Greek urban legends and their function on the internet
Apstrakt: The spread of urban legends internationally is declining with the advent of the 21st century. However, the internet seems to be a new environment of their reactivation with new features and function, based on the possibilities provided by this tool, which urban legends incorporate. Through the search and study of Greek urban legends, it turned out that the new characteristics they adopted led these folk narratives to join a new multimedia narrative genre, which has emerged from the internet, the ‘scary stories’ (creepypasta). The urban legends, integrated in this kind of digital popular lore and spread in the internet with a new function, have, therefore, lost some of the main characteristics given to them by their definition. They are still a reflection of aspects of the unfamiliar, the delinquent and the supernatural that are experienced in modern urban culture, with their plot still revolving around stress caused by modern attitudes and behaviours having a content that is strange, scary or macabre. Nevertheless, these aspects have been converted into just a frame of dread, since the aim of their spread is to entertain users through horror.
Ključne reči: Urban legends, Internet, popular culture, Digital Folklore, scary stories (creepypasta)