Recently, a friend has gotten it in their head that I would enjoy receiving the mass e-mails constantly making the rounds on the Internet.You know the type of message, usually about something outlandish that has them "outraged," the one with hundreds of names in the Cc: line (who knew your friend had so many other friends?)
Last night I got the one accusing Starbucks of not supporting the troops in Iraq because they wouldn't donate coffee. Whenever I see one of these, I cut and paste the first line of text into the search box at http://www.snopes.com/ a great site that confirms the authenticity or detects an urban myth or fraud. This one turned out to be (shock!) a hoax. Duh.
I had had enough, and seeing as this friend had given my e-mail address to everyone else in the Cc: line, I decided to 'reply-all' and took him to school.
What put me over the top on this particular one was the use of the "are you patriotic and supporting the troops" angle. I'm tired of the Right holding the rest of us hostage with this lame idea that you can't support our armed forces AND think the war in Iraq is a misguided, wrongheaded mess. If you're not sporting a flag in every lapel, you're not a 'true' American (or a 'Great American' if you're calling in to Sean Hannity.)
After telling my friend about snopes.com, and that the e-mail was a hoax, I admonished all concerned to correct the misconception they had forwarded with a 'retraction' e-mail. And by the way, if you feel compelled to send this to everyone you've ever met, for heaven's sake, use the Bcc: line (blind copy) so no one else can see the other addresses. Your best bet, don't fill up the bandwidth with this junk. I'll get news on my own, thank you.
By the way, this also applies to all of you who like to forward those 'cute' e-mails, the ones that say "send this to 10 friends and you'll have good luck."
No comments:
Post a Comment