Editing Faxlore

{{short description|Urban legends that spread via fax machine}}

[[File:Mickey mouse acid warning.png|thumb|An early example of a faxlore warning about tattoo stickers allegedly laced with drugs, an [[urban legend]] collected by [[Jan Brunvand]] in his book ''The Choking Doberman'']]
'''Faxlore''' is a sort of [[folklore]]: [[humor]]ous texts, [[folk poetry]], [[folk art]], and  [[urban legend]]s that are circulated, not by word of mouth, but by [[fax machine]].  '''Xeroxlore''' or '''photocopylore''' is similar material circulated by [[photocopying]].

The first use of the term '''xeroxlore''' was in [[Michael J. Preston (professor of English)|Michael J. Preston]]'s essay "Xerox-lore", 1974.<ref>{{cite journal
| last         = Preston
| first        = Michael J.
| year         = 1974
| title        = Xerox-lore
| url          = http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000108623293
| journal      = Keystone Folklore
| publisher    = Pennsylvania Folklore Society
| volume       = 
| issue        = 19
| pages        = 11–26
| doi          = 
| accessdate   = 2013-11-23
}}</ref> "Photocopylore" is perhaps the most frequently encountered name for the phenomenon now{{cn|date=August 2023}}, because of [[trademark]] concerns involving the [[Xerox]] Corporation.  The first use of this term came in ''A Dictionary of English Folklore'' by [[Jacqueline Simpson]] and [[Steve Roud]].<ref>[[Jacqueline Simpson]] and [[Steve Roud]] (2000). ''A Dictionary of English Folklore''. Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-860766-0}}.</ref>

==Material circulated in faxlore==
{{ pull quote|float=right|width=30%|
Achtung!

Alles turisten und nonteknischen lookenpeepers!

Das maschine-kontrol ist nicht für der gefingerpoken und mittengraben! Oderwise ist easy to schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparksen.

Der maschine ist diggen bei experten only!

Ist nicht für gewerken bei dummkopfen.  Der rubbernecken sightseeren keepen das cottonpicken händer in das pockets.

Zo relaxen und watschen der blinkenlights.

| source = A common example of faxlore is the [[Mock language|mock German]] variation of the "[[Blinkenlights]]" poster
}}

Some faxlore is relatively harmless.  [[Cartoon]]s and [[joke]]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]] owned by the employer, much [[humour|humorous]] faxlore is mildly subversive of the workplace and its values.  Like [[email]] and [[chain letters]], office technology has given new life to various forms of practical jokes, [[urban legends]], 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.<ref>Michael, 1995; Dundes, ''passim''</ref>

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]]" poster.  Another commonly circulated text contains [[ethnic humor]]; a typical version goes:

<blockquote>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.</blockquote>

Materials of this sort have existed from the beginnings of duplicating technologies.  [[World War II]] era [[blueprint]]s exist of drawings of female nudes with their body parts labeled as if they were the parts of airplanes.{{Citation needed|date=April 2008}} 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 [[business management|managerial]] restrictions on the use of office supplies, and often in disregard of [[copyright]] law.<ref name="Preston, 1996">Preston, 1996</ref>

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 [[email]] 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]]es.  Specific computer related alarms are the subject of [[virus hoax]]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.<ref name="Preston, 1996"/>

==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 tattoo legend|Blue Star]] [[LSD|Acid]]" [[hoax]] 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]] initiation, was another hoax that was widely circulated as faxlore.<ref>Bunch, 1993</ref>  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]], only made these hoaxes seem more credible.<ref>Brunvand, 1989</ref>

==Legal aspects==
In the [[United States]], collections of supposedly sinister symbols have been circulated among [[school]] administrators and [[police department]]s; in the 1980s these symbols were frequently alleged to be "[[Satanism|Satanic]] symbols", and in the 1990s they were alleged to be "gang symbols".  [[politics|Political]] or [[religion|religious]] symbols, like the [[peace symbol]], the [[Star of David]], the [[Rosary]], the [[ankh]], or the [[pentagram]] were mingled with other cryptic or fanciful symbols in these faxed and recirculated sheets, and the entire collection was condemned.<ref>Ellis, 2000</ref>

On the authority of these anonymous, hard-to-trace, and impossible-to-[[cross-examination|cross-examine]] sources, school administrators sometimes acted to ban the wearing of Stars of David and similar symbols of minority religions.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}  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]]s were filed over actions taken by school administrators who took these anonymous sources seriously.<ref>''Chalifoux'', 1997; ''Jeglin'', 1993; ''Jewish News Weekly'', 1999; ''Free Republic'', 2005; Bunch, 1993; Roberts et al., 2005</ref>

A similar claim that the [[Procter & Gamble]] logo was a "[[Satanism|satanic symbol]]" was linked in the 1980s to the activity of several [[Amway]] distributors, Amway being one of Procter & Gamble's competitors; the hoax was spread by fax, photocopier, and later by [[voice mail]] and email.<ref>Emery, 1998</ref> Another occasional hoax claims that clothing and memorabilia of various [[university|universities]] or [[sports]] teams are "gang symbols".<ref>''Jeglin'', 1993; Roberts et al., 2005</ref>

== Growing obsolescence ==
{{main|Copypasta}}
With the rise of the [[Internet]], media such as [[World Wide Web]], [[email]], [[instant messaging]], and [[social networking sites]] 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]]es that still occasionally circulate, carry on one tradition of the bogus [[cautionary tale]] that used to circulate as faxlore, now known as ''[[copypasta]]'' (an altered compound of common computer functions [[cut, copy and paste|copy and paste]]).

==See also==
* [[Junk fax]]
* [[Meme]]
* [[Samizdat]]

==References==
=== Citations ===
{{reflist}}

===Academic sources===
* [[Jan Brunvand|Brunvand, Jan]]
** ''The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story'' (2000, Univ. Illinois: {{ISBN|0-252-07004-6}}){{snd}}collecting examples
** ''The Choking Doberman'' (Norton, 1984; {{ISBN|0-393-30321-7}})
** ''Curses! Broiled Again!'' (Horton, 1989; {{ISBN|0-393-02710-4}}){{snd}}collecting examples, inc. "Blue Star Acid"
* [[Alan Dundes|Dundes, Alan]] and [[Carl Pagter|Pagter, Carl R.]]:
** ''Work Hard and You Shall Be Rewarded: Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire''.  (Rev. ed., Wayne State Univ. 1992; {{ISBN|0-8143-2432-0}})
** ''When You're Up to Your Ass in Alligators... More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire'' (Wayne State Univ. 1997; {{ISBN|0-8143-1867-3}})
** ''Never Try to Teach a Pig to Sing: Still More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire'' (Wayne State Univ. 1991; {{ISBN|0-8143-2358-8}})
** ''Sometimes the Dragon Wins: Yet More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire'' (Syracuse, 1997; {{ISBN|0-8156-0371-1}})
* Ellis, Bill: ''Raising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media'' (Univ. Kentucky, 2000; {{ISBN|0-8131-2170-1}})
* 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]]'', vol. 32, no. 2 (May–August 1995).
* [[Michael J. Preston (professor of English)|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; {{ISBN|0-8153-3350-1}})

===Analysis===
* Emery, David: ''[http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa061098.htm Trademark of the Beast] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070220131957/http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa061098.htm |date=2007-02-20 }}'', byline June 10, 1998, accessed Nov, 9, 2007{{snd}}The Procter & Gamble logo hoax
* Bunch, Michael: "Technology Aided Spread of Terrifying Hoax", ''[[San Diego Union-Tribune]]'', Oct. 4, 1993{{snd}}"Lights Out" gang initiation legend spreads by fax and copier.
* [[Douglas Hofstadter|Hofstadter, Douglas]]: ''[[Le Ton beau de Marot]]: In Praise of the Music of Language'' ({{ISBN|0-465-08645-4}}){{snd}}contains a linguistic discussion of the ''Blinkenlights'' text

===Legal===
* ''Chalifoux v. New Caney Independent School District'', 976 F.Supp. 659 (S.D. Tex. 1997){{snd}}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){{snd}}School 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.: [https://web.archive.org/web/20070709170444/http://www.acluga.org/briefs/tilman.dress.code/judgement.pdf 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]] Foundation for Georgia.  Shows school administrators relying on anonymous printouts and rumors to condemn, among other things, [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|University of North Carolina]] logos and clothing, and a patch reading [[Spain|España]], as "gang symbols".

==External links==
* [http://www.snopes.com/horrors/drugs/bluestar.htm Blue Star Acid] at [[snopes.com]].
* [http://www.snopes.com/horrors/madmen/lightsout.asp The "Lights Out" hoax] at snopes.com
* [http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1532084 "Xeroxlore"] at [[everything2.com]].
* [http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/11864/edition_id/228/format/html/displaystory.html "Mississippi high school bars student's Star of David"] (''Jewish News Weekly'', August 29, 1999)
* [http://www.textfiles.com/directory.html Archive of viral documents] at textfiles.com

[[Category:Fax]]
[[Category:Folklore]]
[[Category:Jokes]]
[[Category:Spamming]]
[[Category:Urban legends]]