BB: Best & Horiuchi; C&S: Goffman 399-407 BB: Fox; BB: Blumer
Society works to construct the identity of others and others’ selves. In the case of Halloween and urban legends, one story needs only to be taken slightly out of context or exaggerated for people to imagine and create it. Best and Horiuchi discuss the “Halloween sadist” who supposedly poisons kids’ candy, puts razor blades in it, and commits other crimes on Halloween. He strikes fear into people. Though there are some short reports on things like that happening during Halloween, for the most part they were few and specifically directed crimes intended for specific individuals—not to cause havoc among many families and threaten all children. This social problem is socially constructed through word-of-mouth spreading of the stories, through the media, and through responses of other individuals such as politicians. Urban legends tend to reflect wider beliefs in society and have a purpose. The fear of the Halloween sadist reflects old fears of ghosts during Halloween and reinforces the fear of strangers in today’s modern society where we don’t know our neighbor as well.
We discussed in class how our world is increasingly privatized as we stay indoors more often and look online more for our social interaction. We fear strangers. We don’t know our neighbors. The website Nextdoor, as discussed in the article “Nextdoor launches to bring your real neighborhood online” (http://gigaom.com/2011/10/26/nextdoor-social-network/), reflects this. It allows people to get to know their neighbors, who they can borrow a cup of sugar from, and figure out what to do in an emergency all without ever really meeting or talking face-to-face with the person across the street or next door.
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