Fw: fw: fw: fw: fw: fw: fw: fw: fw:

Let's talk about email forwards. I used to be under the impression that the people who persist in sending them out all the time were one or many of these things:

1. Naive in that they actually believe the one about baby Angela's kidneys and how only your email forwards will save her life.

2. Old and just getting into the computer thing and not yet realizing how obnoxious forwards are.

3. Stupid in that they assume that I want to read the same things they like to read about the flying angels and the sunsets.

4. Alarmists who feel it's better to be safe than sorry, and so send out every safety-related forward ever written. Watch out for those HIV needles at the gas tanks, folks!

5. Possessors of a juvenile sense of humor and must therefore forward every single "funny" email they receive. They don't seem to realize that I will judge them and their sense of humor for this.

6. People who mistakenly believe that sending 3 email forwards per day is considered "keeping in touch." Note: it's not.

I did not realize that there's another category altogether--a category Steeped in Evil. A friend of mine receives multiple email forwards from an acquaintance of hers. These forwards are political in nature and are intended to warn the general public about the little-known character defects and secret world-destroying plans and puppy-skinning habits of a certain Presidential candidate. When my friend gets forwards like this she always looks them up on a myth-debunking site and then sends the relevant information back to the sender. Because she was raised right. And breast-fed.

After a few rounds of this, the sender responded that she doesn't necessarily trust those debunking sites. (Because an anonymous email that's been circling the globe at the mercy of half-wits is way more trustworthy.) And then, friends, she said THESE WORDS:

I stopped looking everything up and forwarded things that I thought were important. I have read a lot about [candidate's name (misspelled)] and I do not like him. I believe he will ruin this country.

So . . . let's look at this. This woman is deliberately choosing to pass on information without checking first--information that she knows has a high likelihood of being false. She is, in effect, saying that truth and accuracy don't matter and that she is perfectly fine with spreading lies if they happen to support her own bad opinion of a person. Also, how is something supposed to be important if it's not even true?

This, to me, is one of the more reprehensible things I've ever heard of. You start here, and you end up eating babies.

Posted in: on my crap list,things that make me stare in disbelief