Crying Babies and Gang Initiations: More Than Just a Friendly Warning?

A Swelle Public Service Announcment: You know those emails you get every so often (if you're a woman) from a concerned friend (usually female) that warn of frightening and unpredictable tactics used by would-be rapists and murderers? Like the one where the guy plays a recording of a crying baby on the doorstep in the night to lure out unsuspecting women? Or the guy who sneaks into the back of a woman's car while she's paying for gas, then gives it all up to the police that he was going to abduct and kill a woman for his gang initiation?

There's an interesting article in today's Guardian exploring the motivation of the people who create and spread these fictitious emails in the first place. It's well worth the read, especially for those of us who mean well when we forward them to others. HINT - if any email you receive asks you to 'PLEASE PASS THIS ON! (with an overuse of capitals and exclamation points) - that's the spammers' calling card. It's not only those emails trying to sell you the latest wang enlargement elixir that are attempting to prey on us, these 'safety' emails are least a nuisance and at worst, harmful fear-mongering. (One of the aforementioned spam messages came to Other Half with this tantalising first-person testimonial:  'I know I have tough and fat man-meat, it got more juicy too.' ?????).

Read the article here

I did a little Googling and also found that the disturbing (and highly suspect) story about gang members driving with their lights off, only to kill the first person to flash their headlights is also false (you may be saying 'Well, DUH!' but there are people who are genuinely frightened and saddened upon hearing these things, the spammer wins). No reports can be found anywhere in the US (where the story originated) to substantiate these claims, according to Snopes.com. This story first appeared in the 1950s. The urban legend-exposing website reports that attacks on random strangers are extremely rare and that the usual gang intitiation, known as the 'jump in', involves the gang severely beating the new recruit. Good, then.

Oh - if you're wondering what the photo above has to do with this, it's nothing at all. I couldn't think of anything relevant I'd want to put with the words, so I used a photo of a little composition my daughter created with her chalks after drawing a picture.