ninjas and pop culture?

Does anyone else find themselves talking to people who bring up ninjas in references to pop culture and find themselves having a 'here we go reaction?'



I'm not sure why but I hear people say stuff like 'dude I do parkour, I'm practically a ninja' or 'got my all blacks on, I'll blend into the shadows, ninja-style.'



Now, I know most people have only got their ideas of ninjutsu from pop culture and stuff, but sometimes I really raise an eyebrow at stuff even I read from books on 'experts' like Cummins (like the 'burying animal reproductive organs) and even just common urban legends I seem to be hearing. Even in martial arts classes I hear this kind of thing from teachers who know the bujinkan name:



'Samurai were made as the anti-ninja class, that's where this school comes from.'



'Ninjas milked cobras for venom to put in their smoke bombs, thats how the killed people.'



'Ninja's could dislocate bones to get through tight spaces, since they were so strong and built, it made it easier to wriggle through stuff.'





Aside from the skeptics of the Bujinkan, the typical 'it's a gendai and no gendai works' or applies to modern day defence relevance, I do sometimes wonder where half this stuff comes from.



So when I bring up 'Bujinkan Ninjutsu' or Togakure ryu, usually people have a laugh and blurt out obscure things that even I've not heard of (usually super human mumbo jumbo. Has the pop culture image really gotten that far? Are ninjas the chuck norris joke of the MA world?



I'd be interested in hearing any strange assumptions people make about ninjas for fun actually.