Fw: fw: fw: re: fw:
fw: Plz read! It's important...
(Break the chain do not read:P )
My email box is bursting, it's so full of
mail.... These are emails that I shouldn't respond to, even if I read
them. Who wrote them? I don't know--I only know who sent them. There are
many people on the "to" list. What should I do with emails like this? If
I agree to send them on to at least 10 other people, will the world be a
safer place? And, if I send them to more than 20 people, will I have
good luck? Actually, if I don't forward these e-mails to anyone, I'll be
the luckiest person of all, the one who breaks the chain. You know what
I'm talking about: the "forwarded" emails that fill your mailboxes.
What about the subject
lines? "Plz read, it is important"; "Funny…"; "Do not break the chain
read it"; "It is cute"; or "I tried, you try too." The first time you
see a phrase like this, your curiosity will drive you to read the whole
message immediately.
Who writes these emails,
anyway? Is this an actual job, where people who are good with words
compose something and send it to one person in order to start a chain
that goes on and on? Some of the writers seem to consider themselves the
philosophers of the 21st century. For instance, they offer advice like,
oh, love the world, be an understanding person, and so forth. Do these
people think they are modern Mevlanas, or what?
Others apparently
believe that they can save the world by sending an email. They talk
about the earth's ecosystem, for example, and include a slide show that
depicts the natural resources they say we are destroying. Others share a
personal story in order to warn people about something. I don't know
whether it's true or false, but I've read mail where people write about
a food company and claim that its products, which are sold in Turkey,
have ruined their children's health. At the end of the email, I see the
name of a doctor from such-and-such a university. Does this person
really exist?
Then there are the
emails that try to convince you that there will be negative consequences
if you don't continue the chain. I actually believed the one that was
circulated about msn, which said the service would have a certain price
if I didn't send the email on to 10 or more people, so I went ahead and
sent it.
Even worse are the
messages that contain a threat, like: "Do not break the chain, or you
will be cursed!" Well, as a person who has broken the chain many times
and is still alive, my advice is this: if you don't want your friends to
receive these emails, don't send them on. Don't be afraid of being
cursed by the lord of email.
What really drives me
crazy is when an old friend who rarely talks to me anymore sends me a
forwarded email. Maybe s/he thinks this is a way of sharing something,
but if we don't see each other that often, why do we need to share
anything something?
PS: By the way, if you
do forward an email to your friends (maybe as a bad joke or something),
and want them to read it rather than send it to the trash without
looking at it, you can delete the "fw:" thing and the subject line, and
write something interesting instead. This has worked on me a few times!
Gülay Acar (COMD/III)
howtoreachgulay@yahoo.com
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