Mid-Week Thoughts - "Serial" Forwarders

If spam mails are annoying, then some forwarded mails are a nuisance.

At least with spam they are easily recognizable and you just have to grit you teeth, highlight them and banged hard on the ”delete” key. Done.

But not with these forwarded mails. Inevitably, they are from people you know and with subject headings that belie their contents. So what would you do if you receive one from a close relative and with a subject like “Fw: Stroke!! Next Killer”? And you yourself had suffered one not too long ago. You tell yourself how thoughtful this relative is and double click.

What do you find? That the mail is a “forward” within a “forward”. That it contains “D.I.Y.” procedures on treating a person who has just been struck with a stroke (word rhyming not deliberate).

Don’t rush him to the hospital in an ambulance; the bumpy trip will cause all the capillaries in his brain to burst. Prick his ten fingers first to let out some blood until he is normal. If the victim's mouth is crooked, then pull on his ears until they are red. Then prick each ear lobe twice until two drops of blood comes from each ear lobe.

Wow, I never knew this. Pantai hospital would have lost a patient if I had this know-how earlier. But on further reading it appeared that the mail was actually a testimony on the merits of the art of “letting blood” as taught by one, Mr. Ha Bu-Ting, of Sun-Juke (Timbuktu I have heard of, this place never). Ah, that’s the catch.

More seriously, the point I want to make here is that some netizens are forwarding mails INDISCRIMATELY. Besides using up bandwidth, they are also wasting the recipients’ time with forwards containing this or that “warning”, this or that “advice” and “did you know this fact” type, most of which are usually unverified or are hoaxes and sometimes even border on the ridiculous. Not to mention the nuisance factor of having to clear the mail box daily or else suffer clogging when you are unable to check your mails for a couple of days.

What’s with these “serial” forwarders, anyway?

Can’t handle the empowerment the Internet has given them? All of a sudden they find the whole world is an audience. What better opportunity than now to play the part of citizen of the world and continually disseminate, to all and sundry, truths, half-truths and hoaxes.

Or is it an ego thing? All the time people think I am not well read and not in tune with history or current affairs, in short I know nothing. Wait till they read all the mails I forward to them – any topic also got one. See how wise and knowledgeable I am.

Maybe they just have a case of “gullible(tities)”, having been infected with the Gullibility Virus.Reading a mail, they suddenly exclaimed, “Aiyo, like that ah. Serious man. Must, must tell they all one”.

Oh no, my incoming mail reminder just Beep. Got to go and check before things get worse. Until this weekend, bye.