Category: the Rant Board
In all the time I've been on the net, one of the great thorns in my side are chain letters in e-mail, especially those that claim to be inspirational and uplifting. Before I state my objections to this stuff, I'm curious if you think such e-mails are really helpful. Is a lot of the advice sensible and sound and healthy, or is it just nothing but pretty words meant to generate a warm and fuzzy feeling. What about people who are clinically depressed. Do such affirmations and platitudes help them? I would think if you were clinically depressed and your best friend sent you some e-mail basically urging you to just get happy for the sake of getting happy, they'd sneer at it and zap it into good old file 13.
Now, here are my objections to the material. First of all, too often the tone these things are written in is so high and mighty and condescending, as if the stupid anonymous author just discovered some secret to life that the rest of us were just too ignorant to find out ourselves. Unfortunately, most of this so-called truth boils down to "be positive and happy, no matter how much things suck." That's not realistic. No, I do not advocate people look at the bad side before you comment to me and are all black-and-white about it. I do think, however, that expressing negativity in moderation is healthy. Sometimes, life sucks and you have to sing those blues, just for a while. Oh, and then what about all the damn chain letters about friendship. These are an insult to real authentic friendship, because they cheapen it and make the word "friend" a meaningless set of sounds. I'm not going to send every person I think is a friend some silly poem or set of platitudes so I can see how many copies I get back. If I am truly your friend, I will show you infinite kindness and mercy and not inflict such vomit-inducing writing on you.
Now, it seems my point of view is unpopular and might even cause controversy. When I've stated my views on these things, there are segments of the population who will trot out this old saw. "There is always the delete key." Now, to me, this is code for "we do not appreciate your opinion because it either differs from ours, rains on our warm fuzzy parade, or is something we just are too scared to face." I once commented flippantly about a truly emotionally blackmailing piece of chain mail and the person accused me of trying to take their freedom of speech away. I've had people exclaim in a huff that they'd promise never to send such things again or something to that effect. It seems first of all that many people who send inspirational chain letters are so attached to them or the warm fuzzy feelings they generate that they feel they actually wrote them themselves and take any disagreement or criticism very personally. Also, it seems that for some folks if some piece generates a warm fuzzy or jerks tears, it is beyond criticism, even if it is full of emotional blackmail and an unrealistic approach to life. I don't join e-mail lists or give out my e-mail address so author anonymous can tell me how to feel or act or live, especially if the list is about trading MP3 files! LOL!
I know this was long, but I had a lot to say and I just hope it makes some sense. So, do you agree with my point of view or disagree and do explain why if you can.
Totally agree.
Send this out to 50000 people and I'll give you a warm enema.
Bob
I have responded to friends who insist on forwarding that crap to me by telling them to please stop and letting them know I will read the subject line and then delete. One or two still send rthem to me, and as promised, I delete.
I've gotten messages like that from a friend, and I do read them, but I delete them afterword. waste of bloody time sending them out to people.
i do the same thing that nymphadora does. when i get a leter like that from a friend, it goes in my file 13 folder after being read. i dont send crap out like that because all it does is clog up inboxes.
hahahahaha i know who doesn't like them now and I will get them and forword them all to you on your zone email. no not really I'm just kidding. I hate when it's especially sent by family because they they get all offended and stop emailing all together, but ya. I delete or if I know a family memeber sends allot like that I make rules that put the forwards form then in another folder.
no doubt. my mom sends me those things, only very rarely. and i am ok with her sending things like that and only on a rare basis like she does.
I'm waiting for all the evil things to happen to all of you who don't bother forwarding those things that they promise will happen to you. Seriously, I'm not sure what's more annoying; the e-mail itself, or having to scroll through all the forwards to see if there might be a point to some of them.
Lou
My question is, why do people take it so personally and get all upset and offended when you tell hem you just don't care to receive that sort of thing. Any ideas?
Oh, and another little thought. If you've ever read the ones that are little inspirational stories, you ever notice that too often the author has to kill off a character as a way to prove the moral they're so bent on teaching? Think about that one. LOL!
agreed with posts 8 and 10
Oh, I just ran into a classic type of chain letter on an e-mail list this evening. It's basic premise is that you or somebody you care about could die tomorrow, so you're supposed to forward the e-mail hither and yon to express your love for your friends and loved ones and etc, you know, before you or somebody else kicks the bucket without saying so. What really gets me is that people respond to these things, thanking the person for sending them. I must really be missing something here. Does a message's prettiness or sentiment or tearjerking qualities outweigh the fact that you are being manipulated and duped into sending e-mails to people who never asked you to send them, and you're doing it probably because you think forwarding something is just as good as writing it yourself? Could somebody please explain what I'm missing here. Dammit to hell, the world just isn't made for the realist.
I think there's a large portion of society that is so into "feeling good, warm, and fuzzy" that they honestly don't think about the annoyances that such e-mails cause. This comes up on the heels of my mother-in-law who sent me two of those e-mails in the last week, and my father-in-law who doesn't tollerate certain religions who sent me two or three e-mails twice over. I'd like to break that mouse of his, but the sad part is that he's in his eighties, and seems to be developping memory issues. I think this is another way I'm supposed to learn patience and tolerance or something. grrrrrrr.
Lou
I think I can agree with you about most of society. and really, although I'm not against thinking or feeling positive, I am against the all-or-nothing, fluffy-bunny, sickly-sweet approach many of these e-mails seem to push. It is just not realistic to expect a person to think and feel positive 24/7 no matter how much they hurt inside or no matter how much their circumstances are just sucky.
Hey, sucky circumstances--that's what I got.
The last one I fell for was the kind "this is in a high school girl's science experiment. Send it out to ten people not repeating any people on the list, and let's see how long it takes to get back to the sender."
Well, I fell for this, (civic citizen that I am), and got 2 or 3 emails in response from folks on my list that they got the same thing about a year ago. I guess the girl flunked and decided to do the same experiment. <lol>
I haven't seen the one from an African prince who "needs" to transfer some money into your account to hide it--and you get half--just send him your account number, ssn etc. etc. Haven't seen that one in a while.
Some people just have too much time on their hands. Perhaps they should sign up here, and spend their time complaining about emails they get.
Bob
I'm glad there are sites out there like snopes.com we can use to check the varacity of many of these. I think there's been a girl that's 14 for the last ten years dying of cancer. Its really bad when the same person has sent me the e-mail three times.
Lou
This subject brought up another idea in my mind and thought I'd share it.
Which of the following type email you hate most and why?
What kind of emails do you hate getting most?
I'd say the first five categories are equally annoying and useless, and I can't say I can add any others at this time.
Amen to your first post, Godzilla! You laid that out better than I could have. I fell for a couple of these chain letter things back in 98 and 99, the first year I had email. It didn't take me long to figure out the hoaxes, or to get sick of emails that were so sticky sweet I could get tooth decay just reading them. You mentioned that often times they kill off a character to make a point. Emails like that usually try to play on guilt, fear, or sadness to make their points. So while they're talking about how positive life is and everyone should be, they play on one's negative emotions to do it. Ugh. Anyone who knows me knows better than to send me that stuff.
Spam is bad, and I don't understand how people fall for it. But worst is the stuff Godzilla is talking about, that your friends and family send out. And someone mentioned Snopes.com. That's an awesome site!
Luckily, I have gmail, and it takes care of a lot of the spam. I don't see anything too bad in my inbox unless somebody sends it to me. I really hate the ones that tell you you'll have 20 years of bad luck if you don't send it to 10 people. I mean, some people are superstitious enough to actually believe it. Even I have to hesitate a second before I delete it. But I always do, and I haven't died yet, or had anything else horrible happen...So that would have to be my least favorite kind of email. Not to mention the fact that I don't care about people's problems I don't know. You know how those inspirational emails are always trying to tell a story and how somebody got through something horrible by the grace of God and all that? Well, I don't know those people, so it's not going to affect me. If a friend or family member had something happen to them, then yeah, I'd believe it and be inspired by it, but not by some email that's been passed down by 17 million people. It loses its meaning when you see how many people it's been forwarded to before youl.