The term urban legend became popular in the 1980s (I mean in America). Let’s put that aside for now. Today, urban legends primarily spread through the Internet and mass media. I remember when I was small, hearing an urban legend about the “Hanako” in the school bathroom. But thinking about it, isn’t it strange? Hanako is a Japanese urban legend, so why would she appear in school bathrooms in Taiwan?
Apart from mass media (For example, in Taiwan, we all read Japanese manga like Hell Teacher Nube when we’re small), what is similar is “structural similarities.” It’s not that Hanako appears in any bathroom, it’s that she appears in in school bathrooms. To turn this around, so long as it’s any school bathroom, it might be Hanako that appears.
The spread of urban legends reflects the phenomenon of “structural similarities.” This did not exist in premodern societies, but the shared structural similarities you see across modern societies allows for the phenomenon of duplication, making it easier and easier for urban legends to spread.
For example, everyone has heard the urban legend that “there used to be a cemetery on the school grounds”, right? It’s not just there being a cemetery on the school grounds, there are also other versions, like there being a execution grounds, a jail, or others. This can be seen as the spread of similar urban legends parasitically.
Returning to the example of the school bathroom, outside of Hanako, there are many similar urban legends. Like about being unable to open the bathroom door because someone killed themselves in the bathroom stall in the past.
Or the urban legend about a high school student flushing a fetus down the toilet. This reflects poor sex education, with girls panicking after having a period for the first time, becoming afraid of dying, and this giving rise to an urban legend related to childbirth.
If you realize the “structural similarities” between urban legends…there’s much to discuss regarding urban legends.