Forward>forward>forward
I get them at least once a week.
Sometimes it’s a nice little prayer, with pictures of sappy, blond angels whose wings flutter. Sometimes it’s pictures of animals or beautiful places. Sometimes it’s a story about plucky young soldiers eating sandwiches on a plane, or a heartwarming tale of a desperate person who was touched by prayer.
Sometimes it’s a nice little prayer, with pictures of sappy, blond angels whose wings flutter. Sometimes it’s pictures of animals or beautiful places. Sometimes it’s a story about plucky young soldiers eating sandwiches on a plane, or a heartwarming tale of a desperate person who was touched by prayer.
Sometimes (though not so often since I blocked my uncle’s ass) it’s a political message, about how this country used to be a great place, back men were men, women were feminine instead of feminists and kids could pray in school, dag gummit!
Whatever. As soon as I see that it’s one of those forward>forward>forward messages, before I even read it, I scroll right down to the very end, because it’s usually there: a bribe, a threat, a guilt- whammy.
“Forward this to at least 10 people in the next ten minutes and you will receive a blessing by tomorrow morning”
"Do not break this chain! Every one who passes this on will have something wonderful happen in their life!"
“If you believe in American values, send this to everyone in your address book. 93% of the people who receive this message will delete it. Are you one of the 7% who support our troops enough to pass it on?”
And my personal favorite- “If you’re not ashamed to admit you love God, send this to all your friends.”
Dear whoever writes these things:
Really? You’re so desperate to get your crap passed around like a canker sore that you’ll stoop to strong-arming people into spreading it? You appeal to their greed, to their latent sense of superiority or just their superstition and herd mentality and off you go. I guess it works: someone sent it to me, after all. But it stops with me.
See, I've been stepping on cracks and breaking chains all my life as a matter of principle. I don’t think that most of my friends actually believe that God really wants us to be rich but He doesn’t have an e-mail account himself, so he pays us to forward stuff for him. They realize that America is not the least bit strengthened when they clog up their friends’ in-boxes with jingoistic bullshit. They know there are real, concrete ways of supporting the troops, but they take a little more effort than just forwarding pictures of sparkly flags.
And most of them know that America was not, in fact, a better place “back in the day” when kids had to pray in school, people looked the other way when a man hit his wife, gays who were beaten up just got what they deserved and integration was a dirty word. But say, how’s 1953 working out for ya?
Dear everybody who sends me this kind of message:
I don’t pretend to know your motivation here. It could be you just never read it all the way to the whammy. Maybe you believe in magic and a God who operates this way.. Maybe you think that doing what an anonymous e-mail tells you will somehow help America. Or, maybe you just thought I really needed more pictures of kittens kissing puppies. Whatever.
Just know that I WILL Snopes your shit, even the cute story about a bunny rescuing his owners from a fire. And I WILL call you out any time you are passing on lies. And if what you send me contains any kind of emotional blackmail, no matter how nice the beginning of the message, I will hit the delete button without blinking an eye.
Just know that I WILL Snopes your shit, even the cute story about a bunny rescuing his owners from a fire. And I WILL call you out any time you are passing on lies. And if what you send me contains any kind of emotional blackmail, no matter how nice the beginning of the message, I will hit the delete button without blinking an eye.
So if it says “send it back to me” and I don’t send it back to you, it doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re a strong woman or that you're not my friend. It means the only thing I’m embarrassed about is acting like my religious views are any one’s business but my own. It means I don’t respond well to arm-twisting, and I’ve spent a lifetime subverting the dominant paradigm.
It means I don’t pass around other people’s canker sores.
Tracy Meisky is a poet, writer, singer, songwriter and all-around boat rocker from way back. Feel free to look around, but if you break it, you bought it.
When I worked for OSU, I used to get tons of this crap- on occasion, even worth the time it took to read. Now I get hardly none. I think the reason is that I don't really use e-mail as my main avenue of electronic communication any more. And I never did forward any of it.
Well said and well written