In June of 2000, John Robinson, a 56-year-old Midwestern man, was found to have murdered five women, several of whom he had met online using his classy alter-ego, “Slavemaster.” Robinson was promptly tried, convicted and sentenced to death. While Robinson sat in custody, something strange began happening – women all over the United States received frightening email forwards from friends and relatives and co-workers: “If a guy by the name of ‘Slavemaster’ contacts you do not answer. He has killed 56 women that he has talked to on the internet.” Out of respect for the fatally duped victims, I don’t want to harp too much on the fact that “Slavemaster” doesn’t exactly have the ring of a full-proof panty-dropper, like, say, the old telephone call to god re: AWOL angel. Even self-hating vicarious CSA nostalgics tend to go for something a bit subtler. Plus, by the time this warning was being haplessly fired into inboxes, Robinson was both sans chat room access and dozens of victims short of the warning’s claim. It’s a perfect example of the role that gross hyperbole plays in turning real tragedy into panic-fueled Internet hoax.

Things get more interesting still: Because the real “Slavemaster” is in jail, and because people on the Internet are apparently only stupid when they’re talking about movies, the original “Slavemaster” email began to change and recirculate, like some evolving viral strain matched in heated reconfigurative battle with human immunity and pharmaceuticals. The fictional bogeyman’s screenname was altered multiple times. By 2006, the emails included a note saying that the email was simply reiterating a warning put out by all the major ISPs, and by 2007, the emails included the killer’s MySpace page address. As Internet savvy increased and BS detectors were recalibrated to higher sensitivities, the hoax – 56 murders, warn every woman you know – followed in suit.

Here is a list, lovingly compiled by the consummate workhorses over at Snopes.com, of just a few of the monikers that appeared in nearly identical warning emails sent out between 2002 and 2007: monkeyman935, jokerkid613, imahustlababay, ratbonesblakstar, rooster and, of course, ooosparklesooo88. Note that many of these screennames are clearly adapted to mind-bully a younger generation of females who have been warned repeatedly (with some limited precedent) that the Internet’s population is limited to their friends from school and 1 billion crafty pedophiles.

Urban legends used to be fantastical, to-the-point horror stories that gruesomely underlined some moral imperative – pseudo-scared straight tactics that attempted to use fear as a blunt tool for behavior modification among indiscriminate groups of fascinated youngsters; these emails are repeatedly designed, updated and honed to wring the maximum amount of unwarranted anxiety from women. That’s fear as a weapon, wielded to seize emotional power over a targeted, unknowing group.

And ladies – stop meeting up with people who have screennames like “Slavemaster.” (Also avoid “Slave1Master,” unless you’re into bounty hunter cosplay and carbonite bondage.)

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