Forward
This, Sparky
I'm
pretty sure when Ray Tomlinson
sent the world's very first
email back in 1971 that he
never intended for this medium
of electronic communication
to become the cyber-equivalent
of your drunk uncle Charlie
at family gatherings - rife
with bad jokes, bad advice
and, at times, just plain
annoying.
Obviously
there are a lot of great things
about email - I can keep in
touch with old friends, I
can tell my music fans about
my shows in a timely fashion.
Heck, all 3 of you who get
this column receive it via
email. Well, maybe 2 - I think
dad prints it out for mom.
But
there's also something about
email that causes normally
sane, rational people to lose
all contact with their own
common sense. It mysteriously
drives them to forward large
quantities of useless drivel
to EVERYBODY in their address
book.
Now
before you get all defensive,
I'm not talking about occasionally
sending a joke to a few people
you think might have a genuine
interest in it. But if at
least once a day you find
yourself forwarding something
that requires you to open
four windows to see and has
a headline like "FW: You gotta
read this" or "FW:FW:FW: This
is SO true!" I'm going to
let you in on a little secret:
you're pissing off your friends.
If
at least once a week you forward
emails to everyone in your
address book that contains
information about a "New Virus
Warning" you're STILL pissing
off your friends - at least
the ones who know anything
about computers.
And
if you've ever sent more than
ONE of the emails that promise
a $5000 trip voucher to Disney
World to everyone who gets
it, or a pop-up gift certificate
from Outback when you forward
is to five of your friends,
you should just cancel your
AOL or WebTV account now.
Did
the window pop up? Did you
get that big check? Exactly.
Forwarders
aren't inherently bad people
- they would never call all
their friends and leave five
separate messages a day on
their answering machines with
new jokes or psychic predictions
of doom because they know
their friends would think
they were nuts. But for some
reason when it's in an email
they feel the need to send
it to everyone they know.
Now
I understand that a lot of
times the intentions of these
pathological forwarders are
good. They're genuinely concerned
and want to help their friends
avoid nasty viruses that will,
um, "erase their whole hard
drives." So to those folks,
here's a few things to keep
in mind.
- Real
alerts come from companies
like Symantec and Norton
and are sent directly to
network administrators,
not forwarded from your
friends. The alerts include
a link to the company websites
which details the virus
and the fix.
- Fake
alerts say things like "AOL
and Microsoft agree that
it's the worst ever" even
though most people know
that AOL and Microsoft would
never agree on anything.
- Real
alerts tell you to never
open any email attachments
labeled .exe or .vbs unless
you KNOW what they are.
- Fake
alerts tell you never to
open any email TITLED "(fill
in the blank)".
Post-September
11th, of course, it's no longer
virus warnings and bad jokes
- its warnings about future
terrorist attacks and rabidly
jingoistic essays that call
into question your right to
be an American if you don't
send them to all your friends.
C'mon
people - do you really think
that if there was a specific
terrorist threat you'd hear
about it through email or
from your government itself?
(Postal employees in Washington
need not respond.) Certainly
CNN would have it every five
minutes.
And
if you feel that you're a
better American than me because
you forward half-cocked, illogical
patriotic essays that imply
it's time all of us in this
country believe in your religion
and share your enthusiasm
for exclusion, isolationism
and blindly loyalistic submission
to our political leaders,
then god bless you. Just remember,
in the end these essays are
really designed to play you
as a patsy and propagate themselves
by appealing to your heightened
sense of patriotism.
But
they're still just junk -
the internet equivalent of
high-interest rate credit
card offers, telemarketing
phone calls during dinner
and door-to-door solicitation.
So
next time you get some "too-good-to-be-true"
offer in your inbox, or another
virus warning from your computer-illiterate
grandmother, or some stupid
sentimental anonymous essay
that begs you to forward it
to everyone you know, just
delete it.
I'm
sure it'd make Ray Tomlinson
a happier man.
This
column © 2001 Lee Totten
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