Faxlore is a sort of

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, r ...

: humorous texts,

folk poetry Folk poetry (sometimes referred to as ''poetry in action'') is poetry that is part of a society's folklore, usually part of their oral tradition. When sung, folk poetry becomes a folk song. Description Folk poetry in general has several characteri ...

folk art Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative. The makers of folk art are typically tr ...

, and

urban legend An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...

s that are circulated, not by word of mouth, but by

fax machine Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephone, telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a ...

. Xeroxlore or photocopylore is similar material circulated by

photocopying A photocopier (also called copier or copy machine, and formerly Xerox machine, the generic trademark) is a machine that makes copies of documents and other visual images onto paper or plastic film quickly and cheaply. Most modern photocopiers ...

; compare

samizdat Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...

Soviet-bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

countries. The first use of the term xeroxlore was in Michael J. Preston's essay "Xerox-lore", 1974. "Photocopylore" is perhaps the most frequently encountered name for the phenomenon now, because of

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from oth ...

concerns involving the

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (having moved from St ...

Corporation. The first use of this term came in ''A Dictionary of English Folklore'' by

Jacqueline Simpson Jacqueline Simpson (born 1930) is a prolific, award-winning British researcher and author on folklore.Steve Roud Steve Roud (; born 1949) is the creator of the Roud Folk Song Index and an expert on folklore and superstition. He was formerly Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society. Life and ...

Material circulated in faxlore

Some faxlore is relatively harmless.

Cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently animated, in an unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved over time, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or series of imag ...

s and

joke A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laughter, laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with ...

s often circulate as faxlore, the poor graphic quality becoming worse with each new person who resends the joke to the next recipient. Because faxlore and xeroxlore is the (mis)appropriation of

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scie ...

owned by the employer, much

humorous Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in t ...

faxlore is mildly subversive of the workplace and its values. Like

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

and

chain letters A chain letter is a message that attempts to convince the recipient to make a number of copies and pass them on to a certain number of recipients. The "chain" is an exponentially growing pyramid (a tree graph) that cannot be sustained indefinite ...

, office technology has given new life to various forms of practical jokes,

urban legends An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...

, and folklore. The items are often office-related, such as spoof agenda for meetings, spurious descriptions of ridiculous training programs that all staff will allegedly be required to attend, and so on. Names may be whited out and replaced with someone in the office, making it a joke on a particular person, or details may be altered making an item more topical. The semi-traditional lists of reasons "why a cucumber is better than a man" or "why a beer is better than a woman" often circulate as faxlore, as has the well known mock German variations of the "

Blinkenlights Blinkenlights is a neologism for Blinkenlights#Actual blinkenlights, diagnostic lights usually on the front panels on old mainframe computers, minicomputers, many early microcomputers, and modern network hardware. It has been seen as a skeu ...

" poster. Another commonly circulated text contains

ethnic humor An ethnic joke is a remark aiming at humor relating to an ethnic, racial or cultural group, often referring to an ethnic stereotype of the group in question for its punchline. Perceptions of ethnic jokes are ambivalent. Christie Davies gives e ...

; a typical version goes:

Heaven is where the police are British, the lovers French, the mechanics German, the chefs Italian, and it is all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the police are German, the lovers Swiss, the mechanics French, the chefs British, and it is all organized by the Italians.

Materials of this sort have existed from the beginnings of duplicating technologies.

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

era

blueprint A blueprint is a reproduction of a technical drawing or engineering drawing using a contact print process on light-sensitive sheets. Introduced by Sir John Herschel in 1842, the process allowed rapid and accurate production of an unlimited numbe ...

s exist of drawings of female nudes with their body parts labeled as if they were the parts of airplanes. With the widespread adoption of photocopying, amateur duplication of this sort of material became available to a much larger social base. Cartoons and other amateur materials were distributed in the workplace, usually in violation of

managerial Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

restrictions on the use of office supplies, and often in disregard of

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

law.Preston, 1996 Later, during the early 1990s, the widespread adoption of telecopiers made it possible to duplicate these materials remotely. The use of a fax machine to duplicate these materials also changed the emphases of their subjects; various alarms and urban legends were propagated to distant readers over the telephone lines. This use of fax has been somewhat supplanted by

as that technology became more widely used and embedded in the culture; the sort of urban legends that once circulated by fax are now likely to appear as

email hoax Email spoofing is the creation of email messages with a forged sender address. The term applies to email purporting to be from an address which is not actually the sender's; mail sent in reply to that address may bounce or be delivered to an unre ...

es. Specific computer related alarms are the subject of

virus hoax A computer virus hoax is a message warning the recipients of a non-existent computer virus threat. The message is usually a chain e-mail that tells the recipients to forward it to everyone they know, but it can also be in the form of a pop-up windo ...

es; email makes forwarding of texts relatively easy, and the frightening nature of the revelation makes it seem important to pass along, despite any doubts the sender might have.

Faxlore and urban legends

Other sorts of faxlore have had more serious consequences. A number of more notorious urban legends have circulated in faxlore. The notorious "

Blue Star Blue star or bluestar may refer to: * O-type star (a.k.a. blue star), a stellar classification Animals * ''Linckia laevigata'', a sea star from the Indian and West Pacific Oceans * ''Phataria unifascialis'', a sea star from the East Pacific Bus ...

Acid"

hoax A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...

is one well known example. The "lights out" hoax, which claimed that people who were driving in the dark with their headlights out might be gang members, and that those who flashed their headlights at these drivers might be marked for murder as part of a

gang A gang is a social group, group or secret society, society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over Territory (animal), territory in a communi ...

initiation, was another hoax that was widely circulated as faxlore. The poor graphic quality of the frequently re-sent faxes, which often were made out to appear to have originated with the police department of a distant

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be de ...

, only made these hoaxes seem more credible.

Legal aspects

In the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

, collections of supposedly sinister symbols have been circulated among

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compu ...

administrators and

police department The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest a ...

s; in the 1980s these symbols were frequently alleged to be "

Satanic Satanic may refer to: * Satan * Satanism * ''Satanic'' (2006 film), a 2006 American horror film * ''Satanic'' (2016 film), a 2016 American horror film * Operation Satanic, when the DGSE bombed the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour See also * ...

symbols", and in the 1990s they were alleged to be "gang symbols".

Political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studi ...

religious Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

symbols, like the

peace symbol A number of peace symbols have been used many ways in various cultures and contexts. The dove and olive branch was used symbolically by early Christians and then eventually became a secular peace symbol, popularized by a ''Dove'' lithograph by ...

, the

Star of David The Star of David (). is a generally recognized symbol of both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles. A derivation of the '' seal of Solomon'', which was used for decorat ...

, the

Rosary The Rosary (; la, , in the sense of "crown of roses" or "garland of roses"), also known as the Dominican Rosary, or simply the Rosary, refers to a set of prayers used primarily in the Catholic Church, and to the physical string of knots or ...

, the

ankh Progressive ankylosis protein homolog (ANK ilosis H omolog) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''ANKH'' gene. This gene encodes a multipass transmembrane protein that is expressed in joints and other tissues and controls pyrophosphate ...

, or the

pentagram A pentagram (sometimes known as a pentalpha, pentangle, or star pentagon) is a regular five-pointed star polygon, formed from the diagonal line segments of a convex (or simple, or non-self-intersecting) regular pentagon. Drawing a circle aro ...

were mingled with other cryptic or fanciful symbols in these faxed and recirculated sheets, and the entire collection was condemned. On the authority of these anonymous, hard-to-trace, and impossible-to-

cross-examine In law, cross-examination is the interrogation of a witness called by one's opponent. It is preceded by direct examination (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa, India and Pakistan known as examination-in-chief) and ...

sources, school administrators sometimes acted to ban the wearing of Stars of David and similar symbols of minority religions. Typically, no compiler or author is given for the collection of symbols, though frightening descriptions are often given about their "secret meaning." A number of civil liberties

lawsuit - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil actio ...

s were filed over actions taken by school administrators who took these anonymous sources seriously. A similar claim that the

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer he ...

logo was a " satanic symbol" was linked in the 1980s to the activity of several

Amway Amway (short for "American Way") is an American multi-level marketing (MLM) company that sells health, beauty, and home care products. The company was founded in 1959 by Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos and is based in Ada, Michigan. Amway a ...

distributors, Amway being one of Procter & Gamble's competitors; the hoax was spread by fax, photocopier, and later by

voice mail A voicemail system (also known as voice message or voice bank) is a computer-based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to ind ...

and email. Another occasional hoax claims that clothing and memorabilia of various

universities A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

sports Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

teams are "gang symbols".''Jeglin'', 1993; Roberts et al., 2005

Growing obsolescence

With the rise of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

, media such as

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

, and

social networking sites A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

are now available to quickly and widely spread the sort of material that formerly circulated as faxlore. The hoax warnings of things such as dire and terrible

computer virus A computer virus is a type of computer program that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code. If this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a compu ...

es that still occasionally circulate, carry on one tradition of the bogus

cautionary tale A cautionary tale is a tale told in folklore to warn its listener of a danger. There are three essential parts to a cautionary tale, though they can be introduced in a large variety of ways. First, a taboo or prohibition is stated: some act, lo ...

that used to circulate as faxlore, now known as ''

copypasta A copypasta is a block of text that is copied and pasted across the Internet by individuals through online forums and social networking websites. Copypastas are said to be similar to spam as they are often used to annoy other users and disrupt ...

'' (an altered compound of common computer functions

copy and paste In human–computer interaction and user interface design, cut, copy, and paste are related commands that offer an interprocess communication technique for transferring data through a computer's user interface. The ''cut'' command removes the ...

References

Citations

Academic sources

* Brunvand, Jan ** ''The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story'' (2000, Univ. Illinois: )collecting examples ** ''The Choking Doberman'' (Norton, 1984; ) ** ''Curses! Broiled Again!'' (Horton, 1989; )collecting examples, inc. "Blue Star Acid" * Dundes, Alan and Pagter, Carl R.: ** ''Work Hard and You Shall Be Rewarded: Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire''. (Rev. ed., Wayne State Univ. 1992; ) ** ''When You're Up to Your Ass in Alligators... More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire'' (Wayne State Univ. 1997; ) ** ''Never Try to Teach a Pig to Sing: Still More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire'' (Wayne State Univ. 1991; ) ** ''Sometimes the Dragon Wins: Yet More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire'' (Syracuse, 1997; ) * Ellis, Bill: ''Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media'' (Univ. Kentucky, 2000; ) * Hatch, Mary Jo; Jones, Michael Owen: "Photocopylore at work: aesthetics, collective creativity and the social construction of organizations", in ''Culture and Organization'', vol. 3, no. 2 (July 1997) * Michael, Nancy. "Censure of a Photocopylore Display." ''

Journal of Folklore Research The ''Journal of Folklore Research: An International Journal of Folklore and Ethnomusicology'' is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on folklore, folklife, and ethnomusicology. It was established in 1942 and is published ...

'', vol. 32, no. 2 (May–August 1995). * Preston, Michael J. ** "Traditional Humor from the Fax Machine: 'All of a Kind'", in ''Western Folklore'', vol. 53, no. 2 (April 1994) ** "Xeroxlore", in ''American Folklore: An Encyclopedia'', Jan Brunvand, editor in chief. (Garland, 1996; )

Analysis

* Emery, David:
Trademark of the Beast
', byline June 10, 1998, accessed Nov, 9, 2007The Procter & Gamble logo hoax * Bunch, Michael: "Technology Aided Spread of Terrifying Hoax", ''

San Diego Union-Tribune ''The San Diego Union-Tribune'' is a metropolitan daily newspaper published in San Diego, California, that has run since 1868. Its name derives from a 1992 merger between the two major daily newspapers at the time, ''The San Diego Union'' and ...

'', Oct. 4, 1993"Lights Out" gang initiation legend spreads by fax and copier. * Hofstadter, Douglas: ''

Le Ton beau de Marot ''Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language'' is a 1997 book by Douglas Hofstadter in which he explores the meaning, strengths, failings and beauty of translation. The book is a long and detailed examination of one short translati ...

: In Praise of the Music of Language'' ()contains a linguistic discussion of the ''Blinkenlights'' text

Legal

* ''Chalifoux v. New Caney Independent School District'', 976 F.Supp. 659 (S.D. Tex. 1997)School board rule forbidding wearing of the rosary as a necklace, claimed to be a "gang symbol", struck down by court. * ''Jeglin v. San Jacinto Unified School District'', 827 F.Supp. 1459 (C.D. Cal. 1993){{sndSchool board dress code forbidding the wearing of sports logos, claimed to be "gang symbols", partially struck down by court. * Roberts, Kesler T., Littrell, Elizabeth L., Weber, Gerald R.
Plaintiff's Memorandum of Law in Support of her Motion for Summary Judgment
in ''Tillman v. Gwinnett County School District'', (N.D. Ga., case no. 1:04-CV-01180-BBM). Apr. 9, 2005, accessed Nov. 9, 2007. Brief filed on behalf of the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". ...

Foundation for Georgia. Shows school administrators relying on anonymous printouts and rumors to condemn, among other things,

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sys ...

logos and clothing, and a patch reading

España , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' ( Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

, as "gang symbols".

External links

Blue Star Acid
at

snopes.com ''Snopes'' , formerly known as the ''Urban Legends Reference Pages'', is a fact-checking website. It has been described as a "well-regarded reference for sorting out myths and rumors" on the Internet. The site has also been seen as a source f ...

.
The "Lights Out" hoax
at snopes.com
"Xeroxlore"
at

everything2.com Everything2 (styled Everything2 or E2 for short) is a collaborative Web-based community consisting of a database of interlinked user-submitted written material. E2 is moderated for quality, but has no formal policy on subject matter. Writing on ...

.
"Mississippi high school bars student's Star of David"
(''Jewish News Weekly'', August 29, 1999)

at textfiles.com Fax Folklore Jokes Spamming Urban legends