Glurge from a friend

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a friend that sends me all the glurgy, sentimental stuff. I don’t want to be rude and tell them to give it up, because they ARE someone I really like. But after the latest item I found a direct refutation on Snopes( a corny story about the founding of Stanford University). Would it be wrong just to send my friend a link to this story and see what happens? Would anyone else here be offended if they got a return like that?

2

I do that all the time to certain relatives. If they send me something I know is bullshit and I can find a link that proves it, I’ll definitely send it to them. Fighting ignorance, you know. They haven’t disowned me yet.

3

I have a friend who does the same thing. Every time I reply to tell her that her e-mails are full of it, she always comes back with something along the lines of, “Yeah, I know, but it makes such a touching/interesting/entertaining story.” I tried to appeal to her on the grounds of not intentionally spreading misinformation, but she won’t stop.

4

Send them the link. I wouldn’t be offended but then again I know better than to forward all that stuff.

5

For me, there’s no straight answer (i.e. one that fits everyone I know). If I were in your friend’s position, I’d personally want to know (but then, I probably wouldn’t be sending much glurgy stuff out either). I have other friends who wouldn’t take it so well. If you bit the bullet and sent back the refuting link, how would you word the accompanying email? That could be the kicker, imho.

6

I got the latest of the Jessica Mydek American Cancer Society ones and immediately replied to all recipients with both the Snopes link and the ACS official response link. As much as I hated to send out a blanket letter like that, I thought that might halt the glurge.

Well, then the originator waits a few hours (long enough for people to spread the original glurge if they so chose) and then sent out another letter to all recipients saying how appalled she was, quoting the ACS letter in full, and asking everyone to not forward the glurge.

OK, so it backfired in the sense that it resulted in that much more mail, but I still think sending the link is the right thing to do.

7

This is really more of an IMHO question.

8

This is really more of an IMHO question.

9

This is really more of an IMHO question.

10

Sorry, I guess you are right. I wrote th OP just before I went to work and was hurrying too fast, screwed up. Speaking of that, why the three identical posts?

11

And the mods are always telling us to trust the cgi…:wink: :rolleyes: :smiley:

12

Baker,

An important lesson that all rational people must learn in their lives is that we are a distinct minority. Overwhelming numbers of people do not act rationally, meaning that they will not change their opinions or actions based upon evidence, no matter how strong that evidence is.

Us rational people expect irrational people to do what we would do when corrected: send a thank you e-mail for the correction, and apologize for forwarding nonsense to hundreds of people. But they do not. Instead, they’ll get angry at you for shattering their precious worldview, and then continue on with the glurge brigade. Sure, you might get removed from the e-mail list, but you won’t accomplish the larger goal of stopping spam and encouraging critical thought.

Hopefully your friend is one of the rational few, but judging from the Stanford glurge, I doubt it. Your best bet is to be as polite as possible. Write back, saying that that is a wonderful and inspiring story, but unfortunately it’s not true. Then, (and here’s the key) provide another inspiring story that is true. This gives your friend a replacement belief, rather than just leaving an empty void. Best of luck.

13

I have someone who continuously sends those “Forward this to 10 people and a neat video will pop up on your screen! I can’t tell you what it is, but it is SOO funny!” to me all the time…to both my home and work e-mail. I think she just sends everything she gets to every address in her book.
Anyhoo, I always write back and tell her not to send me that stuff and tell her that it NEVER works, she will NEVER see the “funny video” and it is pointless to annoy everyone she knows with it. She always writes back, “I know, I know…but I keep hoping that just once it will work!”

Sigh.

14

Tired of PETA and Republicans Are The AntiChrist glurge, I began to tirelessly refute everything my one friend sent me…knowing she is one of my best friends in the world and can take a bit of criticism.

Finally, when she sent me the classic “ATROCITIES AGAINST WOMEN IN AFGHANISTAN” petition, I went off, sent her the link to snopes and said,

“Do everyone a favor and confirm these things before you send them to the thirty five people on your mailing list”

Now she sends me DOUBLE the glurge but buffers it with “Is this one true? Check for me.”

jarbaby

15

An Alaska Airlines pilot, involved in the investigation of the horrific crash of Alaska Flight 261, has listened to the cockpit voice recorder from the downed plane and he reported that for the last 9 minutes of the flight, the wife of the pastor from Monroe, WA, can be heard sharing the Gospel with the passengers over the plane’s intercom system. Just before the final dive into the Pacific Ocean, she can be heard leading a sinner’s prayer for salvation.

The pilot also reported that the flight data recorder from the plane indicates that there is no good explanation for how the plane was able to stay in the air for those final 9 minutes. But it did stay in the air until the pastor’s wife had a chance to share the Gospel with the very attentive passengers and presumably lead many to salvation in Christ.

So, in the midst of this tragedy, nearly 90 people had an extraordinary opportunity to get right with their Maker just prior to meeting Him.

Just thought I’d share this touching, true story with all of you, cause I love you all so much.

Sniffle,

Heembo

16

Thanks Opus1 for that true story. I think I will try it. It’s strange that this person who sends me the glurge would do so, they usually are rather hard-headed and crusty. Guess even the ornery ones can have a soft center.

17

Braaaack!

Oops! Sorry about puking on your shoes, Heembo.

18

you could send them back some porn
next time she sends you some glurge
just reply with:
Thanks for that story of the 3 year old cancer patient that was saved by her dog who searched New York for days until he miraculously found a exact bone marrow match for her enclosed is some pictures of amputees having sex I have also enclosed pictures of a women giving a blow job to a pig as I know how much you love animals
thanks again for the e-mail

19

Now that’s comedy!

20

This is kind of a long post, so I apologize, but…

I’ve now trained all of my friends and family (but one) not to forward crap on to me unless it’s actually funny or interesting. The one who continues to do so may have just been stopped, after I forwarded the following on to her. It was emailed to me by my brother.