Why do we have this forward complex?

[deponti]

Why am I subjected to a daily barrage of forwards?

Especially, why do I get so many forwards (no one knows where they originate!) when there is

Snopes to check if something is true or false, before forwarding stuff? Why do we seem to thrive so much on forwards

Comments

[prashanthchengi]

and what was the mail in question? I bet I've received it a dozen times or more too! I keep writing back to the people who send me those forwards, often with a cc to all the other recipients, with a link to either snopes (for fraud mails) or symantec.com (for all those false virus alerts), hoping that at least the people in the cc list will not continue to push that junk along. Often, these mails are started by spammers and the dumb people who forward these mails often end up ccing the spammer who sent it too, and bam! The spammer gets a whole bunch of genuine email addresses to spam.. Oh god.. it's so dreadfully tiring, trying to put sense into these people. All too often, the forwarder is not even a lay person! I just fail to fathom how a person with software/IT knowledge/experience can truly believe that Microsoft will pay x dollars per forward! I read a statistic once.. if Microsoft had to pay a dollar in compensation for every time a machine running Microsoft's Windows crashes, it would go belly up in just over two days!

[deponti]

You seem to have suffered far more than I have! Me...I simply .

Today's mail was one of those Microsoft will pay a dollar ones...sob story about some non existent innocent young girl with some dreadful disease. It's been doing the rounds for at least a decade now.

[deponti]

:)

[beast_666]

Or there's the ever-popular
"Forward this rare photo of *insert name of favorite deity here* to a *insert number >10 here* friends, and you will get *insert appealing reward here* or else you will *insert divine retribution ideas here*. This is absolutely true. It happened to *insert fictional stories here*. FORWARD THIS!"

or "Bill Gates is sharing his fortune. Forward this to a hundred friends and he will give you a share of his money"

or the story which someone read, didn't forward, then died, became a ghost and started haunting folk that didn't forward the same story. Cause the 21st century ghosts are tech savvy too..

I think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about the paranoia/sympathy inducing mails being most popular. Fact is, fear sells. LOL.
Just add the words "research has shown" and presto! Instant believers.

[deponti]

I'm going to add those words now! Thank you.

[pondhopper]

AMEN to this! Fear is a huge factor in forwards, I find. There are so many that promise dire consequences if you don't forward whatever it is. You'll have bad luck forever is a big one. Or they play on guilt as in "you aren't my friend if you don't send this back to me" .It just amazes me how many who say they aren't superstitious under normal circumstances fall for those silly forwards "just in case". I take great delight in breaking the chain and hitting the delete button.

[deponti]

Hail, fellow deleter!

[asakiyume]

With the ones that say "you aren't my friend if you don't send this back to me," I sometimes send a personal message saying how much I like whoever it is, but that I don't do e-mail chain letters. Other times I just ... don't forward them and hope the person understands.

[pondhopper]

That is a very good...and kind...way to handle it.
:)

[subhi]

I agree. It's so annoying! It just makes me realize how gullible most of us are.

But btw, coke does take out calcium from your body, water bottles should not be left in the sun as that increases the environment for growth of bacteria and date-rape pills are fairly common.

[deponti]

I don't drink Coke, and I do agree about not leaving water-bottles out in the sun (but surely I can drink from a water bottle that was left in my basement car park yesterday,without being full of fear!)...and date-rape pills are NOT the same as having one's kidneys removed!

[asakiyume]

I'm with you! I only get these from my friends who are not too savvy about the Internet, so usually I gently just point out that the story's not true and direct them to Snopes, but really, in some cases common sense ought to prevail!

The one that I used to get periodically from other parents of young children, back when my children were younger, was about some child doing a project to see how long his/her e-mail could keep getting passed around. Like you with the Microsoft one, I kept thinking, don't they stop to wonder how anyone could possibly check on that?

With the sympathy ones, I think people love the idea of doing good with simply a click of the "send" button.