Category: the Rant Board
Although I'd say e-mail is my favorite way to communicate on the net, I can't stand forwards of any kind, but especially those that are supposed to be uplifting or inspirational. They really do nothing for me save for making me delete it one more time after the last time I saw it. The tone of these things is just too damn preachy for my taste, as if the author, usually anonymous, had some secret to life, love, hugs, or somebody's deity that none of us poor grunts even knew of and we needed their unsolicitted advice just because they had it. It's like the writer or sender assumes you're so devastatingly depressed that their words will save you from all that icky negativity. I don't care about the big list of things you learned, or how, when and why to hug, or that you have to prove friendship by sending me some sappy poem about how good a friend I am when we really aren't all that close. I'm not asking people to write like Stephen Kingor Shakespear here, but I would hope if I actually was down that you could use your own words and not all that canned touchy-feely stuff. It's all so artificial and insincere and trite. Kind of like telling a depressed person just don't worry and be happy. What do you think? Has a forward ever helped you with a problem you were having? Am I just a vocal minority and should just shut up, never complain, and keep deleting?
Hi Labyrinth,
well, I guess that's what this board is for, lol. Well, I read them sometimes, I got one from a friend I talk to, and it was a beautiful story. But I don't care for some of the really preachy ones. And I hate the ones that make you sound like a jerk if you don't send it to everyone in your address book. Most of the folks in my address book I haven't talked to in such a long time, if I sent them a forward, they'd probably flame me. I'd rather get chatty email myself. Well, guess that's my thought on it.
wonderwoman
I tell ya, I'd rather hear about the lives of my friends and acquaintances instead of some poem about hugs that they didn't write. Honestly, I just don't do poetry unless it's some kind of satire and even then it has to be real good and original. And another thing. Why is it in those inspirational stories that they have to kill off a character to prove the moral? I'm no writing critic, but I think that type of thing is just overdone. Plus most of the time, you really have to be Christian to really appreciate them, and I'm agnostic. I'd love to hear inspirational stories from the point of view of other religions, too. How about a chicken-soup story with a Subgenius theme, for example. LOL!
Labyrinth i agree whole heartedly there is nothing more sickening than some eejit who assumes they know what will work for you and these moving words {poisonous drivel} will lift your mood or in extreme depression stop you from contemplating suicide,these people are NOT out to improve your day but recruit you in to their mind set...I don't blame you for deleting I'm under colossal stress here and that would be the last thing I'd want in my inbox.
I've told my friends hands-down that they get to send me one inspirational forward each. On the second one, no matter how close of a friend it is, I put their messages on "ignore" and filter them to go straight to deleted items for a month. I absolutely hate those things, sure they're cute but I want inspirational and positive things to happen to me or to people I know, that way I can enjoy them and if I wanted inspirational stories I'd got to the library or the net to find them, my inbox size is limited and I want it to have important things in it.
I'm a christian, but I don't like forwards that end with, you can just delete it like you never read it, or you canforward this on to ten people, and make their lives a little richer for it. The one I talked to asked me if he could send that first, but he doesn't like being on bulk email forwarding lists either.
wonderwoman
Inspirational forwards are the only ones I allow, but that doesn't mean all my friends listen lol. Anyways I do however not like when it says god won't love you if you don't send this, or delete it like it never touched your heart. It touches my heart anyways so I can delete it if I want to.
Troy
Well, I like certain forwards, that maybe send across a good message, not to drink and drive, for example, friendship poems, to my best friends. But those that say, "you may pass this on to more people, and make their days better, or you may delete it as if it didn't touch you're heart".
slightly off topic if you hear of any inspirational forwards that might be of some use
send them to the Scottish Rugby Team
because we badly need some!!!.
Well, one of the worst guilt-tripping Christian forwards is the one I call the "funny how" forward. It has a whole list of things all beginning with the phrase "funny how." For example, "funny how people send all kinds of jokes and perversions through the net, but hesitate to send anything having to do with God." That kind of thing. I know there are e-mail lists out there where you can specifically get inspirational stuff, but to just get it from some random acquaintance or on a general chat e-mail list is an annoyance.
And speaking of friendship poems, I've been on general chat e-mail lists, and somebody I've never even seen post before sends the whole lot a friendship forward. My response these days when that happens, I just reply and ask if we've been introduced or hung out or like each other. Hahahahahaha!
I, totally, absolutely, can, not, stand those stupid forwerds! If you're my friend, I don't need you to tell me that in some stupid crappy poem that you didn't even write. If you really want to show your friendship give me a call..or tell me to call you, come round for a drink, have chat with me on a messenger, or if you're good at it, show me some writing of your own, but do, not, send me some stupid crap that says that I shold send it to 2000000000 friends in next 2 secconds or else my genitles will fall off. Also what really really anoys me are virus warning forwerds. First of all, I have anti-virus on my system and anyone who does any decent anti-virus system will have an automatic updates so when ever new virus definitions are created it will update. If it didn't update and I somehow caught the virus, it's too late anyway and your stupid forwerd warning will not make any difference anyway. Seccond thing is that a lot, if not most of those are hokes and are not true viruses! There's a great website where you can put a name of a so called virus and it will tell you if it's a real virus or not, I can't remember or find the link to it at the moment, but it really really really really anoys me that I go through the thousands of email adresses to find out a message how there's a new virus called "life is good" and then if you click on that message how it says that life is not good any more and it deletes everything from your harddrive. I mean you can tell they're hokes because they don't have any technical writing in it, it just says something oh well it'll just delete everything, wow that's really a great explanation of how virus works. So you know what I done? Now anything that has "virus warning" or "virus alert", unless the email comes from cymantec, goes straight in the bin. Oh and another type of forwerd that I hate, and yes some people might think i'm just a crule heartless asshole, but I don't care, those stupid emails where it gives a heartbreaking story about some girl who's 5 years old and who's suffering with a horrible desease and the only way to help her is that we forwerd the email because every time we fowerd email to someone it's being tracked and a dollar is giving by microsoft and/or AOL to the charitty for this poor little girl every time we forwerd the email. People, this is technicly impossible and is not true, no money goes to anyone and as story it self might be very sad, it's most probablly not true, and the bit about you fowerding and the person that way getting money is definitely not true, in fact I find it quite sick that who ever originated it must have known that it's not the case and that there's no any money what so ever involved in to this.
I guess the point of those types of inspirational poems and such is to make you feel guilty for not passing it on to somone else, but if anything, you should feel guilty for crowding peoples inboxes with a bunch of crap that they'll just delete anyways. I mean, i guess in a way they have good messages, but why does it have to involve somebody going through the wrost possible scenario and "seeing the light" just from going through it? It doesnt work that way.
Personally I agree with a lot of you people. I think if someone was your true friend or if you were to be inspired by them or whatever, they'd at least send you a personal email saying so, and most likely if you both are really good friends you wouldn't need to say so specifically (unless you for some reason felt the need to, especially through forwards which I can't contemplate ever doing ever) I also wonder what kind of person would start this kind of chain?
James
You're right. In my own opinion, any chain letter's purpose is to be passed on and the content is not important at all. Anything, no matter how true or good the information, will get zapped and never sent by me if there's any line in there telling me to pass it along to others. If others want to know, they'll find out themselves or be subscribed to reputable mailing lists for viruses, health warnings, and the like.
yes, I agree...like the ones with "forward this to help so and so" don't work! I mean, patitions via e-mail don't work, so why should "save so-and-so" work?
There have been at least one person who claimed a student was doing some sort of science project, and needed to know how fast email travels, and how it goes from one destination to the other, and wanted people to put in their name, city and state and forward it on until itwent back to the person who originally sent it. Uh uh, no way.
wonderwoman
I've gotten that one about the sciene project like ten times, I am not even joking! I did it the first time because I thought it was interesting, even though I knew it wouldn't work. I mean, how could it, that's virtually impossible! Lol! Although i will say that one time I passed a story along, it was a good one, and I always delete the part about, "If you pass this on, you will find yoru crush, and if you don't, yoru crush will die!", or whatever bogus threat is attached. I just like the stories sometimes. Not always, but the good ones. Anyway, I sent this particular forward to a couple of my friends who just love forwards, can't get enough, I don't know how they deal? Sitheis ... lol! Anyway, about two months later, I get this forward from a friend in London, and I'm thinking, "Did mine get passed there?" Lol i don't know. Anyway, I like inspiration poems and stories and funny forwards, if they're clean. But I don't like a ton, and I don't like them from people I never talk to. I also agree that it's good to tell your friends in your own words how you feel, about life and them, and whatever else you want to say, but if your friend likes good forwards, its' okay to pass them on. But if you friend doesn't, then stop, stop already! Oh and if that Rugby team is looking for forwards, www.forwardgarden.com is full of 'em, and if you just look up like E-Mail Forwards on Google I think lots of sites come up. Thansk guys! Caitlin
One of the better anti-chain-letter websites is at
http://www.breakthechain.org
and let's not forget
www.snopes.com
for debunking urban legends, virus hoaxes, and probably anything that is supposed to look like real believable info. If anyone, be it on or off a list, sends chain letters, reply by pointing them to those sites.