Shoefiti Included in PC World’s Top 25 Web Hoaxes & Pranks
PC World ranks and breaks down 25 popular web hoaxes and pranks, and includes a mention of sneakers hanging from powerlines:
The Top 25 Web Hoaxes and Pranks - Yahoo! News
23. Lights-Out Gang Member Initiation (1998) People have a tendency to believe e-mail messages that come from authority figures. In 1998, a message purportedly from a police officer working with the DARE program circulated around the Internet. It warned recipients not to flash their lights to inform oncoming cars that their headlamps were off. According to the message, a recently devised gang initiation ritual involved having new gang members drive at night with their headlights turned off until an oncoming car flashed its lights at them; then, in order to become initiated, they were to shoot everyone in that car. It’s just another urban myth–and about as silly as the one claiming that gangs mark off their territory by hanging sneakers from power lines.
The story links out to Snopes for the debunking, but the Snopes story doesn’t actually debunk it. It simply says there are many reasons why someone may throw shoes on powerlines. Exactly the same things we’ve suggested here are Shoefiti.com.
Leave a Comment