LJ Idol Season Six Week 1: Empty Gesture
October 21, 2009 § 19 Comments
I am one of those pompous asses that will hit “Reply to All” with a link back to snopes.com in response to erroneous emails forwarded with dire warnings of carjackers, purse snatchers, and dying/missing children in some distant state/territory/country. It is also a pet peeve of mine to receive forwards that lack all logic with such statements as “As soon as I forwarded this email my telephone rang!!!” or, “I hit send and found a winning lotto ticket that same day!!!
I don’t know why I have this compulsion to point out others lack of research, logic, common sense, what have you. After all, they usually do not learn from my remonstrance, and ultimately, it just makes me look like a jerk.
And yet, I persist. I can’t seem to help myself really. It is my vain attempt to bring some semblance of sanity to my inbox.
But resistance, it seems, is futile. The same people continue to send me inane drivel, and I can’t help but suspect that I am merely a name on a mailing list to them. My squeaks of protest, and shakings of my tiny fist do nothing to establish my individuality and personhood to them, nor cause them to reflect on their own emailing habits. It is indeed a fruitless vanity. I should probably give it up.
But I probably won’t.
Cultured Mama 
ah yes. And leaving all the headers for whatever spammer decides to grab them is lovely isn’t it? haha
I like getting them so I can laugh at the drivel in them.
Ah drivel…my favourite thing to bahleet!
I did that and was dressed down for daring to hit reply all and talk to all those people I don’t even know, her friends, and family, and co-workers! Oh goodness me, how rude of me! *rolls eyes* She wasn’t happy when I pointed out that had she not sent it the way she sent it I wouldn’t have been able to do that.
At least it got some of them to stop emailing me that junk. 😉
How did you get on my mom’s mass emailing list? BTW, is Jeebus your lord and saviour?
*headdesk*
Healthy skepticism is a good thing.
It’s gotten so bad with one person I know that if she were to send me a real email I wouldn’t know ’cause I just delete everything she sends.
The feeling of inevitability….
Don’t give up.
I am always glad to get the snopes corrections back. Thank you for the public service. 🙂
I totally send people the snopes corrections, too! You would think by now people would have figured out to check first themselves! Silly people.
This used to drive me crazy, but I’ve trained almost everyone but one little lady to check her facts before sending me e-mail. I think I’m stuck with her mail until one of us dies. I rarely open her mail any longer (unless I can tell it is personal), but it doesn’t matter to her, because she is performing an important public function!
Stay vigilant and keep sending the snopes or truthorfiction corrections. Eventually, reasonable people do learn. Even unreasonable people finally get angry at the corrections and leave you alone!
The story that drove me over the edge and started my loving corrections was the one about insect eggs residing on envelope flaps. When one woman licked an envelope, it cut her tongue, deposited the insect eggs in the open wound, they incubated on her tongue, and she had insects hatch in her mouth in some scene straight from a horror movie. Yeah, right.
I despise chain letters that warn “one person broke this and died in a horrible car crash an hour later.” Like I’m going to forward terrible news that threatens to kill all of my friends! I especially dislike e-mails of the religious kind that tell me that Jesus will be disappointed in me if I don’t send a forward to guilt all my contacts. Because Jesus is all about nonsensical e-mails and not about treating people with love and respect!
Resistance is not futile! Assimilate! Or ignore.
Reaction twin – well, we were until I removed the person who was constantly sending forwards to me. By the way, the American Cancer Society will donate 25 cents for each forward you do of my comment.
Really, though, I remember the last time I did the reply to all thing. It involved asbestos in sanitary napkins. ALL sanitary napkins, so all women were going to die. Soon.
My roommate has the perfect solution for this when it comes from friends and family… he sends a well rehearsed, perfectly constructed email that lets them know he appreciates them thinking well enough of him to include him their list of items to share, but, as he receives more than 200+ emails a day, he has to be carefully selective about which he will give his time and energy to, and while he will always be happy to review their thoughts if they require his attention, if he continues to see their name associated with generic forwards that are not specifically directed to him, they will train him to learn that it is not necessary to open emails from them. I’m sure I bastardized this in the paraphrase, but, it works. And, of course, when it’s not friends, he’s enough of a geek he can just shut those email connections down. (Luckily, I benefit from that experience as well… it pays to have geek friends!)
That’s great! I wouldn’t have the guts to be so… brutally cordial. lol I’m merely politely insufferable.
I was looking at your profile page and you are in the same general area as an old friend of mine who shares a lot of your quirks and interests. Check out . Beta’s a great friend to know, and useful too as a mega brilliant geek. 🙂
Oh GAWD! I hate that, especially when people don’t research and realize what they are sending is hoaxes. The only ones I open is pictures of any cute kitties and dawggies, how can I resist those? *LOL*.
I give the ole delete key good exercise when I receive them, since not everyone responds to my plea to discontinue sending me those “JUNK!”.
Great entry!
I totally relate!
I’ve done the “reply all” over silly emails in the past. One of which got me into a religious debate over what I thought was common knowledge. Now, I don’t even open those sill emails!
I absolutely share your frustration and do exactly what you do… try to educate and bring a little sanity and logic to the drive-by spammers. Some of the garbage that clutters my inbox is well past absurd. Bleh. Thanks for writing what I so often think. lol…
You must know my father.
Great entry!