![]() This in turn can then generate new stories in which the initial myth is used as exposition, the call as the crisis and the actual experience after the call as the main body of the story and conclusion. These myths often framed as cautionary tales either work as stand alone ‘friend of a friend’ stories, told in the first person in a format similar to modern creepypasta stories or make the leap into being bravery tests, where the established myth works as an introduction to a ‘game’ in which participants are encouraged to called the ‘cursed’ or ‘haunted’ number and endure the consequences. ![]() These numbers are variously said to be cursed, to allow the caller to contact the dead or to put them in touch with some other realm or otherworldly entity. Often the urban myths around telephones attach themselves to particular specified numbers. ![]() Firstly, because the internet has allowed for stories of creepy phone calls and haunted numbers to be distributed more widely, but also because for the younger generation the very fact that talking on the phone is less popular makes the idea of actually calling and speaking to someone seem outmoded, archaic and a little foreign and spooky. What is particularly interesting however, is that even as the phone is used less and less for actual conversation, it has become more and more popular as a central instrument in urban myths, bravery test games and creepypastas. A quick survey of the urban myths and creepypastas that have grown up around chatrooms, zoom and skype calls and even emails, shows that they are often built upon templates first used in reference to the telephone. With the same questions being transferred to a newer technology and familiar tropes usually applied to the telephone transferred to computers. These anxieties around telephone communication now find similar manifestations and often almost identical urban myths via the internet. Who might be calling? Where could they potentially be calling from and how can you ever trust that the person on the other end is actually who they claim to be? The fact that the telephone provides a conduit between these two separate places and realities is fertile soil for the imagination for the simple reason that it presents the user with countless potential unknowns. Then there is the fact that this other participant can be miles away in another location not always known to the caller. ![]() This, in and of itself had connotations of mediumship and necromancy for early users of the telephone. Firstly there is the action of dialling, reciting or performing a specific set of actions to seemingly ‘conjure’ from thin air the voice of an invisible participant and then listen. Over the decades various stories and urban legends have sprung up that link the telephone with the supernatural, in particular with ideas that this device could be a way of contacting and conversing with malevolent or supposedly unreachable and even deceased partners.Īs a machine that allows conversation with an unseen partner it was perhaps inevitable that the telephone should attract these kinds of stories. Estimated reading time - 7 minutes Creepy Calls and Accursed NumbersĪlmost from the moment that the telephone was first introduced to the public, it has been considered an instrument capable of strange and undoubtedly creepy uses. ![]()
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