College Times

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I imagine, back in the day when people wrote actual letters with something called a quill (and there was no Send button), getting a genuine letter in the mail was the bee’s knees. Especially considering that the post man only came around the farm once every six months. Though, I doubt they ever read, “Forward this letter to 10 people or your horse will die a horrible death.”

Now, as society finds new and exciting ways to communicate with each other, we are still bogged down by the select few who propagate the chain e-mails, text messages, bulletins and twitters. For the sake of time, I’m going to ignore porn forwards, power surveys and politico e-mails. We’ll save those for another time. The rest usually fall into three categories: The something-amazing-after e-mails, the ghost-is-going-to-kill-you e-mails and the Jesus-is-watching e-mails.

OMG Indeed

The first runs something like this:

OMG this is the most amazing thing ever!!!! Send this e-mail to 10 people, wait five seconds, check your sent e-mails and something amazing will happen!

First, they show an incredible amount of faith in technology. Believing that Hugh Jackman from “Swordfish” composed the initial e-mail, these readers think that hidden code in the straightforward text will activate when the e-mail has been sent to 10 people. (It’s always 10.) When the target number has been hit, this code activates to transform your otherwise boring e-mail account into something “amazing.”

Even for those who do not believe in the “Matrix” quality of these forwards, the least they could do is e-mail back a few minutes later and say “Nothing happened.” Personally, I have yet to see anything amazing except 10 annoyed friends.

There are variations of the something-amazing-after e-mails, which promise that your love will find you, your crush will kiss you, like high school wasn’t 10 years ago. Then there are the negatives, which say something like, “Send this or else your love life will suck.” If you’re depressingly single, that’s just one more nail in the coffin.

CTRL... ATL... DEL...

Secondly, the ghost-is-going-to-kill-you e-mails.

Hey dude, LTNS. How’s life?
Oh  BTW,  if you don’t send this to 10 people in the next 30 seconds, a zombie girl will crawl out of your TV and devour your soul.
NE Way, text me.

Any instance in film or novels where the supernatural forces get a hold of technology (TVs, cell phones, computers, air dryers), the results are spectacularly lame (See: “Shocker,” “One Missed Call,” “Pulse, “Ghost in the Machine”). To think that these ghosts have all signed up for hotmail accounts is ridiculous when a) Gmail is better in every way and b) Candyman could kill you through a fucking mirror. Just like hiding under the blanket, telling 10 friends about Candyman will not force him to stop in his tracks and contemplate the error of his ways or say “Shoot, that’s 10.”

Even if it were true, it’s a dick move to send that same cursed e-mail. In “The Ring,” the movie would’ve been a lot shorter, but safer for everyone else, if those kids just died, taking the evil brat with them.

You've Got Mail.

Thirdly, the Jesus e-mails. This one’s verbatim:

God keeps whispering ur name. Why? Cuz sumthin good is ab0ut 2 happen 2 u. If you believe in HIM send to 9 ppl includen me

I understand most of it is motivated by guilt. There are few variations of “God won’t love you if you don’t forward this to 10 people,” or “You can forward the cutest cat in the world but you can’t send an e-mail with God in the title?”  This is the cutest cat in the world.)

But seriously, I too wonder if, in standing before St. Peter at the Gates of Heaven, the box marked “E-mails forwarded” in my Book of Life determines my entry into the afterlife. Hopefully, it will be balanced out by the box marked “People Not Annoyed.”

The principles of Jesus spam fit right along with regular spammers who simply blast out thousands of e-mails in hopes of a decent conversion rate that’ll help bolster the bottom line.

Now, that isn’t meant to offend my good Christian readers, or the family members who send me these things – but c’mon. God’s got to have a spam box with 60 trillion unread messages, and I’m pretty sure he gets annoyed by poor grammar as well.

This isn’t a slight against all forwards. Funny e-mails riffing on those Successories posters, filthy jokes from a distant relative and YouTube videos are all apart of what makes e-mail fun. It’s American. And sometimes pretty damn cool.

Especially on work computers, through work networks on work time.

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