West Virginia Urban Legends and Their Impact on Cultures Both Local and Abroad

Download or read book West Virginia Urban Legends and Their Impact on Cultures Both Local and Abroad written by Devin Michael Elliott and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monstrous urban legends (or cryptids) from the Appalachian state of West Virginia, specifically Mothman, the Flatwoods Monster, and the Grafton Monster, have gone from local tales of horror to international popular culture icons known and loved around the world. While the stories of these creatures have long been familiar to cryptid enthusiasts, more recently these legends have had an impact on the communities surrounding them and entire cultures abroad. Using models from dark tourism studies, first-hand interviews, on-location observations, translated documents,and various folkloric and monster study sources, the effects of these cryptids upon the areas from which they hail are observed and compared as well as the impact they have made upon popularculture both in the United States and in other countries such as Japan. This thesis will explorehow the towns of Point Pleasant, Flatwoods, and Grafton, West Virginia use these legends as a means of financial income and how they are integral parts of their cultural identities.