Archive for May, 2007
Don’t Mean to be Forward…
If you’re one of those people who cannot resist forwarding those 12th-generation forwarded emails because of the amazing things they reveal that you never knew, here are my
TEN TIPS FOR PEOPLE WHO FORWARD EMAILS WITH SHOCKING NEWS, SAD TALES, PETITIONS, OR MEDICAL CLAIMS FROM SOME AUTHORITATIVE-SOUNDING PERSON:
1 – Assume it is a lie. This assumption will be correct 99.999999% of the time.
2 – Realize that the truthfulness of the email has nothing to do with the trustworthiness of the person who sent it to you. You may receive it from your most trusted friend, but the question is not your friend’s character, it is the character of the person who ORIGINATED the email. Since virtually all of them are lies, hoaxes, and misrepresentations these originators are lying con-artists. I, personally, have no use for people like that and refuse to be one of their patsies who spread their lies to others. Anyone who creates a phony email like “the American Cancer Society will donate money to help sick little Jimmy every time an email is forwarded” is nothing but a liar and a sleazeball. If he will lie and make a fool out of people over something like this he is probably a greasy, egotistical, child-abusing creep. Why in heaven’s name would I want to forward something created by a slimeball like that to others just because his idiot email tells me to?
3 – Assume it is a hoax. If you have a means to check whether it is true, do so before you forward it. If you cannot positively confirm it as true or if you do not have any way to confirm it, do not forward it. Of the thousands of these types of emails I’ve seen, I found one (yes, exactly one) that appears to be actually true via this technique. Apparently they really did find chariots from the time of Pharaoh at the bottom of the Red Sea. Anyway, if you do not have access to do verifications or don’t seem to have much success with them, ask someone who does before forwarding such emails.
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