[vanity rant] The Rant about Forwarded Emails

Forwarded emails | 01-04-05 | 4mycountry

[4mycountry]

Ok, forgive me. I know this is blatant abuse of privileges. But I just have to rant a bit. I got an email today that was the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’, and now, I just have to rant about it. Please bear with me. And feel free to rant yourselves.

You know how we all get forwarded emails? Yeah. We get ones that have advice on life, cute little sayings, witty one-liners, adorable pictures of puppies and kittens, faith-builders, testimonies, amazing stories, pledges of eternal friendship, etc. We get them every day. Something gets forwarded to us, all the freaking time.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have – almost – nothing against forwarded emails. I enjoy them, for the most part. I like the little stories, and the sharp witty jabs, and, yes, on occasion, I even enjoy the cute puppy pictures.

But you know what I hate?

I hate the stuff like this – and note that this is directly copied and pasted from an email I got a little over two hours ago:

> Do not keep this message.
>
> It must leave your hands in 6 MINUTES. Otherwise you will get a very
>unpleasant surprise. This is true, even if you are not superstitious,
>agnostic, or otherwise faith impaired.

Send this to at least 5 people and your life will improve. 1-4 people:
>Your life will improve slightly.
> 5-9 people: Your life will improve to your liking.
> 9-14 people: You will have at least 5 surprises in the next 3 weeks
>
> 15 and above: Your life will improve drastically and everything you
>ever dreamed of will begin to take shape.

Wait a minute, what?! Are you seriously asking me to believe, that if I send this email to 15 people or more in the next six minutes, that my life will ‘improve drastically and everything I ever dreamed of will being to take place”?! Because I forwarded a stupid email?!

And come on – the thread of a very unpleasant surprise if I *dare* not to forward the email on. Oh come ON, people! Very unpleasant surprises happen all the time – you know why? That’s LIFE! Life throws very unpleasant surprises at you like clouds throw rain! Am I supposed to truly believe that if I don’t send one insignificant *email* on, that the next unpleasant things that happens to me is because of it?! Am I really supposed to believe that God will slam down holy judgement upon me for not forwarding an email? I’d like to think that God has a whole lot of better things to do than smite me for not sending on an email. Seriously.

I hate forwards with lines like these (again, all taken from actual emails I’ve gotten):

-You will have good luck for Two Years if you send this to 8 people or more

- 8 angels r sent 2 u, U must send them to 8 people including me. In 8 minutes u will! receive something u have long awaited.

- Something good will happen to you tonight at 11:11 PM . This is not a joke. Someone will either call you or will talk to you online and say that they love you.

- You must send this on in 3 hours after reading the letter to 10 other people. If you do this, you will receive unbelievably good luck in love. The person that you are most attracted to will soon return to you. If you do not, bad luck will rear its ugly head at you. THIS IS NOT A JOKE! You have read the warnings, seen the cases, and the consequences. You MUST send this on or face dreadfully bad luck.

- [note: the following was in all caps. For the sake of sanity, I am putting it in proper lower case. This is, for me, the definitive of how low a forward threat can go. Expect a rant.] This is a special guardian angel…. You must pass this on to 5 people within the hour of receiving her.. After you do make a wish…. If you have passed her on, your wish will be granted and she will watch over you forever… if not.. her tears will flow and no wishes will be granted.

Ohhh my good golly molly. I *hate* ^ that one.

First of all – I tried to copy and paste the image here, but it kept getting messed up. It was one of those images that you can come up with using keyboard keys. Not a gif image. Not a jpeg. Not a picture. No color. Not big and intricate. About 110 by 80 pixels. And a grand total of four different keys were used. (, ), \, and /. The wing edged looked like this: ( \ / ), the head looked like (), the edged of the 'dress' were / and \ and the hands/arms looked like this \/. And that was it. Use your imagination.

Ok - am I supposed to earnestly believe that (a) this thing can watch over me for the rest of my life? For heaven’s sake, I can type that stupid thing in a few minutes! It’s a bunch of ( and ) and \ and / ! Second of all, am I supposed to believe that (b) if I don’t pass her on, her ‘tears’ will flow and no wishes will be ‘granted’? How can this thing cry, much less grant wishes? I mean, look at ‘her’! She doesn’t even have a danged FACE! It’s a ( and a ). Oh wait, I know – it’s the GUILT TRIP. You’re going to break the widdle pixel angel’s widdle heart if you don’t pass on the email. The only way they could have made this worse was to say, “If you don’t forward this she will cry, the other angels will pick on her and she will suffer long bouts of depression and cut her wings off and hang herself and then everyone in heaven will be heartbroken and go on a mass killing spree down here and lord knows we can’t fight angels and five random kittens will freeze to death in a cardboard box in New Jersey.”

*sigh*

Ok. I think I’m done. Sorry guys, I just feel insulted whenever I read forward fortune threats and predictions. Every time I read one, I go through this little rant in my head, and finally today, I just had to let it out. Much apologies.

Feel free to rant along and share your forwarded-email lines. Thankees ~

[4mycountry]

Mods, go ahead and move this to Chat if you'd like. Thanks for your patience! (^^)''

[al baby]

I delete all of them waste of time end of proplem

[i_dont_chat]

Tolerance and the delete button. Why bother to read the junk?

[Petronski]

I'm betting:

a) you didn't follow the instructions

and

b) you didn't get the luck and riches.






Ya see! I guess you've learned YOUR lesson.

[Brett66]

It's an age old trick, if you believe that not doing "X" will cause bad things to happen. Then when life happens, you blame it on not doing "X".

A lot of people still strongly believe in astrologers and psychics........

[Petronski]

Oh, and here's your cute puppy:

[atomicpossum]

Uh....want to make a smart-aleck comment, but....no.

You must send this on in 3 hours after reading the letter to 10 other people. If you do this, you will receive unbelievably good luck in love. The person that you are most attracted to will soon return to you. If you do not, bad luck will rear its ugly head at you. THIS IS NOT A JOKE! You have read the warnings, seen the cases, and the consequences. You MUST send this on or face dreadfully bad luck.

[4mycountry]

I've actually have that image on my computer. (heh...)

And don't think I'd ever be dumb enough to think forward fortunes could ever work. If I was that stupid, I'd be a liberal.

[Riley]

I have about the same take on these things that you do- but I'd add another thing:

Fifty or sixty exposed e-mail addresses in the headers, because the nimrod didn't know what BCC is. If you want to spam your friends with every cutesy e-mail that comes along- please have the courtesy to not send my e-mail address around the planet. I get enough spam as it is.

[4mycountry]

Unfortunately, I have friends who mail me all this stuff, and they constantly ask me, "Did you get the forward? You know I forwarded something to you right? Did you like it?" etc. So I have to read them.

I'd tell them off but I kinda want to stay friends with my friends. (^^)'

[kingu]

I'd rather get the stupid luck e-mails than the 'show the love' forwards.. If you don't forward it to the person who sent it and multiple other people, you supposedly don't love the person who sent it.

I usually politely tell the people who send it to me not to send me those types of letters. Never works, though. I'm just showing that I'm unlucky and don't love them.

[HairOfTheDog]

I have a couple friends who still send me this crap. I used to have more, but I think I ranted at a couple of them: "Why do you send me this crap?"

One friend sends me chain e-mails about God. I'd love to rant at her, but she'd just think it was against God, and not the stupid emails and she'd just redouble her efforts to convert me.

The last one ended with:

You now have two choices:
1. Delete this..
2. Forward it to all the people you care about.
You already know the choice I opted for.


ACK. I really hate those stupid emails :~D

[Riley]

I have had talks with my friends who do this kind of thing, but they always seem to be deeply and personally wounded if you ask them not to send you every little joke or picture that they get.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Chain letters have been around forever but they never cease to be annoying.

At least in the pre-email days you had something that you could wad up and throw in the fire. That was much more therapeutic then just hitting delete.

[4mycountry]

I think I ranted at a couple of them: "Why do you send me this crap?"

I think you may be my hero. ^_^

[steve8714]

"send this response to five freepers and you'll meet your mate.."

[chae]

A friend of mine sent out and e-mail saying that due to the prevalence of viruses and the like, he wouldn't read any forwards and wouldn't open any downloads, that he'd just hit delete.

[HairOfTheDog]

Maybe I should email ~this thread~ to them and ask them to forward it to all their friends.

[JoJo Gunn]

I believe that most of that crap originates from spammers to begin with. E-mails such as these fly around the world quickly, with each forwarder adding their own list of names from the address book, saving spammers from some of the extra work of harvesting names, getting past spam filters, etc.

[Bigg Red]

originates from spammers to begin with

**
Bingo! I have 2 acquaintences that send me this junk, and it seems as though I get tons more spam following each episode. I have never been dumb enough to forward any of it, and I am now at the point of deleting without even opening unless I recognize a legitimate topic in the subject line.