Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Why Bother To Forward?

I hate forwards. Forwards are emails sent to you by your friends or colleagues about something supposedly for interest to you. 99% percent of these forwards are junks/myths/urban legends twisted. These forwards talk about the character of the person forwarding them. This ofcourse is my classifaction and none of this is personal. It is just a character assessment based on the forwards and many fall under more than one category.

Religious coward: These forward email about some divine myth/ story about something good or bad had happened and they prayed to this/that god and things have changed permanently for them. So they start this chain and curse upon on those who dont spread the chain. They believe in the curse (God being the supreme being does not curse you on such silly matters as not forwarding a story about him to someone else) and will forward to one who believes that stuff and those that dont believe in that stuff.

E-Capitalists: Remember that email chain about microsoft doing a secret survey and if you forward the email that he sent you, you will be millionaire in no time. These guys believe in instant gratification by doing a simple task of causing inconvenience by forwarding the junk to others and hoping to get rich by their benign deed.

Scare Crows: Recently I had a email forwarded from a colleague anout being careful when picking vegetables from an indian grocery store. Apparently there was a woman who died from a unseen snake hiding in the vegetables and was found dead on returning to the car with froth coming out of her mouth. Pretty graphic and bollywood like. These are fear mongerers.
Political Pundits: These guys send articles or email chains about politicians that are on the other side of their political fence. Anything negative that they can find, even if that is a myth, is an opportunity not to be lost.

Well Wishers: I had a friend who was fine until one day he began to send emails that contained images with content of philosophy, living life to the fullest and things like that. Guess why that happened. He got married and he began to see roses in everything. His wife subscribes to some website that sends her this kind of email. She forwards it to him. And he in turn sends those greetings to everyone he knows. I know you care for us, but dude keep your wife's greetings with you.

Nature Admirers: These are those that send anything wonderful they see about nature. Like the amazing pictures of the Seven Wonders of the World or the recent Olympics opening ceremony in China. These are kind of email forwards that you would have seen a long time ago, and this guy stumbled upon them only recently and cannot wait until he shares his discovery to the world.

Technology Warlords: These guys are those that are on one side of the technology rivalry like that between Apple and Microsoft. They send anything negative about the technology they hate and anything remotely positive about the technology they like. They also send emails about some cool work places, like Google office having a nice Play Pen and bed to sleep if you want. They send this only if the firm deals with technology they like or is also to rival to the technology they hate.

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