Urban Legends Reference Pages (snopes.com)

200px
URL	Snopes.com
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Reference pages
Registration	Required only on forums
Owner	Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
Created by	Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
Launched	1995
Alexa rank	2,485 (June 2012[update])[1]
Current status	Active

Snopes.com ( /ˈsnoʊps/), officially the Urban Legends Reference Pages, is a web site discussing urban legends, Internet rumors, e-mail forwards, and other stories of uncertain or questionable origin.^[2] It is a well known resource for validating and debunking such stories in American popular culture,^[3] receiving 300,000 visits a day.^[4]

Snopes is run by Barbara and David Mikkelson,^[5] a California couple who met on the alt.folklore.urban newsgroup.^[6] The site is organized by topic and includes a message board where stories and pictures of questionable veracity may be posted. The Mikkelsons founded the San Fernando Valley Folklore Society and were credited as the owners of the site until 2005.^[7]

History[link]

David Mikkelson used the username "snopes" (the name of a family of often unpleasant people in the works of William Faulkner)^[8][9] in the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban.^[10] The Mikkelsons created the Snopes site in 1995,^[11] and later worked on the site full time.^[6][9][11]

Main site[link]

Snopes aims to debunk or confirm widely spread urban legends. The site has been referenced by news media and other sites, including CNN,^[12] Fox News Channel,^[13] MSNBC^[14] and Australia's ABC on its Media Watch program. Snopes's popular standing is such that some chain e-mail hoaxes claim to have been "checked out on 'Snopes.com'" in an attempt to discourage readers from seeking verification.^[15] As of March 2009, the site had approximately 6.2 million visitors per month.^[16]

The Mikkelsons have stressed the reference portion of the name Urban Legends Reference Pages, indicating that their intention is not merely to dismiss or confirm misconceptions and rumors but to provide evidence for such debunkings and confirmation as well.^[17] Where appropriate, pages are generally marked "undetermined" or "unverifiable" if the Mikkelsons feel there is not enough evidence to either support or disprove a given claim.^[18] The Mikkelsons say many of the urban legends are mistakenly attributed because of common problems associated with e-mail signatures.^[19]

Lost Legends[link]

In an attempt to demonstrate the perils of over-reliance on authority, the Mikkelsons assembled a series of fabricated urban folklore tales that they term "The Repository of Lost Legends."^[20] (The name was chosen for its acronym, T.R.O.L.L., a reference to the early 1990s definition of the word troll, meaning an Internet prank, of which David Mikkelson was a prominent practitioner.^[10])

One fictional legend averred that the children's nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence" was really a coded reference used by pirates to recruit members. This parodied a real false legend surrounding the supposed connection of "Ring a Ring o' Roses" to the bubonic plague. Although the creators were sure that no one could believe a tale so ridiculous — and had added a link^[21] at the bottom of the page to another page explaining the hoax, and a message with the ratings reading "Note: Any relationship between these ratings and reality is purely coincidental" — eventually the legend was featured as true in an urban legends board game and television show.^[22] The television show, Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed, was shown to have been using information from Snopes when one of Snopes' invented "lost legends" appeared on the program as true.^[10]

Reception[link]

Snopes has received praise from folklorist Dr. Jan Harold Brunvand, author of a number of books on urban legends and modern folklore, who considers the site so comprehensive as to obviate the necessity for launching one of his own.^[11]

In 2007, the Snopes site featured pop-up ads for the controversial Zango adware product.^[23][24] Snopes stopped serving the ads in January 2008, after criticism from tech sites, security experts and users.^[25]

Snopes receives more complaints of liberal than conservative bias,^[26] but insists that it applies the same debunking standards to all political urban legends. FactCheck reviewed a sample of Snopes' responses to political rumors regarding George W. Bush, Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, and found them to be free from bias in all cases. FactCheck noted that Barbara Mikkelson was a Canadian citizen (and thus unable to vote in US elections) and David Mikkelson was an independent who was once registered as a Republican. "You’d be hard-pressed to find two more apolitical people," David Mikkelson told them.^[26][27]

Television possibility[link]

A television pilot based on the site, called Snopes: Urban Legends, was completed with American actor Jim Davidson as host, but major networks passed on the project.^[9]

See also[link]

Internet portal

• The Straight Dope
• The Skeptic's Dictionary
• MythBusters
• List of common misconceptions

References[link]

External links[link]

• Snopes.com

Look up com in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Com may refer to:

Academia[link]

• Communication
• Communication studies
• College of the Mainland, a community college in Texas City, Texas
• College of Marin, a community college in Kentfield, California
• COM•DTU, the former name of DTU Fotonik, Department of Photonics Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark
• Constitution of Medina, a document drafted by Muhammad to lay the structure of the first Islamic state
• COM, the code suffix used for courses offered by the School of Journalism and Communication, CUHK, Hong Kong

Business, politics and culture[link]

• Commerce
• Commander of the Order of Merit of the Police Forces, Canadian decoration post-nominal letters
• COM, the ISO Alpha-3 country code for Comoros
• Corporal, Captain or Colonel of the United States Marine Corps
• COM (manga magazine)
• collectivité d'outre-mer, a French overseas collectivity

Computing[link]

• COM (hardware interface) (or COM:), a serial port interface on IBM PC-compatible computers
• .com, an Internet top-level domain, originally short for "commercial"
• COM file, or .com file, short for "command", a file extension for an executable file in MS-DOS
• Component Object Model, a Microsoft software interface technology
• Computer
• Computer-on-module, a type of single-board computer
• Computer Output Microfilm

Fiction[link]

• Com, a hacker student at the Axis Institute in the novel Evil Genius
• Children of Men (film)

Music[link]

• I Com, an album by Miss Kittin

Gaming[link]

• COM, a non-player character in video games, short for Computer
• Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, a video game for the Game Boy Advance
• Children of Mana, a video game for the Nintendo DS

Science[link]

• Coenzyme M, an intermediate in methanogenesis
• Coma Berenices (constellation), standard astronomical abbreviation
• Center Of Mass
• Center of Momentum, or COM frame

Transport[link]

• COM, the ICAO airline designator for Comair

People[link]

• One of two figures named Com in the Book of Mormon: an early Jaredite king, son of Coriantum; and a late Jaredite king

See also[link]

• Command (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

The White Rabbit is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll's book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. He appears at the very beginning of the book, in chapter one, wearing a waistcoat, and muttering "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" Alice follows him down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. Alice encounters him again when he mistakes her for his housemaid Mary Ann and she becomes trapped in his house after growing too large. The Rabbit shows up again in the last few chapters, as a herald-like servant of the King and Queen of Hearts.

Personality[link]

In his article "Alice on the Stage," Carroll wrote "And the White Rabbit, what of him? Was he framed on the "Alice" lines, or meant as a contrast? As a contrast, distinctly. For her 'youth,' 'audacity,' 'vigour,' and 'swift directness of purpose,' read 'elderly,' 'timid,' 'feeble,' and 'nervously shilly-shallying,' and you will get something of what I meant him to be. I think the White Rabbit should wear spectacles. I'm sure his voice should quaver, and his knees quiver, and his whole air suggest a total inability to say 'Boo' to a goose!"^[1]

Overall, the White Rabbit seems to shift back and forth between pompous behavior toward his underlings, such as his servants, and grovelling, obsequious behavior toward his superiors, such as the Duchess and King and Queen of Hearts, in direct contrast to Alice, who is reasonably polite to everyone she meets.

Disney film[link]

White Rabbit
Disney character
First appearance	Alice in Wonderland (1951)
Created by	Lewis Carroll
Voiced by	Bill Thompson (original film) Corey Burton (House of Mouse, Kingdom Hearts and all other appearences) Jeff Bennett (Kinect Disneyland Adventures) Shigeru Ushiyama (Japanese, Kingdom Hearts series)
Information
Species	Rabbit
Gender	Male
Occupation	Page
Nationality	Wonderland

In Disney's animated version of the book, the Rabbit seems to have the most logic out of all the Wonderland characters. Thus, he is often the straight man for their zany antics; when he asks the Dodo for help on getting the "monster" (Alice) out of his house, Dodo's ultimate solution is to burn the house down, to which the White Rabbit is greatly opposed. At the Mad Tea Party, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare try to "fix" his watch, proclaiming it "exactly two days slow". Through various food they put in the watch (butter, tea, jam, and lemon), the two cause it to go mad, and the Hare smashes it with his mallet. The Rabbit was perhaps most famous for the little ditty he sang at the beginning - "I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye! I'm late! I'm late! I'm late!" The Rabbit was voiced by Bill Thompson.

Some believe the rabbit was late for the announcement of the Queen to the royal garden. The panic the rabbit showed was his fear of losing his head. Upon her arrival (where Alice has been helping to paint the roses red) the cards finish their song and the rabbit blows his trumpet (which he had been carrying for most of his lines) royally introducing the king and queen.

The White Rabbit made a few appearances on the Disney Channel original show, House of Mouse. His most noticeable appearance was when he confessed to Clarabelle Cow that "I'm not really late, and I don't really have a date. I'm a fraud!". He is seen grabbed by the reservation clerk Daisy Duck in the show's intro. He was voiced by Corey Burton, who would voice the Rabbit in all future speaking roles. In Aladdin and the King of Thieves, the genie was transformed into him.

The White Rabbit also appears at the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts as a meetable character.

Tim Burton film[link]

The White Rabbit works for the Red Queen, but is also a secret member of the Underland Underground Resistance, and was sent by the Hatter to search for Alice. Sheen stated, "The White Rabbit is such an iconic character that I didn't feel like I should break the mould too much." In this film adaption, the white rabbit is given the name Nivens McTwisp.^[2]

Other adaptations[link]

• The 1988 Czech film Alice, noted for its disturbing interpretation of Carroll's story, shows a dark stop-motion version of the character. At the beginning of the film, the White Rabbit starts out as a stuffed rabbit that comes alive in Alice's bedroom and breaks out of his glass case; he leaks sawdust through a hole in his chest. During Alice's pursuit of the White Rabbit in Wonderland, he physically attacks her with paddles, a hacksaw, and a group of skeletal animals. The White Rabbit is also the Queen of Hearts' executioner, using scissors to behead the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and other characters. Upon awakening from her dream and finding the White Rabbit missing from his case, Alice finds his scissors and resolves to behead him herself.

In popular culture[link]

Video games[link]

• In American McGee's Alice, the White Rabbit is responsible for Alice's return to Wonderland. He is first seen as Alice's soft toy, then becomes something that resembles a shriveled version of the John Tenniel illustration. When Alice is chasing him in the Village of the Doomed, he shrinks and goes down a hole. Alice follows him by shrinking herself with a hand-made potion. They meet again in the Wonderland Woods, where he tells her to find Caterpillar. Later, he is killed by the Mad Hatter, who crushes him under his foot. He reappears as a minor character in the sequel, Madness Returns, first in the opening sequence of the game, and then as a host of some mini-games (along with the Mad Hatter).
• In the Nintendo DS RPG, A Witch's Tale, the White Rabbit forces its way before the main character, Liddell. It can be a unlockable plush for fighting too.
• In the PlayStation 2 action-RPG game, Kingdom Hearts and its Game Boy Advance follow-up, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, the White Rabbit leads Sora, Donald Duck and Goofy to the Queen's palace, worried about being late. His Japanese voice actor was Shigeru Ushiyama.
• Rockstar's game Manhunt features a level called "Kill the Rabbit." In this stage, the player hunts down a man wearing a white rabbit suit, which the game's antagonist describes as "Wonderland fun".
• The rabbit appears in the video game adaptation of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland as a playable character. He attacks using his watch, and can manipulate time.
• In the Eye of the North expansion of Guild Wars, finding the boss Nulfastu Earthbound requires the player to follow a white rabbit into a rabbit hole. When the player enters, the boss appears, along with a large amount of other hostile monsters, that easily overwhelms an unprepared group of players.
• There is a reference to the White Rabbit in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.
• In Super Mario 64 MIPS the rabbit references the White Rabbit with a few lines, such as "I'm late for an important date."

Television and films[link]

• In Lost, the White Rabbit is alluded to several times in the series. First it is the name of an episode, and Locke claims that Jack is chasing the White Rabbit in the form of his father. The White Rabbit is also the symbol for the Looking Glass Station and it is also carrying a clock with it.
• In Star Trek, the 1966 episode "Shore Leave", shows the protagonists visiting a planet where characters of their imagination come to life. The White Rabbit appears to Doctor McCoy early in the episode.
• In The Matrix there are several metaphysical "waking up" metaphors that reference the Wonderland stories. Early in the film, Neo is told to follow the "White Rabbit" and seconds later, his doorbell rings, and when he opens the door he finds a woman with a tattoo of a white rabbit on her shoulder. Later in the film, Morpheus offers him the "red pill" to "find out just how deep the rabbit hole goes". Right before he meets the oracle one can see Night of the Lepus playing on a nearby television, symbolizing Neo's decision to "follow the white rabbit" and to disturb the order of the Matrix.
• In the Syfy Alice, The White Rabbit is a secret organization that works for the Queen of Hearts and abducts people from the real world (referred to as "Oysters"), so they can gamble in the Queen's casino. The actual character is represented by a member of The White Rabbit, called Agent White, who kidnaps Jack (Alice's fiance, later revealed to be the Queen's son) and tries to retrieve a magic ring called the Stone of Wonderland from Alice. When it is found out that he failed his mission, the Queen has him executed.
• In Jurassic Park, the character of Dennis Nedry writes a computer program to disable security systems of the park and hide his steps. Samuel L. Jackson's character finds a file called "whiterabbit.obj" that he claims did it all.
• In Wizards of Waverly Place, Alex chases the White Rabbit (Justin Russo). He wears white jeans, a white T-shirt, white hair, and big rabbit ears.
• In the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes, when dabbling with occult sciences and sorcery during his investigation, Sherlock Holmes makes an allusion to both the White Rabbit and the rabbit-hole, comparing the sorcery to the rabbit-hole and himself to the white rabbit saying " Although I went deeper into the rabbit-hole than I intended, I brushed the dirt from my fluffy white tail and emerged enlightened".

Literature[link]

• In The Looking-Glass Wars, the White Rabbit is re-imagined as Bibwit Harte, an albino tutor with super-sensitive hearing. If you unscramble his name correctly you get (White Rabbit).
• In the manga series Alice in the Country of Hearts, written by Quinrose and published by Tokyopop. There is a character who is obviously the white rabbit. He is named Peter White, in this version he is the prime minister of the castle of hearts. He is portrayed as a cruel man who would kill anyone in an instant. He has little in common with the image of the white rabbit other than white rabbit ears, a large oversized pocketwatch, and a suit. He is desperately in love Alice and often caught rhyming as he speaks. Alice does mention hating him on several occasions and claims to hate "White Rabbit ears" the most.
• In the Stephen King novel The Long Walk, a boy named Stebbins refers to himself as "The White Rabbit type."

Music[link]

• Jefferson Airplane recorded a song called "White Rabbit", with references to this character and the Wonderland saga in general as metaphors for drug-induced experiences.
• Screaming Tea Party's song "Reckless Rabbit" opens with the lyrics, "My name is Alice, and I'm following the White Rabbit."
• Electric Six's song "Feed my Fuckin' Habit" makes reference to this with the lyrics "Feed my fuckin' habit... Follow the white rabbit" (album I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master, 2007).
• My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult's song "A Daisy Chain 4 Satan" has references of a white rabbit in their lyrics about drugs: "I live for drugs... I'm the white rabbit. I freaked out on acid... I'm the white rabbit."
• Egypt Central's song "White Rabbit" makes references to the rabbit (Your magic white rabbit has left its writing on the wall. We followed like Alice, and just kept falling down the hole).
• Shinedown's song "Her Name is Alice", from the compilation album Almost Alice, uses the line 'And the girl that chased the rabbit, drank the wine, and took the pill...' to reference the White Rabbit; indeed, most of the song references Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.
• Vladimir Vysotsky's song "Белый кролик, Алиса и Додо" ("White Rabbit, Alice and Dodo").^[3]

Musical[link]

• The White Rabbit appeared as a banished fairy tale creature in the original Broadway musical Shrek, based on the 2001 film. He was played by Noah Rivera.
• The White Rabbit was portrayed by Edward Staudenmayer in Frank Wildhorn's musical Wonderland. In the show, he is portrayed as a panicky character with a sarcastic sense of humor. Staudenmayer praised the character's role in the story, saying, "Everything [he has] to say is funny or important." As well as the character that brings Alice to Wonderland in the first place, the Rabbit is also a close ally of her during the course of the show. His sole weapon is his pocket watch, which can turn back time; he uses it to help himself, El Gato the Cheshire Cat, Caterpillar, and Jack the White Knight escape from prison towards the end of the show.

Other Influences[link]

A military trench-digging machine developed by the British Royal Navy at the beginning of World War II was originally known as White Rabbit No. 6, but the name was changed to Cultivator No. 6 to conceal its identity.

References[link]

External links[link]

• White Rabbit character description
• TSR Modules EX1-2, Dungeonland and The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror - article on the modules and download links