deep Throat, 48
Bessette, Carolyn, 171
Bessette, Lauren, 171
Best, Joel, 233n, 242n
Biden, Joe, 193, 212
Big Three automakers, 45
Bin Laden, Osama, 63, 75, 8089, 9194,
127, 13334, 147, 153, 212, 214, 236n, 243n.
See also Joke texts; Photoshop subjects

255

256

Index
Bird, S. Elizabeth, 233n, 238n
Blagojevich, Rod, 190, 192
Blitzer, Wolf, interview with Al Gore, 57
Bobbitt, Lorena, 31; and bin Laden/genie
joke, 87
Boese, Alex, and fake news about death of
Jon Heder, 187
Bond, Julian, 238n
Bono, Sonny, jokes about, 16971
Boorstin, Daniel, 233n
Boulder Daily Camera, 238n
Boule, Margie: on Bush IQ legend, 117,
239n; on e-mail spam, 19, 234n
Bradlee, Ben, 24
Branch Davidians, 31, 233n
Brash, Larry, 151, 240n
Bridges, Tony, 234n
Britt, Donna, 239n
Bronner, Simon, 237n
Brown, Divine, in Hugh Grant/Bill Gates
joke, 152
Brown, Michael, and Bush/Katrina
photoshop, 99
Brunvand, Jan Harold, 13, 18, 23234n,
23940n, 24243n
Bryant, Kobe, in Bush/parachute joke, 117
Buchanan, Pat, and 2000 election, 131
Bud Lite, and Challenger disaster jokes, 82
Bumper stickers, 3334, 101
Bush, Barbara, 121; and Bush beer
photoshop, 212; and Hurricane Katrina,
97
Bush, George H. W., 34, 9697, 99, 11314,
203
Bush, George W., 56, 15, 21, 2728, 31, 38,
57, 62, 82, 92, 9495, 149, 153, 173, 179, 191,
19495, 198, 200202, 207, 212, 214, 217,
23840n, 243n; and Enron, 14647; and
Hurricane Katrina, 95100, 238n; jokes
and photoshops about intelligence of,
10827; and Mastercard Priceless
parodies, 13036

Bush, Jeb, and Terri Schiavo joke, 179

Bush, Jenna, 121; and Bush beer
photoshop, 212
Bush, Laura: and George W. Bush/gold
urinal joke, 112; and Enron stock, 147
49; fake letter from, 11516
Bush Administration, 28, 63, 65, 9495,
13334, 137, 146, 197, 200, 202, 22122
Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 90
Caldwell, Alicia, 238n
Carr, David, on Hurricane Katrina
legends, 103, 23839n
Carter, Jimmy, 27
Carton, Barbara, 237n
Cathcart, Robert S., 233n
Celebrities: fake news stories about the
death of, 18088; jokes about the death
of, 16880; in the news, 16668
Center for Media and Public Affairs
(CMPA), 120, 21415, 239n, 242n
Center for Responsive Politics, 147
Centre Daily Times, 33, 36
Chain letters, 154, 22630
Challenger Disaster jokes, 28, 82, 89, 92,
168, 17172, 243n
Chavez, Hugo, in Barack Obama rumors,
190
Cheney, Dick: in Bush jokes, 62, 11011; in
fake George W. Bush press conference
transcript, 147; in fake Laura Bush
letter, 115; and Halliburton, 116; hunting
accident, 2627, 197, 200202, 207, 211;
and Iraq War, 122, 133; role in George
W. Bush administration, 95, 108, 112; as
target of late-night comedians, 214
Cher, 170
Chertoff, Michael, and Hurricane Katrina, 99
Chinese earthquake (2008), 106
Choe, Stan, 242n
Christensen, Charles, letter to Newsday,
238n

Index
Chrysler Corporation, 4
Churchs Fried Chicken, Hurricane
Katrina joke, 102
Claiborne, Liz, urban legends about, 74,
128, 237n
Clinton, Bill, 24, 28, 3133, 39, 45, 58, 61,
108, 11113, 120, 127, 130, 147, 17374, 204,
212, 215; jokes about, 34, 6, 33, 4243,
4656, 101, 109, 11112, 11720, 127, 153,
179, 189, 200202, 207, 214. See also Joke
letters; Joke texts
Clinton, Chelsea, 33, 43, 52, 62, 240n
Clinton, Hillary, 25, 2728, 3135, 3844,
4955, 57, 59, 61, 87, 112, 11719, 126, 136,
146, 153, 17374, 189, 200, 202, 207, 212,
214. See also Joke texts; Photoshop
subjects
CNN, 21, 57, 181, 187
Coca Cola, 22829; contamination legends
about, 7475, 128, 237n
Colbert, Stephen, and truthiness, 220,
242n
Cold War, 16
Columbine High School: and Mastercard
Priceless commercial parody, 129
Compass, Edwin P., on Hurricane Katrina
legends, 1023
Computer-mediated communication
(CMC), 9, 28, 68, 93, 107, 154, 242n
Concorde, in Tourist Guy photoshop, 80
Condit, Gary, jokes about Chandra Levy
affair, 34, 46
Connolly, William G., 235n
Connor, Tracy, 237n
Cooper, Marc, on George W. Bushs
NASCAR campaign stop, 136, 240n
Corddry, Rob, 200
Craig, Larry, 190
Cultural relativism, 16
Cunanan, Andrew, and murder of Gianni
Versace, 172, 213
Cruise, Tom, and photoshopping, 216

Cybercartoons, 216. See also Photoshops

Cyberspace, 1011, 15, 26, 68, 1078, 120,
177, 189, 209, 23132n
Dahmer, Jeffrey, 31
Daily Kos, 239n
Daily Show, 200
Dalai Lama, in Bill Gates/parachute joke,
118
Dao, James, 237n
Dardenne, Robert, 233n, 238n
Darwin, Charles, in fake Laura Bush letter,
116
Daschle, Tom, photoshop of backwards
pledge, 109
Davies, Christie, 93, 233n, 23536n, 238n,
241n
Dean, Howard, 192
Dear Abby parodies, 54, 140, 146, 219
Deep Throat, in Clinton/Lewinsky joke,
48
DeFao, Janine, 233n
DeGeneres, Ellen, 213
Degh, Linda, 234n
Democratic Party, 28, 31, 3436, 58, 62, 94,
107, 116, 132, 136, 146, 213
Department of Homeland Security, 99, 225
DeSousa, Ronald, 237n
Digitally altered photographs. See
Photoshops
Disney movies, in Michael Jackson joke,
174
Disney World, 230; and Dan Quayle/Loma
Prieta earthquake joke, 100
Disneyland, 228
Dole, Bob: Depends joke, 46; as target of
late-night comedians, 214
Dorst, John, 13, 82, 23233n, 237n
Douglas, Mary, 11, 29
Drew, Christopher, 23839n
Drucker, Susan J., 233n
Duke, David, 31

257

258

Index
Duncan, Jeff, 238n
Dundes, Alan: on Auschwitz jokes, 14,
38, 233n, 235n; on the folk, 8, 232n;
on folklore of the paperwork empire,
89, 13, 232n, 240n; on function of
jokes, 107, 239n; on Gary Hart jokes,
235n; on light bulb jokes, 236n; on
meaning of folklore, 11, 232n; on
newslore of Operation Desert
Storm, 88, 236n; on sexual symbolism
in jokes, 84, 237n; on sources of new
folklore, 70
Dungy, James, in Mike Vanderjagt fake
suicide story, 18586
Dungy, Tony, in Mike Vanderjagt fake
suicide story, 185
Dwyer, Jim, 23839n
Edwards, John, and sex scandal, 19091
Ehow.com, and Barack Obama jokes, 190,
241n
Einstein, Albert, in George W. Bush/St.
Peter joke, 11819
Ellis, Bill: on newslore as a strategy of
rebellion, 82, 237n; on newslore of
September 11, 69, 85, 88, 23637n; on
photoshops as cybercartoons, 216,
242n; on researching netlore, 1314,
231n, 233n
E-mail, 5, 910, 12, 1415, 1819, 21, 24,
2628, 3435, 37, 39, 6373, 75, 8082, 90,
9293, 96, 108, 125, 135, 145, 154, 159, 161,
187, 19194, 197201, 2047, 20912, 217,
220, 22630, 23334n, 236n
Emery, David, 18, 243n
Eminem, fake news story about death of,
184, 187
Ensign, John, 190
Enron, 4, 28, 128, 13750, 201, 207
Epcot Center, in Dan Quayle/Loma Prieta
earthquake joke, 100, 117
Etch-a-Sketch, 16162

Extreme Makeover, and George W. Bush

joke, 124
Fake FAQs, Etch-a-Sketch, 16162
Fake memoranda: Wal-Mart identity theft
warning, 223; Y2K backup systems,
16061
Fake news stories: Bush library fire,
112; celebrity deaths, 18187; fellatio
study, 22223; gay marriage study, 221;
Microsoft buys federal government, 153;
Y1K Crisis, 164
Fake press releases: AIDS/gas pumps, 226;
Microsoft/Y2K, 162; UPS uniforms/
terrorism, 225
Falwell, Jerry, 6
Family Matters. See White, Jaleel
Fark.com, 93
Fauxtos. See Photoshops
Fawcett, Farrah, 169, 176
Faxlore, 9, 69, 71, 82, 113, 127, 141, 153, 215,
234n
FBI, 46, 48, 215, 224
Felt, Mark, 48
FEMA, 9899, 101
Fernback, Jan, 13, 233n
Ferrell, Will, fake news story about death
of, 18284
Fine, Gary Alan, 128, 240n
Fish, Stanley, 44, 189
Fishman, Mark, 238n
Flowers, Gennifer, 45, 50, 56, 61
Foaflore, 74
Folk, defined, 8
Folklore: in context, 13; defined, 8; faxlore,
89; and the Internet, 9; occupational,
8, 231n; from the paperwork empire, 8;
and popular culture, 21011; variation
in, 9
Fonda, Jane, in John Kerry photoshop,
5961, 236n
Forbes magazine, 32, 75

Index
Ford, Gerald, 153
Ford Motors, 4, 144
Forwards, forwardables. See E-mail
Frank, Robert, 243n
Frank, Russell, 33, 3638, 73, 200, 23335n,
239n
Frankly Speaking, 3344
Fred Flintstone, in Osama bin Laden joke,
88
Freerepublic.com, 240n
Freud, Sigmund, 232n
Gamson, Joshua, 12, 232n
Gans, Herbert, 233n, 238n
Garcia, Jerry, 32
Gartner, Michael, 16
Gates, Bill, 29, 32, 43, 118, 15156, 15859,
169, 230, 240n
General Electric, 154
General Motors (GM), 4, 155
Genie jokes, 5557, 8687
Georges, Robert, 217, 243n
Ghostbusters, 78, 80
Gibes, Al, 237n
Gibson, Owen, 22, 234n
Gibson, William, 192, 241n
Gingrich, Newt, 3132, 204, 214
Giuliani, Rudolph, 74, 214
Glassie, Henry, 242n
Godzilla, in Tourist Guy photoshop,
80
Goldman, Ronald, 172, 213
Goldstein, Diane, 239n
Gonzalez, Elian, 130, 136, 215
Goodman, Ellen, 136, 240
Goodman, John, fake stories about death
of, 187
Goodwin, Joseph, 69, 23536, 238
Gore, Al, 28, 45, 13132; jokes about, 51, 57
59, 62, 111, 153; in Mastercard Priceless
parody, 131; as target of late-night
comedians, 214

Grant, Hugh, 32; in Bill Gates/prostitute

joke, 152; in Princess Diana joke, 169
Green, Archie, 231n
Greene, Joe, and elevator legend, 127
Greenspan, Alan, in fake Laura Bush letter,
116
Greenspun, Philip, 239n
Ground Zero Geek. See Tourist Guy
Guidera, Jerry, 237n
Gulf War, 82, 84, 113, 133, 236n
Hafner, Katie, 236n
Halliburton, 108, 11516, 202
Halloween, 18, 46, 7274, 177, 236n
Harden, Blaine, 238n
Harding, Tonya, 20, 31, 87
Harkness, Timandra, on death of Princess
Diana, 180
Harmon, Amy, 236n
Harris, Eric, in Mastercard Priceless
commercial parody, 129
Hart, Gary, 235n
Hartford Courant, role of, in Los Angeles
Timess composite photo of Iraq war, 20
Hathaway, Rosemary, 232n, 237n
Haygood, Wil, 238n
Head and Shoulders shampoo, in
Challenger disaster jokes, 82
Heder, Jon, fake news story about death
of, 187
Heffernan, Virginia, 26, 192, 235n, 241n
Hilfiger, Tommy, legends about, 74, 128,
237n
Hilton, Paris: fake news stories about
death of, 187; jokes about, 177; news
coverage of, 167
Hinckley, David, 237n
Hindenburg, in Tourist Guy photoshop,
80
Hine, Christine, 23233n, 242n
Hinkle, Alice, 240n
Hoaxes, 19, 15859, 21617, 230; celebrity

259

260

Index
death stories as, 180, 187, 241n; computer
virus warnings as, 181, 220; Kerry/
Fonda photoshop as, 61; and September
11, 2122, 74, 77, 80
Holley, Frederick S., 235n
Holliday, J. S., 227, 243n
Holocaust jokes. See Auschwitz jokes
Holyfield, Evander, and Mike Tyson joke,
32
Horace, 242n
Horowitz, Jason, 28, 44, 235n
Horrigan, John B., 233n, 241n
Humor: in the news, 2526; on the Web,
90, 93, 152, 17778, 190, 19293, 21012
Hunter, Rielle, 191
Hurricane Katrina, 2728, 95106, 1089,
215, 23839n, 243n; French Quarter, 101;
Houston Astrodome, 97; New Orleans
Convention Center, 27, 98, 1024; looting,
101, 1045; Louisiana Superdome, 27,
1023, 123; Ninth Ward, 104
Hussein, Saddam, 69, 82, 94, 100, 11213,
124, 127, 13334, 180, 212, 214
Hutcheson, Francis, 218, 235n, 242n
Hyde, Henry, 204
Iacocca, Lee, 34
Idealog, 109, 239n
Indian Express, 180, 241n
I-newswire, 184
INS (Immigration and Naturalization
Service), 130
International Society for Contemporary
Legend Research, 239n
Iran, 6667, 83, 114, 133; Iranian hostage
crisis, 69, 71, 82, 236n
Iraq War, 6, 82, 84, 8889, 9495, 100101,
1089, 11315, 122, 13234, 136, 17980,
200, 22122
Irby, Kenny, 22, 234n
IRS (Internal Revenue Service), 34, 43,
115, 197

Irwin, Steve, 17778

Ivanovich, David, 240n
Jackson, Jesse, 143, 202
Jackson, Michael, 31, 16768, 173, 179, 189,
193, 240n; on AP Top Ten stories lists,
213, 215; fake stories about death of,
187; jokes about, 101, 169, 17476; and
photoshops, 12324
Jackson, Reggie, and elevator legend, 127
Jay, Timothy, 237n
JibJab.com, 47
Jobs, Steve, 151, 158
John, Elton, 170
Johnson, Earlitha Cookie, in fake news
story about death of Magic Johnson, 182
Johnson, Magic: and elevator legend, 127;
fake news story about death of, 18182
Joke letters: from Bill Clinton to FAA, 47;
Nigerian scam letter from George W.
Bush, 11415; from Plutonius to Cassius
and Y0K crisis, 16364; solicitation of
support for Enron executives, 143; from
satisfied taxpayer to IRS, 197
Joke texts: Afghanistan, 88; Osama bin
Laden, 8788, 236n; Sonny Bono, 171;
George W. Bush, 11012, 11718, 12427;
George W. Bush and Hurricane Katrina,
100; George W. Bush and Enron, 14647;
Laura Bush and Enron, 14849; Dick
Cheney, 200; Bill and Hillary Clinton,
33, 4243, 4951, 5456; Bill Clinton, 46
50, 5253, 61, 101, 117, 11920, 2012; Bill
Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, 5253;
Chelsea Clinton, 33, 43, 52, 62; Hillary
Clinton, 42, 126, 189; Bob Dole, 46; Bill
Gates, 15253, 15557; Al Gore, 51, 5759;
Bernie Madoff, 138; Barack Obama,
190; Branch Davidians (Waco), 219;
Bush administration, 202; Challenger
disaster (Christa McAuliffe), 219;
Chinese earthquake, 106; Gary Condit,

Index
46; John Edwards, 191; Enron, 14042,
146; Farrah Fawcett, 169; Genie, 5557,
87; Hurricane Katrina, 101; IRS, 19798;
Michael Jackson, 101, 16976; Michael
Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, 176; John F.
Kennedy Jr., 17173; Michael Kennedy,
171; Ted Kennedy, 241n; John Kerry,
59; Ken Lay, 13839; Monica Lewinsky,
4849, 5556; Rush Limbaugh, 219;
Microsoft, 15759; Ministers/sex scandal,
202; Mother Teresa, 170; Newspapers,
141, 2023; Pope Benedict XVI, 197;
Princess Diana, 16970, 180; Princess
Diana and Mother Teresa, 16970;
Dan Quayle, 47, 100, 214; Republicans,
203; Terri Schiavo, 179; September 11
attacks, 8990; O. J. Simpson, 172, 219;
Social Security, 201; St. Peter, 11819,
170; Taliban, 89; tsunami, 1056; 20089
financial crisis, 14546, 150; Mike Tyson,
32; Gianni Versace, 172; Tiger Woods,
19394; World Trade Center, 8990;
Y2K, 16061
Jokes: as folk media criticism, 92; function
of, 107; in the news, 22, 201
Jokesgallery.com, 212, 242n
Jones, Paula, 45, 50, 61; in Al Gore joke, 58;
as target of late-night comedians, 214
Jones, Steve, 232n
Jordan, Michael, in Bill Gates/parachute
joke, 118
Journal of American Folklore, 13
Journalism: coverage of Hurricane
Katrina, 1014; coverage of September
11, 9091; and humor, 25; and newslore,
1518, 21, 26; and newsworthiness, 212
13; and objectivity, 15; and taste, 2226
Karlin, Ben, on Enron scandal, 137
Kennedy, Jean, 173
Kennedy, John F., 7980; in Tiger Woods
joke, 194

Kennedy, John F., Jr.: on AP Top Ten list,

213, 215; jokes about, 17173
Kennedy, Michael, jokes about, 16973
Kennedy, Robert F., 169
Kennedy, Ted, 4647, 173, 220, 241n; on AP
Top Ten list, 213
Kentucky Fried Chicken, and George W.
Bush, Hillary Clinton photoshops, 121
Kerrigan, Nancy: and bin Laden/
genie joke, 87; and Tonya Harding
composite photo, 20; and Tonya
Harding jokes, 31
Kerry, John, 28, 212; in fake Laura Bush
letter, 115; jokes about, 59, 62, 146;
photoshops involving, 5962, 236n
Kerry, Teresa Heinz, rumors about, 117
Keyes, Alan, 203
Khomeini, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah,
8283, 127
Kibby, Marjorie, 240n, 242n
Kilgore, Barney, 29
King, Martin Luther, in Tiger Woods joke,
194
Klebnikov, Paul, 237n
Klebold, Dylan, in Mastercard Priceless
commercial parody, 129
Knowlton, Steve, 20, 23334n
Kopechne, Mary Jo, in Ted Kennedy/John
F. Kennedy Jr. jokes, 173
Koresh, David, 31
Kovach, Bill, 240n
Ku Klux Klan: and David Duke, 31; and
Barack Obama rumors, 190
Kuipers, Giselinde, 90, 23638n
Kurtzman, Daniel, on September 11
humor, 68, 236n
Langellier, Kristin, 233n
Laughline.com, 179
Lawyer jokes, 146, 190
Lay, Ken, 13840, 148
Lemay, Curtis, 88

261

262

Index
Leno, Jay, 21011, 242n; and Cheney
hunting joke, 200
Letterman, David, 210, 242n; and Cheney
hunting joke, 200; and Top Ten lists,
211, 219
Levi-Strauss, Claude, and bricolage, 123,
239n
Lewinsky, Monica, 4, 6, 24, 4547, 54, 61,
119, 147, 21415; jokes about, 3, 4850,
5253, 5557; as target of late-night
comedians, 214. See also Joke texts
Lewis, Carl, and fake celebrity death
stories, 187
LexisNexis, 18, 113
Lieberman, Joseph, in Al Gore joke, 51
Light, Ken, and Kerry/Fonda photoshop,
6061, 236
Limbaugh, Rush, 56, 31, 38, 219
Lincoln, Abraham, 3; in Tourist Guy
photoshop, 80; in Tiger Woods joke, 194
Lindahl, Carl, 104
Lippman, Walter, 235n
Literary journalism, 17
Livingston, Bob, 204
Logan, Michael, 240n
Loma Prieta earthquake, 100101, 106,
237n; in Dan Quayle joke, 100, 117
Longinus, 235n
Los Angeles Times, 234n; Iraq war
composite photo scandal, 20; in
newspaper joke, 141; and taste, 23
Lott, Trent, and Hurricane Katrina, 100
Louisiana Superdome, and Hurricane
Katrina, 27, 1023, 127
Lowell, James Russell, 232n
Lowney, Kathleen S., 233n, 242n
Lule, Jack, 81, 237n, 240n
Madoff, Bernard, jokes about, 138, 190,
192
Majors, Lee, in Farrah Fawcett joke, 176
Malinowski, Bronislaw, on magic, 69

Marro, Anthony, and Tonya Harding/

Nancy Kerrigan composite photo, 20
Mars Explorer, and bin Laden/milk carton
parody, 87
Mason, Bruce, 233n
Mastercard, Priceless commercial
parodies, 29, 82, 12930, 134, 145, 192
Maykuth, Andrew, 235n
McAuliffe, Christa, in Challenger jokes,
168, 219
McCain, John, in Bush/Katrina photoshop,
97
McCarl, Robert, 231n
McClain, Dylan Loeb, coverage of shark/
helicopter photoshop, 21, 234n
McClellan, Scott, in fake news story about
Bush library, 112
McDonalds, in Michael Jackson joke, 174
McPhee, John, 217, 243n
McVeigh, Timothy: on AP list of Top Ten
news stories (1997), 213; and UPS truck
warning, 226
Metzenbaum, Howard, 37
Meyer, Eugene, and taste in the
Washington Post, 24
Meyrowitz, Joshua, 236n, 24041n
Miami Herald, in newspaper joke, 141
Mickey Mouse, Iran hostage crisis folk
cartoon, 6869, 83
Microsoft, 146, 15155, 15759, 162, 198, 215,
22829
Mihalopoulos, Dan, 236n
Mikkelson, Barbara, urban legends in the
news, 18
Mikkelson, David, urban legends in the
news, 18
Millennium Bug. See Y2K
Miller Genuine Draft, on fake George W.
Bush billboard, 121
Mindspring.com, on coverage of death of
Princess Diana, 180, 241n
Miner, Horace, 161, 240n

Index
Mintz, Lawrence E., 233n
Mitchell, William J., 24142n
Mohammed, 2006 controversy over
cartoons in Danish newspaper, 25
Morse, Rob, 88, 237n
Moses, in promised land joke, 127
Mossberg, Walter, 151, 155
Mother Teresa: on AP list of Top Ten news
stories (1997), 213; in Princess Diana
jokes, 16970
MTV, and Bill Clinton boxers-vs.-briefs
joke, 46
Mullen, Patrick, 231n
Museumofhoaxes.com, on fake celebrity
death stories, 187, 241n
Myerhoff, Barbara, 17, 233n
Nader, Ralph, 6; and Mastercard
Priceless commercial parody, 13132
Nagin, Ray: and Hurricane Katrina, 26, 102
Napoleon Dynamite. See Heder, Jon
NASCAR, and Mastercard Priceless
commercial parody, 13536
Nation magazine: on George W. Bush and
Hurricane Katrina, 97; on George W.
Bushs NASCAR campaign stop, 136
National Geographic, and shark/helicopter
photoshop, 21
Neiman-Marcus, 230
Netiquette, 11, 199
Netlore, 910, 1314, 19, 29, 193, 20910,
217, 232n
Neuman, Alfred E., and George W. Bush
photoshop, 117
New Orleans, and Hurricane Katrina,
2627, 9698, 100105, 123
New Orleans Times-Picayune, coverage of
Hurricane Katrina, 104
New York Daily News, in newspaper joke,
141
New York Post, in newspaper joke, 141
New York Times: coverage of Afghanistan

war, 87; coverage of Cheney hunting

accident, 197; coverage of Hurricane
Katrina, 103, 238n; coverage of 9/11
attacks, 9192, 238n; coverage of
terrorism, 74, 90; Stanley Fish on
Hillary Clinton, 44; and humor, 26;
newslore in, 21, 192, 195; in newspaper
joke, 141; and taste, 23
New York Times Magazine, 15, 26
New York Times Manual of Style and
Usage, 23
New Yorker magazine, on airport security,
47
Newsday: Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan
composite photo, 20; letter in about
Bush/Katrina, 98
Newslore: defined, 7; as folk media
criticism, 9293, 168; as folklore genre,
9; oppositional function of, 1011,
9293; in the news, 1415, 1819, 2122,
93, 99, 117, 201; researching, 1314
Newspapers: digitally altered photos in,
2021; and humor, 25; and Mohammed
cartoon controversy, 25; newslore in, 15,
1819, 26, 3344, 99, 201; and Nigerian
scam, 113; and storytelling, 17; and taste,
2224, 91, 93; urban legends in, 18
Nichols, John, on George W. Bushs
handling of Hurricane Katrina, 97, 238n
Nichols, Terry, and UPS truck warning, 226
Nigerian Scam: as letter from George W.
Bush, 113, 239n; as letter from Laura
Bush, 115
9/11. See September 11
Ninjahpirate.com, fake news story about
death of, 187
Niva, Steve, 6566, 68
Numbskull jokes, 11718, 124, 190
Obama, Barack, 31, 117, 126, 18990, 212;
jokes about, 190, 241n; in photoshop
with upside-down phone, 109

263

264

Index
Obama, Michelle, 117
OBrien, Conan, 242n
Ochs, Adolph S., 23
Office copier folklore. See faxlore
Oklahoma City bombing, 32, 226
Oldenburg, Ann, 235n
Onion, The, 200, 211
Opensecrets.org, 240n
Operation Desert Storm, 71, 88
Oprah Winfrey Show, 74, 102
Oregonian, coverage of e-mail spam, 19, 117
Oring, Elliott: on Challenger jokes, 82, 92,
23738n, 240n; on Bill Clinton jokes,
45, 236n; and fieldwork, 231n; on humor
Web sites, 211, 242n; on jokes as a
strategy of rebellion, 85, 92, 238n; on
meaning of jokes, 11, 232n
Orwell, George, 11
Packwood, Bob, in Bill Clinton/Dan
Quayle joke, 4647
Pakistan, 134, 243n
Palin, Sarah, 126, 190, 212
Park, Michael Y., 242n
Parody, 8, 15, 26, 80, 82, 8485, 94, 98, 101,
117, 12223, 138, 140, 152, 160, 170, 191,
21112, 217, 21920; chain letters, 22730;
FAQs, 16162; Got Milk?, 27, 97, 120;
Have you seen me?, 87; Nigerian
scam, 11315; Priceless, 29, 82, 84,
12836, 192
Parody texts: Charity appeal (Enron),
14345; Got milk?, 97, 12021; Have
you seen? milk carton, 87; It Takes a
Village, 117; Mastercard Priceless, 82,
12937; Nigerian scam, 11316
Paton, George E. C., 232n
Penn State, 22, 36, 63, 74
Pepsi Cola, contamination legends about,
7475
Pepsico, 154
Perkins, Joseph, 87, 237n

Peterson, Karen, 238n

Pew Internet and American Life Project,
10, 14, 93, 192, 232n, 241n
Pew Research Center for the People and
the Press, 195
Philadelphia Inquirer, coverage of
Mohammed cartoons controversy,
2526
Photoshop subjects: Abu Ghraib, 94;
Osama bin Laden, 8286, 93; Barbara
and Jenna Bush, 121; George W. Bush,
10910, 11213, 117, 12025; George W.
Bush and Hurricane Katrina, 9699,
123; Hillary Clinton, 121; Tom Daschle,
109; John Edwards, 191; John Kerry,
5961; Sarah Palin, 19091; Statue of
Liberty, 69, 71; Tourist Guy, 7682;
World Trade Center, 6970
Photoshops, 7, 2627, 5961, 6970, 8182,
8486, 9394, 9899, 10810, 112, 117,
12122, 135, 138, 19192, 19798, 21618,
23536n, 24243n; in the news, 2022
Picasso, Pablo, in George W. Bush/St. Peter
joke, 11819
Pitts, Leonard, September 11 column, 28,
65, 23536n
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Y2K coverage, 159
Politicalhumor.com, 97, 231n, 23839n,
242n
Pope jokes, 102, 118, 120, 197
Popeyes Fried Chicken, Hurricane Katrina
joke, 102
Postman, Neil, 232n
Powell, Chris, 232n
Powell, Colin, 56
Poynter Institute, 22
Prince Charles, in Princess Diana joke, 169
Princess Diana, 93, 155, 16771, 180, 189,
213, 215, 236n, 24041n
Princess Grace, 171
Procter & Gamble, 128
Pseudo-events, 16

Index
Quayle, Dan, 31, 4647, 100, 117, 153, 191,
214, 238n
Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., 29
Rainie, Lee, 233n, 238n, 241n
Ramsey, Bruce, 240n
Ramsey, JonBenet, 213
Reagan, Ronald, 203, 213
Rec.funny.net, 210, 212
Redfield, Robert, 13, 37
Reed, Lou, fake stories about death of, 187
Reeve, Christopher, 32
Reno, Janet: role of, in Elian Gonzalez
story, 130; as target of late-night
comedians, 21415
Republican Party, 35, 58, 116, 203, 214;
Republican National Convention,
120
Reuss, Richard, 231n
Reuters, 21, 243n
Rheingold, Howard, 232n, 242n
Rice, Condoleeza, in fake Bush Nigerian
scam letter, 115
Riddle jokes, 5, 33, 4243, 4650, 58, 8889,
100, 1056, 138, 14546, 152, 16974, 176,
17980, 19091, 193, 21819. See also
Joke texts
Rivers, Bryon, 234n
Rocky Mountain News, and newslore about
Osama bin Laden, 93
Roe v. Wade, in Bush/Katrina joke, 100,
117, 238n
Roeper, Richard, 7677, 16970, 21314,
237n, 242n
Roosevelt, Franklin D., in Bush/promised
land joke, 127
Rosenberg, Rob, 236n
Rosenstiel, Tom, 240n
Ruby, Jay, 17, 233n
Rumsfeld, Donald, 62, 94, 108
Russell, Gordon, coverage of Hurricane
Katrina, 103

Salon.com, 200
San Diego Union-Tribune, coverage of
September 11, 87
San Francisco Chronicle, coverage of
September 11, 8788; in newspaper joke,
141
Sanford, Mark, 191
Santino, Jack, 231n
Santorum, Rick, 105
Saudi Arabia, 85, 114
Scambusters.org, 19
Schiavo, Terri, jokes about, 17880
Schudson, Michael, 233n, 238n
Schwalbe, Will, 242n
Schwarzenegger, Arnold, 212; as target of
late-night comedians, 214
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, coverage of
urban legends, 19; coverage of Y2K, 160
Secret Service: in Bush/Mastercard
parody, 136; in Cheney hunting joke,
200; in Bill/Hillary Clinton joke, 33, 42;
in fake Wal-Mart memo, 22425
September 11, 28, 6366, 68, 75, 82, 9195,
98, 133, 197, 225; on AP list of Top Ten
stories, 215; hoaxes about, 2122; jokes
about, 28, 82, 8690, 106; legends about,
7073; photoshops about, 6971, 77,
8186, 23637n. See also Joke texts;
Photoshop subjects
Seung-Hui, Cho, 41
7Up: in Challenger jokes, 82
Shipley, David, 242n
Siegal, Allan M., 235n
Silva, Mark, 238n
Simpson, Nicole Brown, 213
Simpson, O. J.: on AP list of Top Ten news
stories (1995), 32; and celebrity jokes, 31,
16768, 189; in Michael Kennedy/Sonny
Bono skiing accident joke, 172; news
coverage of, 213; as target of late-night
comedians, 214
Sims, Norman, 233n

265

266

Index
Sinclair, Gordon, 64, 68, 236n
60 Minutes, 24
Skilling, Jeffrey, 138
Sky News, 243n
Slacktivism, 12
Slumdog Millionaire, 138
Smith, Anna Nicole, 16668, 177
Smith, Carl, 104
Smith, Jerd, 238n
Smith, Susan, on AP list of Top Ten news
stories (1995), 32
Smith, Will, in John Kerry joke, 59
Smyth, Willie, 238n, 240n
Snopes.com, 220; Sonny Bono, 171;
on Bush/binoculars photoshop,
110, 239n; on Bush reading upsidedown photoshop, 109; on Churchs/
Popeyes story, 102, 238n; on Hillary
Clinton/soldier photo, 13637, 240n;
on fake UPS press release, 243n; on
fake Wal-Mart memo, 225, 243n; on
fauxtography, 24243n; on Gordon
Sinclair column, 236n; on Got fish?
photoshop, 98, 23839n; on Hilfiger and
Claiborne legends, 237n; on Hurricane
Katrina looters, 239n; on Klingerman
virus, 236n; on legends about Bushs
lack of intelligence, 112; in the news,
1819; on photoshops and rumors,
93; and slacktivism, 12, 232n; on Ken
Starr quote, 235n; on Syrian Mastercard
Priceless commercial parody, 135,
240n; on Tourist Guy, 76, 237n; on
tsunami photos, 105, 239n; on Wendys
contamination story, 233n
Society of Professional Journalists Code of
Ethics, 16, 20, 23334n
Soloski, John, 23, 235n
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, 12
Sotomayor, Sonya, 126
Spam, 10, 14, 135, 199, 230, 239n
Spanier, Graham, 6364

Spears, Britney, 118, 167, 187, 217

Speed, in Tourist Guy photoshop, 80
Spirit photos, 216
Spitzer, Eliot, 190
Spy magazine, Hillary Clinton photoshop,
235n
St. Peter jokes, 11819, 170, 241n
St. Petersburg Times, coverage of
September 11, 91
Starr, Kenneth, 2425, 203, 235n
Starr report, 24
Statue of Liberty: and Abu Ghraib
photoshop, 94; and newslore
of September 11, 6970; and
photoshopping, 217
Stern, Howard, and Afghanistan war, 88
Stevens, John, 234n
Stewart, Jon, 200
Stewart, Martha, as target of late-night
comedians, 214
Streisand, Barbra, in fake Laura Bush
letter, 116
Swaggert, Jimmy, joke about, 202
Tackett, Michael, 238n
Taliban, 4, 85, 8889
Tall-tale photographs, 216
Templeton, Brad (Rec.funny.net), 210
Tenant, George, and Medal of Freedom,
99100
Terrorism, 18, 70, 7376, 84, 9091, 117, 134,
146, 180, 200, 218, 22526, 230, 236n
Theron, Charlize, and photoshopping, 216
Thevenot, Brian, coverage of Hurricane
Katrina, 103
Thomas, Jeannie B., 235n
Tierney, John, 238n
Timberlake, Justin, fake stories about
death of, 187
Titanic: in Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky
joke, 5253; in Tourist Guy photoshop,
80

Index
Tomsho, Robert, 237n
Top Ten Lists (Letterman show), 152, 158,
200, 211, 219
Tourist Guy, 7682, 105, 123, 237
Touristofdeath.com, 237n
Toyota, 4
Treaster, Joseph B., 237n
Tsunami (2004): fake photo captions
about, 105, 239n; jokes about, 101, 106
Turner, Patricia, 128, 240n
Twin Towers. See World Trade Center
2000 presidential election, 57, 108, 116,
13132, 215; butterfly ballot, 131
2004 presidential election, 136, 215
2008 presidential election, 107
Tyson, Ann Scott, 238n
Tyson, Mike, joke about biting Evander
Holyfield, 32
University of Missouri School of
Journalism, 23435n
UPS, in fake terrorism warning, 225
Urban legend topics: George W. Bush,
112, 116; Halloween terrorism, 7274;
Hurricane Katrina, 1024; Klingerman
virus, 7072; soft drink terrorism, 7475
Urban legends, 7, 9, 1112, 1819, 22, 27, 29,
70, 7275, 77, 81, 1023, 112, 117, 127, 128,
135, 137, 15455, 158, 160, 181, 184, 190,
209, 215, 21718, 220, 22728, 230, 234n,
239n; in the news, 1819
Urbanlegends.com, 227
Urkel, Steve. See White, Jaleel
USA Today, 91, 93, 141, 19798
USS Abraham Lincoln, George W. Bush on
the deck of, 94, 122
USS Cole, in Tourist Guy photoshop, 80
USS Enterprise, in photoshop depicting
war against Taliban, 85
Vanderjagt, Mike, fake news story about
suicide of, 18586

Vazsonyi, Andre, 234n

Versace, Gianni, jokes about murder of,
172
Vietnam War: and George W. Bush, 121;
John Kerry in, 59, 61; news coverage of,
16; and newslore of September 11, 69
Virtual ethnography, 1314
Vlach, John, 239n
Waco. See Branch Davidians
Wal-Mart, in fake memo, 22425
Walski, Brian, and digitally altered photo
of Iraq war, 20
Walters, Barbara, 6
War on Terror, 28
Washington Post: coverage of Watergate,
48; on Hurricane Katrina, 101, 103;
and Kerry/Fonda photoshop, 61; in
newspaper joke, 141; on September 11
jokes, 236n; as source of Bush poem,
201
Washington Post Deskbook on Style, 24
Watergate scandal, 23, 48
Weeks, Linton, coverage of Hurricane
Katrina, 1012
Weinberger, David, 14, 23233n
Weingarten, Gene, on September 11 jokes,
236n
Welsch, Roger, 242n
Wendys, contamination story about, 18
White, Jaleel, fake news story about death
of, 18788
Whittington, Harry, 197
Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?, 82
William Tell, in Bill Gates newslore, 158
Williams, Ted, in Al Gore joke, 57
Wills, Mark, in George W. Bush/Hurricane
Katrina newslore, 98
Winfrey, Oprah. See Oprah Winfrey Show
Wojcik, Daniel, 242n
Wonder, Stevie, in George W. Bush legend,
112

267

268

Index
Wood, Natalie, in John F. Kennedy Jr. joke,
172
Woods, Tiger, jokes about, 19394
Woodward, Bob, 48
World Trade Center, 22, 74, 21617, 236n; in
the news, 81; in September 11 jokes, 89
90; in September 11 newslore, 6667; in
September 11 photoshops, 6970, 76, 78
Worth1000.com, 21617, 242n
Yednock, Ken, 96, 99
Yeltsin, Boris, as target of late-night
comedians, 214
Yonchenko, Michael, 99, 197, 211
Yousef, Ramzi, in newslore of 9/11, 66
YouTube, 138, 19193, 228, 241n
Y2K, 29, 56, 16062, 215