Akademik

(FAKS.lohr)

n.

A rumor or urban legend spread via fax; jokes, cartoons, and sayings spread via fax. Also: fax-lore, fax lore.

As to why this legend has taken on a life of its own despite persistent and detailed debunkings, it's a classic David and Goliath story. It is, after all, the little guy smacking the big, heartless corporation a swift one right across the nose, something both you and I have often longed to do. This bit of faxlore invites — nay, demands — participation. Painless participation too... All it takes is either a couple of pins and a bulletin board or e-mail capability and an alias list and your good deed of the day is done and finished before the morning's first coffee has cooled.

— Barbara Mikkelson, "(Costs a) Fortune Cookie," Snopes.com, November 3, 1999

Call it a case of urban faxlore.

On Sept. 1, the FBI's Chicago office sent a "safety alert" to the Chicago Police Department. The teletype, according to police Detective Ivory Hampton, warned that the Black Gangster Disciple Nation, the state's most powerful street gang, may have instituted a new and murderous initiation ritual.

"To date this initiation has not been substantiated," the teletype said, "but with the current environment in which the Black Gangster Disciple Nation operates, this information should be seriously considered and brought to the attention of all employees." By last Friday, this "unsubstantiated" information had been brought to the attention of a lot more than the employees of the Police Department. At least a couple of radio stations aired it as fact. Fliers popped up at colleges, churches and video stores.

And the story was flying over the city's fax lines, traveling to countless destinations at speeds that only technology allows, a rumor granted the peculiar tangible authority bestowed by type and paper.

"BEWARE!!" the faxes said. "This new initiation of murder is brought about by Gang Members driving around at night with their car lights off. When you flash you (sic) car lights to signal them that their lights are out, the Gang Members take it literally as 'LIGHTS OUT,' so they are to follow you to your destination and kill you!"

— Mary Schmich, "This rumor relies on fax, not facts," Chicago Tribune, September 15, 1993

He draws his material partly from newspapers and magazines, but because both of these are liable to be censored, the more racy and risque stuff is found elsewhere, in grafitti, in his readers' reports of what they are hearing, and in what Aman calls "fax-lore" and "xerox-lore."

— James Dempsey, "Sticks and stones may not break his bones, but...," Telegram & Gazette Worcester, MA, February 20, 1991