My circle of friends is not exactly stupid in some respects - most have college degrees and real professions - so why, oh why, oh why-o do some of these idiots forward every damn email they get onto every person they know…stupid joke pictures, urban legends, anti-immigration bile, cute pictures of kittens, warnings about mythical computer viruses…you name it, they’ve forwarded it on.
They usually aren’t even clever enough to delete the 15 groupings of names that have been the unlucky recipients of this stupid email of the day, so you have to scroll down about 135 yards to find the unfunny cartoon/pun/joke/urban legend. Plus, you are now on yet another mass mail grouping so 275 strangers now have your name and email address on their computers.
What possesses a fairly intelligent person to forward emails that are a waste of bandwidth to begin? Do they even read the damned things or do they just forward them on in some kind of zombie-like-state-of-mind…“click forward to all people I have ever met in my life…”
Maybe I am wrong…maybe there are actually people out there who like to get these dumbass nuggets of the day…but I’m not one of them! Stop already…send me emails that you wrote yourself, or if you must, send me a link to a story you think I might find interesting, but I really don’t need any more Family Circle cartoons to brighten my fuckin’ day, thank you.
After a tour of Ireland that I went on recently, we all exchanged e-mail addresses. I have now received two e-mails presumably sent to everyone she had an e-mail address for in the past couple of weeks suggesting that I write my congress-critter about all the horrible problems with immigration, and the details make it clear that the complaint is about all the mexicans sneaking across the border. My dear - you know I’m Canadian, and the fact that my e-mail address ends in .ca might also remind you. I really kind of doubt that any of those folk south of the border would give a sh-t about what a Canadian thought about mexicans illegally crossing into the US!
A friend finally stopped doing this. She asked me once if I liked something she had forwarded. I told her that forwarded e-mails were a source of viruses, so I never open them. One down . . .
First of all, the correlation between having a degree and being intelligent is pretty much non-existent these days (and for the last 20 years or so), but I digress. Not to take away from the raging fire in your belly, because I’m with you - glurge does indeed suck- why not just delete them? I know, you’re just venting and not asking for advice. I’m just thinking it might stop the creeping feeling that your friends have degenerated into a bunch of dolts.
The one friend of mine who will be the first to tell me “oh, I never open that stuff” has for some reason become the biggest culprit. I usually tell her "sorry, my computer(at work, where she sends them) is not equiped to open those kind of files (jpegs). It’s not a lie and has finally served as a tactful way to stop her from including me in her mass mailings.
If you are indeed just letting of steam, I say amen, and advise you to file them in the bin. If you really have a hard time dealing with this, maybe you could blame a fear of viruses, as suggested before.
Yes especially these “you’re a true friend” shit with wishy washy pictures of sleeping kitten and the worlds going to blow up if you don’t mail this to 40 of your closest friends within the next ten seconds - just stop it before I dump you over into the junk mail.
I start by asking the more egregious senders to stop. I tell them that on a typical day I receive anywhere from 50-300 e-mails that I have to sort and respond to (which is true), and that I’d rather they print out and USPS mail me anything they think I’d really enjoy or need to know. This stops much of it.
To repeat offenders, I reply back, “I received an e-mail from you with a picture/attachment. I deleted it due to the threat of viruses. Would you please write me back and let me know that you sent it so I’ll know it was really from you? If you didn’t send anything to me, please immediately check your computer for viruses that send e-mail using your address.” I do this for every e-mail received. That stops most of it for me.
-----Original Message-----
From: DMark
Re: Stop Forwarding Me Every Damn Email You Get!
>My circle of friends is not exactly stupid in some respects - most have college
>degrees and real professions - so why, oh why, oh why-o do some of these
>idiots forward every damn email they get onto every person they know…stupid
>joke pictures, urban legends, anti-immigration bile, cute pictures of kittens,
>warnings about mythical computer viruses…you name it, they’ve forwarded it
>on.
>
>They usually aren’t even clever enough to delete the 15 groupings of names
>that have been the unlucky recipients of this stupid email of the day, so you
>have to scroll down about 135 yards to find the unfunny cartoon/pun/joke/urban
>legend. Plus, you are now on yet another mass mail grouping so 275 strangers
>now have your name and email address on their computers.
>
>What possesses a fairly intelligent person to forward emails that are a waste of
>bandwidth to begin? Do they even read the damned things or do they just
>forward them on in some kind of zombie-like-state-of-mind…“click forward to all
>people I have ever met in my life…”
>
>Maybe I am wrong…maybe there are actually people out there who like to get
>these dumbass nuggets of the day…but I’m not one of them! Stop
>already…send me emails that you wrote yourself, or if you must, send me a link
>to a story you think I might find interesting, but I really don’t need any more
>Family Circle cartoons to brighten my fuckin’ day, thank you.
I agree!
From: Bryan Ekers
Fwd: Re: Stop Forwarding Me Every Damn Email You Get!
>-----Original Message-----
>From: DMark
>Re: Stop Forwarding Me Every Damn Email You Get!
>>My circle of friends is not exactly stupid in some respects - most have college
>>degrees and real professions - so why, oh why, oh why-o do some of these
>>idiots forward every damn email they get onto every person they know…stupid
>>joke pictures, urban legends, anti-immigration bile, cute pictures of kittens,
>>warnings about mythical computer viruses…you name it, they’ve forwarded it
>>on.
>>
>>They usually aren’t even clever enough to delete the 15 groupings of names
>>that have been the unlucky recipients of this stupid email of the day, so you
>>have to scroll down about 135 yards to find the unfunny cartoon/pun/joke/urban
>>legend. Plus, you are now on yet another mass mail grouping so 275 strangers
>>now have your name and email address on their computers.
>>
>>What possesses a fairly intelligent person to forward emails that are a waste of
>>bandwidth to begin? Do they even read the damned things or do they just
>>forward them on in some kind of zombie-like-state-of-mind…“click forward to all
>>people I have ever met in my life…”
>>
>>Maybe I am wrong…maybe there are actually people out there who like to get
>>these dumbass nuggets of the day…but I’m not one of them! Stop
>>already…send me emails that you wrote yourself, or if you must, send me a link
>>to a story you think I might find interesting, but I really don’t need any more
>>Family Circle cartoons to brighten my fuckin’ day, thank you.
>
>
>I agree!
>
>
>
>
>
I contacted my college roommate/Sunday School classmate recently, thinking we could catch up on old times. Other than a single initial “How ya doing?” email, I’ve gotten nothing from her but glurge (Christian and secular), cutesy pictures (and some that are definitely NSFW), and jokes. Even sending an updated “So, what’s up?” email went ignored. Apparently for her, email is not a conversation tool, since conversation implies a certain amount of give and take.
I’ve just been deleting the crap unread. I don’t want to deal with the fallout (her mom is good friends with my parents) if I said, “You know what? I haven’t been Christian in over a decade, and this shit just pisses me off.”
This is Green Bean’s husband. I know I’m not supposed to be posting under her name, but I thought you’d all like to know the sad news. Green Bean is no longer with us.
She didn’t forward the above email to 40 friends and her head exploded.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to scrub all the blood and brain matter off the walls and ceiling.
To reiterate what WOOKINPANUB said… I don’t have a college degree, many of my friends don’t have college degrees. I work from home, some of my friends are housewives. None of us forward any of this stupid bullshit.
Maybe people with “real professions” just have more “free” time to spend forwarding shitty glurge…
To me, some people just use their email that way and like it. And some people expect it and like receiving it. Some people are attention whores. Some people are bored. Some people love that “foreward this within 10 minutes are you’ll get laid” stuff. Makes them feel better about themself I guess.
To me its just like anything else about a person’s personality. And yeah, its annoying. I don’t really get these things in email form, but I get similar sort of forewards in Myspace Bulletins. I’m tired of seeing dead babies, dead cats, dead dogs, saying “abortion is wrong” or “peta rules!”. Or those videos that show that a plane didn’t hit the pentagon, but a missile (talk about fucking ignorance). Or the ones that are like, “if you foreward this to your friends, you’ll get 10 dollars from bill gates!”
Meet my MIL. She forwards so much stupid crap; I really believe she thinks it’s true that “something” is going to pop up on her screen and be funny if she sends it to precisely seven people.
Has anybody ever seen something happen immediately upon sending an email to anybody? You know, those ones that say “it really works, Snoopy will pop up and do the Snoopy dance if you forward this - it’s really cute!” How is that even possible?
I have a college degree all of my friends have college degrees none of them forward this kind of crap to me. Me thinks the problem is in the friends not the education.
