Sunday, May 10, 2009

Those #@$#!@#v Email Chains and Hoaxes


Educated pool of email correspondents.
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What a wonder it is how using the Internet and email has transformed our lives since the middle of the last decade. Entire retail markets have been completely made over with the convenience and wide selection on-line ordering provides. The typical shopping mall book and record stores have become obsolete because they cannot possibly offer the selection of on-line retailers like Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. Email affords us the opportunity to stay in touch with people we’d typically lose touch with through the years. We have new resources and forums to explore our hobbies and interests like never before. Given the ability to provide timely information, conventional magazines and newspapers are rapidly becoming obsolete. Given the ability to update information without having to reprint or reissue volumes of print on paper, timely, up-to-date information is available on almost all subjects.

Sadly, such technology has its unintended consequences too. Computer viruses wreak havoc with day-to-day computer use. Criminals have devised high-tech methods of stealing fortunes through scams, identity thefts, and other schemes. Social networking sites and chat rooms provide a forum where the real scum of the earth, child molesters and sex perverts can attract their prey. There are many less dangerous but highly annoying uses as well. Just as our old fashioned mail is littered with junk, so are our email accounts if we’re not careful, but then there is the curious phenomenon of the Internet and email hoax where outrageous claims and rumors run wild with otherwise intelligent people serving as unknowing dupes to spread such idiocy in ever increasing multiples as the tree of forwarded messages branch out from originator through layers of dupes to the inboxes of millions of email users.

We all have good intentioned friends and relatives who cannot resist the temptation to forward any tidbit which portends to tell us something we really need to know and thank goodness somebody is smart and good enough to take it upon himself or herself to take up the cause and use the new media to spread the word. Isn’t it funny how before there was email, such people would never cut an article out of a newspaper or magazine, duplicate it, and mail it to everyone he or she knows who might even remotely be affected by the subject. Likewise, these same people would never pick up the phone and call friends or relatives if they saw something on television or heard something on radio they thought might concern the folks they know. In fact, even with the ease of forwarding articles from legitimate news sources or being able to cut and paste content and send it on to others, these same folk would never even do that. However, when somebody forwards them something which is something that was probably forwarded to the sender from whom they got it that was forwarded to that person from another sender and who ultimately knows how many times the message has been forwarded or who originated it, but somehow, when something is sent someone rather than when someone finds out something about an issue on his or her own, these souls seem to feel some kind of moral imperative to send it on and in some way pat themselves on the back feeling good that they have done their good deed for the day.

The sad truth is, they’ve been duped into functioning as mindless assholes since almost all these forwarded messages are pure bullshit. Amazingly, as widespread and annoying as these forwarded pack of lies and deception are, those who originate them are never identified nor has anyone profiled the most likely source of where they come from, though we would suspect bored college students whose brains have been severely compromised by large amounts of marijuana and beer consumption. That’s just our guess.

The phenomenon is fascinating. We all remember the childhood tale of Chicken Little. Chicken Little was little more than a dumb cluck, a fowl minded creature who was struck by an acorn falling from a tree. Not being a particularly bright being, Chicken Little assumed the sky is falling. Oh my God, the headless horsemen have risen, Armageddon is upon us. Somebody has to tell the king or the President of the United States, Oprah Winfrey or Doctor Phil for that matter, somebody who is an appropriate all knowing authority who might be able to do something about it. Soon Chicken Little addresses her concern with Ducky Lucky. They band together to alert Goosey Lucy, Jerky Turkey, and even Sagacious Swan!!! Little of value can be learned from this childhood tale other than there sure are a lot of impressionable dumb clucks, and the analogy certainly seems apropos in the email forwarding phenomenon.

Don’t you want to belt somebody in the mouth when you read some highly emotive screed about something everybody’s supposed to care about and then at the end of the message it implores you to forward the message to everyone you know. Of course some of them are prayers, so God might not be too happy if you don’t forward His message or might grant you a miracle for forwarding some cheesy little message of hope whose sentiments are so sappy it could drive the most devote Christian to renounce his faith.

Who wouldn’t want to help a dying child? Is there anyone with an email account who didn’t get a plea on the behalf of some poor elementary school girl dying of incurable cancer who wrote some sappy poem about world peace and her dying wish was to be entered in the Guinness Book of World Records for posting the most email forwards ever. On top of that, of course, Bill Gates would contribute .02 of a penny for each forward for medical research to help this poor kid. Of course, the truth is, there is no such kid. There is no technology that monitors and tallies the number of email forwards, and Bill Gates has nothing to do with this. When I get this email, if there is a chain of many forwards, I feel so tempted to back forward it with a message that says, “Fuck you, I hope this nonexistent little bitch dies!!”

In August of 2003, Mars made its closest pass to the earth since Neanderthals walked the earth. Prior to that eventful August eve, all kinds of emails made the rounds that the results would be so spectacular that the light from Mars would be as bright as a full moon. Duh! The moon is just a 384,403 km little jog from earth and being part of earth’s orbit around the sun is closer to the sun than the red planet. Given the moon is that close and is about one quarter the diameter of its mother planet, the moon would always be significantly brighter than Mars even in its closest pass to earth. Mars is about half the diameter of earth. Even at the closest approach to earth, Mars is 35 million miles. Mars reaches its closest distance to earth every two years, but other factors make each close pass a little closer or further year to year, but the number of miles distance from a close year to a far year is relatively insignificant and barely perceivable on earth.

Nevertheless, as every August approaches, most of us will get an idiot email consisting of the following:

"The Red Planet is about to be spectacular."

"Earth is catching up with Mars [for] the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history."

"On August 27th … Mars will look as large as the full moon."

And finally, "NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN."

Yeah right! We presume the folks who believe this have also received tips on a great real estate offer for ocean front property near Hagerstown, Maryland too.

P.T. Barnum was correct. Suckers are born every nanosecond thanks to cyberspace. Still, how is it generally intelligent people can so quickly be duped into behaving like Chicken Little so easily.

Let’s make it clear. We cannot trust the news media for its bias, why would we trust anonymous email forwards?

Sure as we lament this situation, before most people read this, many of us will receive another, “You must forward this prayer for peace or the world will succumb to swarms of locusts if the chain is broken – and it would be YOUR fault for breaking the chain” type of email. Others will be implored to collect pull tabs from soda cans to help some sick kid get in the Guinness Book before dropping dead. Others will be tipped off that a mixture of baking soda, Swedish vodka, and grapefruit juice will make a person immune to the swine flu. Think of the most outrageous possibility and it’s surely coming to an inbox near you.

The challenge is dealing with our friends and relatives who despite much coaching still continue to annoy us with this insidious bullshit. Yes, we love them and they mean well, but we all know what paves the road to hell.
Be sure to forward this post to twelve of your closest friends and family or you will develop a painful rectal itch which responds to no known medication. Get the message!?!?!?

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