Someone please tell my friends how stupid they are. I don't have the heart.

The BBQ Pit
1

In the past week, I have received the following emails:

  • Under the title, “It works!!! I love it!!! THIS IS SO NEAT!!!”

The message: “I THOUGHT I SAW A TWEEDIE BIRD…NO TACOS…NO RONALDS…
Send this to 6 people and you will see the Taco Bell dog run across your screen . If you send this to 8 people Ronald McDonald comes out and attacks the taco bell dog. it is really funny and it works!! you have to try it.”

  • Under the title, “PLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEAAASE READ!!”

The message:"To all of my friends, I do not usually forward messages, but this is from my good friend Pearlas Sanborn and she really is an attorney. If she says that this will work - it WILL work.

After all, what have you got to lose?
SORRY EVERYBODY…JUST HAD TO TAKE THE CHANCE!!!

I’m an attorney, and I know the law. This thing is for real.

Rest assured AOL and Intel will follow through with their promises for fear of facing a multimillion dollar class action suit similar to the one filed by PepsiCo against General Electric not too long ago.

We’re not going to help them out with their e-mail beta test without getting a little something for our time. My brother’s girlfriend got in on this a few months ago.

When I went to visit him for the Baylor/UT game. She showed me her check. It was for the sum of $4,324.44 and was stamped “Paid In Full”. Like I said before, I know the law, and this is for real.

Intel and AOL are now discussing a merger which would make them the largest Internet company and in an effort make sure that AOL remains the most widely used program, Intel and AOL are running an e-mail beta test.

When you forward this e-mail to friends, Intel can and will track it (if you are a Microsoft Windows user) for a two week time period.

For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $203.15.

For every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $156.29.

And for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $17.65.

Within two weeks, Intel will contact you for your address and then send you a check.

I thought this was a scam myself, but a friend of my good friend’s Aunt Patricia, who works at Intel, actually got a check of $4,543.23 by forwarding this e-mail.

Try it, what have you got to lose???"

Finally, under the title of: “Death for NPR???” Well, I won’t bore you with the text. Suffice it to say the emailer encourages one of those hopelessly irrelevant cyber-petitions to stop the government from doing away with National Public Radio, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Public Broadcasting.

I cringe to point out to you that every one of these was sent to me (multiple copies, in some cases) by college-educated professionals.

The only thing more mystifying to me than people who fall for this shit and continue to give it life are those that create it. This really gives somebody, somewhere, satisfaction? You really need to hit the off-switch and get out more, pal.

2

Sorry, can’t help you there Milo. I suffer from colleagues, grandparents and my moms boyfriend.

Think of it like knowing a smoker or something. If the friendship is worthwhile you gotta take the bad with the good.

3

The only thing you can do is a “Reply To All” containing a snopes link. And that isn’t even guaranteed to work.

4

Here’s what I do about the e-mail tracking bullshit. I make a wager with the sending party. I tell them that I’ll double any amount they actually receive, but if they get nothing, they’ll only owe me a bottle of scotch, or some other paltry sum.

This doesn’t work, of course, and none of these SOB’s have ever paid off, but at least you can bug 'em every time you see 'em by asking for your bottle of booze. It’s best to ask them in front of a group of people, too. It’s more embarrassing for 'em that way.

5

I go the “NPR” one, too, from a generally intelligent friend. My friends and relatives are beginning to catch on that I do not reply to or acknowledge the following, which I immediately delete:

• Any kind of chain letter

• The latest “hilarious” Bush/Clinton/Gore joke, which I have already heard 28 times, thanks

• 500 reasons why cats are better than men, women are smarter than men, or chocolate is better than sex

• Terrifying “more things to worry about!” alerts regarding food, contagious diseases or things falling from outer space

6

Hm. I got a similar message this morning – Free clothes from The Gap!

“What have you got to lose?”

Time, and more importantly, my dignity.

I’m proud to say I have never dignified ordure like this with a reply or even a comment. (But I do like UncleBeer’s suggestion).

7

My personal peeve is how on ICQ, people constantly forward URLs saying “ICQ is clearing out its database, forward this to stay on”.

Usually no URL is included. But SOMETIMES, there’ll be, like, http://www.icq.com/icq/deletingusers.html.

So I go check it out, and it’s a file not found!

OBVIOUSLY these people forwarded it without even looking at the URL. How STUPID can you get?

8

I’ve gotten a few that promise gift certificates to The Gap and Victoria’s Secrets. I really don’t like the ones that supposedly come from kids dying of cancer and “for every address this e-mail is sent to the National Children’s Cancer Society will donate $.01.” And here’s the clincher at the bottom… “If you choose to delete this message instead of forwarding it on, just remember… what comes around goes around.” Yeah, I’m gonna get cancer now because I didn’t forward your fucking e-mail. :rolleyes: Bite me!

9

I’ve found that a few beers reduce my inhibitions enough that I’m able to tell anybo…

Wait! You’re MILO!!! Whadya mean you don’t have the heart to tell somebody they’re stupid?

10

It’s different with you cartoon characters, dropzone. :wink:

UncleBeer: Love your idea! I’m filing that one away.

11

uncle beer, brilliant. i shall take that idea to heart.

12

Hey Milo’s friends, you’re fucking stupid! There. Howzat?

Though I do have to hand it to the people that make these up. They “wasted” all that time writing them specifically because they believed that people with e-mail addresses collectively had the IQ of toe fungus. Now they sit back and laugh themselves silly because they were absolutely right.

13

Ooooh, I just remembered what I did with an actual anonymous chain letter about 15 years ago, in the pre-E-mail days! I got some stupid damn letter—I don’t remember the subject—but it ended with, “forward 30 copies of this letter or the chain will be broken . . .”

I knew exactly what idiot in my office had sent it to me. So I photocopied 30 copies of the letter, put them all into one envelope and mailed it right back to her. You should have heard her yelp when she opened her mail at the office . . . I wonder if she is still working on sending out her 900 copies?

14

The ones I really hate are those paeans to friendship that say that the true friends of the sender will send it back to them. If you are going to try to manipulate me in that way, I don’t consider you to be MY true friend.

15

Eve, that’s perfect. Gawd, I hate this dreck.

I have a mom who, bless her heart, thinks those stories of sick kids and those horrible poems are “touching”. Yeah, they’re touching my gag reflex!!

Especially hated lines:

“…if you forward this one, it will tell people how much you love Jesus.” Gee, I thought it was the example of how I lived my life that told people that.

“…don’t be heartless by not forwarding this on! Bring a smile to a dying child’s eye.” The only child that’s dying is the teenage hacker that started this crap. He’s dying’ laughing!

“…CAUTION!!!This could happen to you!! Be careful in parking lots!!!Send this to all your female friends!!!You could save someone’s life!!!” OW! Your exclamation points are hurting my ears!

Milo, my suggestion is to send them a rather return email saying “please don’t send me this crap.” It’s worth a shot.

16

Send them all the one about the little boy with a burlap sack for a body. If they take it seriously, they are too stupid to be your friend anymore, & you should tell them so.

17

I tried doing this for a while. Then, everyone started hating me. So, I stopped. Bastards. One of the biggest offenders was my own mother… :frowning: Oh well, now I just have to suffer and delete them without replying. Then my mom says, “How come you never respond to my e-mails?” “Well, because they’re all about stupid, false shit, mom.” :: Blank look ::

Sheesh…

Stella, I love that one. I was forwarding it on for a while, until I started getting even more replies from the idiots, because they thought I was into that crap. I doubt they even knew it was a joke… :wink:

18

I did the Snopes link reply, but I prefaced it with this, knowing how “sensitive” the senders were: “I really love the way you are always looking out for my safety/trying to help children/sharing income resources. But I found out from the link below that gang members do not slash ankles/Kelsey was never lost/The Gap doesn’t give stuff away.
Thinking of you fondly, MG.”
One woman did stop forwarding stuff, but there’s this guy who still has a burning need for me to know about cosmic convergences and the rest of the tinfoil hat cornucopia. I don’t mind. At least I’m up on the latest phobias.
The sickly-sweet glurge messages bug me more, and do feel manipulative. I never forward/return them, but once in a while I send a thank-you for the kind thoughts. Oddly, I get along better with the glurgemeisters now & they send me less shite.
Hmmm. Sincerity. Don’t email without it.

19

I hated getting forwards from friends, because I always felt like a piece of trash for not responding to the “If you’re my friend then you’ll send this back,” letters. Then I realized that my friends never noticed whether I had answered their idiot email or not, which wasn’t surprising since they typically sent it to 17 million people. Or maybe it was 8. Anyway, a real friend of mine wrote this and sent it to me about a week ago. I think it captures all the sentiments expressed on the board rather nicely. I have started sending this to anyone who forwards me stupid email and it has worked wonders. I haven’t received a chain letter in almost 4 hours! I apologize for the length of the letter, but it’s worth it.

Hello, my name is none of your business. I am suffering from seven rare and deadly diseases, poor scores on final exams, fear of being
mauled by squirrels, and guilt for not forwarding out 50 billion
chain letters sent to me by people who actually believe that if you send them on, that a poor 6 year old girl in Texas with a potato growing out of her forehead will be able to raise enough money to have it removed before her parents sell her off to the traveling freak show. Do you honestly believe that Bill Gates is going to give you and everyone you send “his” email to $1000? How stupid are you? I guess
stupid enough to believe that you will recieve a $2 billion shopping
spree at Abercrombie & Fitch… Ooooh, lookyhere! If I scroll down
this page and make a wish, I’ll meet the girl of my dreams tomorrow! What a bunch of junk. So basically, this message is directed to all the people out there who have nothing better to do than to send me stupid chain mail forwards. Maybe the evil letter leprochauns will come into my house and write “I’m a moron” on my forehead in permanent
marker in my sleep for not continuing the chain which was started by a
knight of the round table and was brought to this country by midget pilgrims on the Mayflower and if it makes it to the year 2000, it’ll be in the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest continuous streak of blatant stupidity. If you’re going to forward something, at least send out something mildly amusing. I’ve seen all the “send this to 50 of your closest friends, and this poor, wretched excuse for a human being who will somehow receive a nickel from my pet gecko” forwards about 90 times. It’s getting old. Show a little intelligence and think about what you’re actually contributing to by sending out forwards. Chances are it’s your own unpopularity.

THE FOUR BASIC TYPES OF CHAIN LETTERS:

Chain Letter Type 1:
(scroll down)
Make a wish!!! No, really, go on and make one!!! Oh please… they’ll never go out with you!!! Wish something else!!! No, I’m sorry, we’re out of ponies at the time being!! Have you forgotten why you’re scrolling yet? STOP!!! Wasn’t that fun? :slight_smile: Hope you made a great wish :slight_smile: Now, to make you feel guilty, here’s what I’ll do. First of all, if you don’t send this to 5,096 people in the next 5 seconds, you will be kidnapped by ninja elves and thrown off a high building into a pile of manure. It’s true! Because THIS letter isn’t like all of those fake ones… THIS one is TRUE!! Really!!! Here’s how it goes:
*Send this to 1 person: One person will be annoyed with you for sending them a stupid chain letter.
*Send this to 2-5 people: 2-5 people will be annoyed with you for
sending them a stupid chain letter.
*Send this to 5-10 people: 5-10 people will be
annoyed with you for sending them a stupid chain letter, and may form a plot on your life.
*Send this to 10-20 people: 10-20 people will be annoyed with you for
sending them a stupid chain letter and will toilet paper your house. Thanks!!! Good Luck!!!

Chain Letter Type 2:
Hello, and thank you for reading this letter. You see, there is a starving little boy in Baklaliviatatlaglooshen who has no arms, no legs, no parents, and no goats. This little boy’s life could be saved, because for every time you pass this on, a dollar will be donated to the Little Starving Leg-less, Arm-less, Parent-less, Goat-less Boy
from the Baklaliviatatlaglooshen Fund. Oh, and remember, we have absolutely no way of counting the e-mails sent and this is all a complete load of junk. So go on, reach out. Send this to 59 people in the next 47 seconds.
Oh, and a reminder - if you accidentally send this to 4 or 6 people,
you will die instantly. Thanks again!!

Chain Letter Type 3:
Hi there!! This chain letter has been in existence since 1897. This is
absolutely incredible because there was no e-mail then and probably not as many sad e-mail addicts with nothing better to do. So this is how it works:
Pass this on to 15,067 people in the next 7 seconds or something horrible will happen to you like:
*Bizarre Horror Story #1
Miranda Pinsley was walking home from school on Friday. She had recently received this letter and ignored it. She then tripped in a
crack in the sidewalk, fell into a sewer, was gushed down a drainpipe
in a flood of crap, and went flying out over a waterfall. Not only did she smell nasty, she died, too… This could happen to you!!!
*Bizarre Horror Story #2
Dexter Bip, a 13 year old boy, got a chain letter in his e-mail and
ignored it. Later that day, he was crushed by an anvil that was dropped by a plane that just happened to be flying directly above him.
This could happen to you too!!! Remember, you could end up just like Pinsley and Bip. Just send this letter to all of your loser friends, and everything will be okay.

Chain Letter Type 4:
As if you care, here is a poem that I wrote. Send it to every one of
your friends. “Friends”
A friend is someone who is always at your side…
A friend is someone who likes you even though you stink like dead fish, and your breath smells like you’ve been eating cat food.
A friend is someone who likes you even though you can’t juggle.
A friend is someone who thinks your pants look like they were made
from curtains.
A friend is someone who stays with you all night while you cry about your sad, sad life…
A friend is someone who pretends they like you when they really think
you should be ran over by a steamroller and then thrown to vicious dogs…
A friend is someone who scrubs your toilet, vacuums, and then gets the check and leaves and doesn’t speak much English…
(-no, sorry that’s the cleaning lady…)
A friend is not someone who sends you chain letters because he wants his wish of being rich to come true.

Now pass this on! If you don’t, no one will like you for as long as you live. I mean it, as long as you live. The point being? If you get some chain letter that’s threatening to leave you friendless or luckless for the rest of your life, delete it. If it’s funny, send it on. Don’t annoy people by making them feel guilty about a leper in Otswana with no teeth, who’s been tied to a dead elephant for 27 years, whose only chance of living is the 5 cents per letter he’ll receive if you forward this mail, otherwise you’ll end up like Miranda. Right?

Now forward this to everyone you know…
otherwise you’ll find all your socks missing tomorrow
morning.

20

Henry, I want to marry your friend.

Oh, and Milossarian’s friends: you are stupid. Or at least naïve.