The Chain: Harbingers of Things to Come August 20, 2010
Posted by nrhatch in Humor, Music & Dance, People.trackback
Chain e-mails (those long, convoluted harbingers of things to come which circulate endlessly in cyber space and encourage people to stop what they are doing to mindlessly forward “the chain” to everyone they know as quickly as possible) should be “broken” by the courageous at the first opportunity:
(1) Using superstitious gobbledygook as a motivating tool preys on the weak and distracts everyone else:
You have 6 minutes. (Or what? my head explodes?)
Do not keep this message. (So bossy!)
The Lotus Touts must leave your hands in 6 MINUTES. Otherwise you will get a very unpleasant surprise. (What? Another chain letter?)
(2) Chain letters often contain poorly worded sentences which make the English language sound more awkward than necessary:
This is true, even if you are NOT superstitious, agnostic, or otherwise faith impaired.
Did they really mean to say: even if you are not superstitious, [not] agnostic, or [not] otherwise faith impaired?
(3) The more willing a recipient is to forward it to everyone they know, the greater the promised reward:
Now, here’s the FUN part! Send this to at least 5 people and your life will improve.
1-4 people ~ Your life will improve slightly.
5-9 people ~ Your life will improve to your liking.
9-14 people ~You will have 5 surprises in the next 3 weeks.
15-25 ~ Your life will improve drastically.
25 or more ~ Everything you ever dreamed of will come true.
Apparently, the more mailboxes we are willing to fill, the more time we are able to waste, the better the gods like it.
Rewarding superstitious time wasters (who use poorly worded messages to keep in touch with other superstitious time wasters) by making their dreams come true, while punishing those who have better things to do with their time, is a sure fire strategy to ensure survival of the un-fittest.
(4) In addition to superstitious hocus pocus and bad grammar, chain letters include other unsubstantiated claims, misrepresentations, and/or blatant lies:
Please don’t break the chain, it has been sent around the world ten times so far.
Says who??? Not the original author, certainly. If someone added that claim later, how did they determine the validity of the statement?
How does a chain e-mail circumnavigate the globe anyway?
If I send it to Australia and someone there sends it back to me . . . does that count as once around the world?
Should we take into account the fact that the Around The World Trip only took 60 seconds?
Of course, even if the “Don’t Break The Chain” comments are ridiculous, sometimes the actual message is positive, uplifting, and worth sharing.
Hmm . . . what to do?
In the past, I generally deleted all the lies and half-truths, cleaned up the grammar and spelling, and forwarded the tasty bits on to a few select friends.
But that was B.B. . . . Before Blogging.
Now, I can share any positive, uplifting messages from “the chains” I receive with you, while tossing the broken chains into my cyber wastebasket!
I can still hear you saying you would never break the chain! ~ Fleetwood Mac
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Spirit Lights The Way 
I hate these things and I delete them as soon as I get them.
Good. Some people are too superstitious to break the chains they receive. Those who are “braver and more courageous” (or more foolhardy) must do it for them. ; )
I get very cross when I get sent them.
By the way, I first read your title as “the chain, hamburgers of things to come” and thought you were going to go on a rant about food franchises ;p Funny how the eye talks to the mind …
Fooled ya! : D
When we read, we pick and choose which letters to look at.
Generally it’s the 1st and last letters that we focus on and our mind fills in a bit of the rest, based on context, while overlooking misspellings, etc.
The Chain: Hamburger would probably leap to many minds before The Chain: Harbinger.
I ignore most “mass mailing” requests ~ mandates to keep chain letters circulating, suggested status updates for FB, forced sentiments and awards (send these “canned” compliments to 12 wonderful women OR give 7 blog awards and insist that EACH recipient select 7 more recipients). I take what I want from the message and trash the rest.
What will get me to stop what I’m doing and send an immediate reply ~ a short, heartfelt note from a friend. : )
Chains are so irritating. My friends send me chain e-mails and chain texts. And they’re always so LONG. Deleting chains and not responding to them at all is the best thing to do. However, even when I tell my friends not to include in chains, they still do. Aaaaagh. But I thought this was a very interesting post. 🙂
I don’t mind receiving them from friends. I just refuse to pass them on. Most of my friends know that if they send one to me, the chain will be broken. : )
Thank you for addressing this topic … these make me crazy. And life goes on … no matter what you do – send or delete. Good!
Horrible things – the only thing to do is delete them!
make me want to self harm
xf
Ah I hate them too! They were a massive thing with my friends when we were teenagers but they just clogged up my inbox and more often than not came with a virus or two. Delete, delete, delete!
They probably are contaminated with a virus or two. Eww . . .
The number of times I have actually believed and had an open mind to such letters is no joke. The ones that trip me up are the ones that have a good wish like an angel or a saint and I coax myself into believing that “they wish me well so how can that be wrong” and as they say faith can move mountains ….so why can’t a mail that contains a good wish actually carry a good wish ??? They say God works in ways that are beyond a man’s imagination so what if….what if …..it really is God sending me a good wish to cheer me up on a bad day !!!!
I would not like that good wish just pass me by.
You have a point, but . . . good wishes can be shared without resorting to coercive tactics. : )
My friends and family all know better than to send them to me. I haven’t received one in years!
Lindsay
http://www.thedailyawe.com
True true. Good post and best wishes on your blogging!
Post of the day! I love your wit! I certainly delete most chain mail that hits my mailbox. I figure that I should be dead by now if all the bad luck that is headed my way for doing that were to really happen, so I must have made the right decision. I sometimes forward on the funny stuff, but chain mail is ridiculous. Mindless waste of time…most definitely survival of the unfittest!
Thanks for doing your part! : )
Glad you enjoyed the post.
Thank you for clarifying and releasing us from this endless guilt.
Robert
Life is better without fear and guilt mucking up the works. : )
Right On.
The ones that really irritate me are the ones that start with “97% wont forward this” or the ones that remind me that “if you deny Jesus before men, He will deny you before the Father”, or the ever-popular “If you beleive in God, pass this on”. Bah. I hate chain mail and since God knows everything, I figure He knows that too.
I don’t feel so bad now for not forwarding! Thanks 🙂
Lunargirl
Yes! Great examples . . . using Fear, Guilt, and Shame to coerce us into plastering other people with messages designed to increase their Fear, Guilt and Shame.
Thanks for sharing.
BREAK THE CHAIN! I am one of those courageous who often promptly deletes chain e-mails. I’m making the world a better place one deletion at a time!
Crystal
http://www.crystalspins.com
You go, girl!
I agree I HATE those chain letters, I do not want everyone elses address book forwarded to me, which everyone is too lazy to delete, and they are rife with viruses, that is the whole point of them! They go right to my spam & are deleted! Sorry, my friends can send me a nice e-card if they want to show how much they love me & vice versa…
evelyngarone.com
I agree with you 100%.
I’d rather have a 2 sentence note from a friend than a 3000 word chain letter authored by a stranger.
What I can’t stand are the ones that beat me over the head with a religious message. “Send this to ten people and you will experience a miracle!”
What, they’ll still talk to me after wasting their time?
I delete all chain e-mails.
We need more like you! ; )
Chain letters are deleted as soon as they are recieved!
An expedient approach to e-mail. : )
This is a chain comment. Do what it says or the world will end in 2012.
1. Write ten comments on other blogs lauding the website of whoever made this comment.
2. Post this comment on ten other blogs.
3. Enjoy the rewards (and the surviving world).
Excellent! My first chain comment. Thanks, Michael! : )
BTW: I am NOT going to try to save the world by following your suggestions . . . time is short, and I must spend my remaining time wisely.
Must . . . eat . . . dessert . . . first.
Loved this, but I have to say although I delete them I do love to read them. Mainly with the letters that so an so has died and need my bank account to get the money out of the country 🙂 all make me smile with the sheer naivety of the authors, and more so the people that believe them.
Thanks for making me smile.
Oh, yes, the foreign prince who will make me RICH . . . as soon as I send him some money to get his “Monopoly Money” out of the country.
Thanks, Angelique! Glad you’re leaving with a smile.
A chain letter has never made its way past my inbox or mailbox.
Idiotic and annoying. Deleted and destroyed with extreme prejudice.
Excellent . . . delete and destroy!
Great Post! I’ve often wondered just who forwards chain letters/mail and who buys the products in the junk emails…apparently several someones do, else the spammers would have stopped by now…
Same for telemarketers
I’m wondering the same thing since everyone here seems to be in agreement that “delete and destroy” is the best method to deal with chain e-mails.
Who IS forwarding these missives???
I have received many chain letters and ignored them all. So far so good.
Same here.
Any unfortunate events in my life turned out to be blessings in disguise with enough passage of time. ; )
Heck yes! Basically what I’ve been saying for ages – especially that I’d rather get a brief real personally written note than a pile of sappy junk my friends never wrote, wouldn’t actually say in real life and that has been circulating so much that I’ve seen it coming from a zillion different people already! I have made a site devoted to thoroughly smashing these chains, yes, including a lot of the so-called good stuff people still forward on even when they cut out all the good/bad luck junk. And I linked to your post here in the smashing of the Lotus Touts/Totus tantra!
http://cbcf.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=176
What can the originator possibly get out of it? Back in the late 70’s my mom would receive the cash chains (snail mail); somebody certainly profited from that, but still….
Plus snail mail limited the number of recipients because each required a separate copy and a separate stamp! : )
Well, smash and expose is more my style now, since being nice and quietly deleting just doesn’t work. I will reply back with a debunk if such can be found on another site to back up what I’m saying to encourage these people to think, and stop passing on junk. But There are lots of chain letters that can’t be found on the usual hoax-busting sites too. Either way, I’ll have something to say about it, and when it isn’t exactly civil, that’s why I made my chain-smashing site. So I don’t end up screaming at my friends directly.
Oh, and that rich prince from Nigeria has turned into a medical student from Sudan and a widow from Senegal or something like that. Lol.
Thanks, Capri!
I think I got something from the medical student recently. : )
I don’t mind getting them–some are quite funny–but I never pass them on I just delete them.
That’s the kind of chain letter that would be worth sending . . . one filled with funny jokes and riddles designed to make folks laugh and smile.
Please don’t break the chain, it has been sent around the world ten times so far. I always questioned that, and all the crap that came with these chain letters..but you know the good thing about this?? it makes you laugh. to think that someone can be that dumb and anticipates that everyone is just as dumb as he is! and it provoked you this much that you blogged about it!! but I really like your blog, i subscribed:) have a good day
Glad you enjoyed. And thanks for subscribing. : )
yeah, i don’t forward that dum stuff, but u gotta admit that every bunch has one or 2 good e-s
I’m not a fan of these things as well, specially those type of chain stuff where they threat you if you break the chain thing.
Finally someone has bothered to highlight the annoyance of chain letters! In acountry like India were superstition rules everything, chain letters are forwarded the most before and after exams.. because of the whole “dream will come true.” thingy. So my mailboxes have been spammed to the highest degree thanks to a few “sick” kids, a few Indian gods etc etc.
I don’t mind getting them–some are quite funny–but I never pass them on I just delete them.
hahaha..who knows, the world is coming to an end because of all those unforwarded chain letters…anyway too late to stop..i’m just gonna bust my credit limit and have a lot of fun..and to think i just came here after reading one such chain mail…this time from dalai lama..wonder how His Holiness would respond if this were sent back to him!!!
Maybe the world is coming to an end because so many of us have ignored the command to FORWARD THIS ON. : )
I’ve never received an chain e-mail which claimed to be from the Dalai Lama. I’ll keep an eye on my mailbox.
LOL!!! I ALWAYS break the chain. Nothing makes me hit delete quicker than the words: Forward this to….
When I was younger, I did forward a few…simply because I didn’t want to appear rude (like someone was actually keeping tabs to see whether I actually forwarded the things! Duh!). Now that I’m thankfully older and wiser and understand the importance of righteous rudeness – I’m free of my chains!!
Enjoyed this post and your blog! Especially How not to throw a Dinner Party…had me in splits! Will be back to read more 🙂
Thanks. Please do come back. We’ll leave the light on for ya!
Hmm… Spiffily written, snappy blog that’s easy to read and makes me feel good about deleting junk mail? If I found this in my inbox, I’d forward it to 25 people any day (regardless of whether life improvement was forthcoming). : )
Thanks. That’s a lovely comment to receive first thing in the morning. : )
Have a Super Saturday.
Great post and congrats on Freshly Pressed!
Chain letters can be dangerous as well. The number of requests to sign online petitions, hate-mongering rumors, and outright lies that fall into my inbox every month, disguised as a FWD, is just disturbing.
When I get them, I do a quick search for the debunking info and forward on the link to the poor sap who sent it to me. I’d recommend everyone keep this link handy for just such an occasion:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/inboxer.asp
Natina
http://humansareassholes.wordpress.com/
Me too! I love using snopes to get the scoop on rumors.
Great blog well done, would appreciate a couple of comments on mine…; )
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And any help you can muster attracting more traffic.
Cheers
Joe
Ps. feel free to advertise your blogs on mine.
I find it sad that we’re in such a state of fear that choosing not to participate in something that we don’t enjoy, causes us to worry so much about some imminent punishment. No wonder our lives can feel so heavy.
In the US, we are socialized with heavy doses of FEAR and GUILT as motivation to act, or refrain from acting.
When we learn to let go of the EGO based FEAR and GUILT we’ve been trained to feel, life becomes lighter and freer.
Haha, you are so right, and I love fleetwood mac. Great way to take the opportunity to share a great song(:
I take PRIDE in breaking the chain. If it were only true.
I like the snoopy picture and the Fleetwood Mac song. As for chain letters, most are a waste of time, brain cells, paper, etc., and should be deleted, and all the superstitious, guilt-tripping endings are obnoxious.
I love Fleetwood Mac.
The best thing to do with chain e-mails is to ignore them.
They take up valuable web traffic and space. Usually people are stupid enough to leave the history of who it’s been to so find the originator and give ’em hell!
Love this! Mean it! And Fleetwood Mac too! WOO HOO, I’m adding you to my blogroll! Oh, and I’m going to cut/copy/paste your blog for a reply to those chain emails I generally ignore. Permission, por favor?
Glad you enjoyed.
I took a peak at your blog ~ your post on finally getting the sleep the you need (yay!) and an older one on packing for your HS reunions. Enjoyed them.
As far as using this post . . . instead of cutting, copying, and pasting the whole post, why not just send them a short note with a link back here:
“I no longer forward chain e-mails. Here’s why: {{link}}”
That way, if I update the post, they’ll see the current version; it will be me admonishing them, not you; and they’ll have a chance to waste some time cruising around the internet. ; )
once i made the signature on my e-mails say: this computer does not accept forwards. i still got them after many months!
i can’t seem to get away from here! i love what you said about people in the US being socialized with heavy doses of fear…
and i hate to say this but older southern people are the worst!
Glad to hear that my site is so “addictive.” : )
We’ve lived all up and down the Eastern Seaboard. I’m not sure that the South has a monopoloy on fear-based living.
We are bombarded with bad news, and little of the good news makes its way to the airwaves. As a result, the BAD STUFF grows larger and larger in our minds ~ plane crashes, auto crashes, rapes, abductions, terrorism, animal abuse, house fires, illness, accidents, sickness, etc.
The antidote . . . FOCUS ON THE GOOD.
Fleetwood mac defines my childhood…Rumors etc
they and the people who send them are PTW.
I didn’t know what PTW stood for, so I googled it and found:
PTW Poison the Well (band)
PTW Powered Two Wheelers
PTW Play the World (Civilization 3 game)
PTW Permit to Work (UK)
PTW Play to Win
PTW Pottstown, Pennsylvania (Airport Code)
PTW Power Trip Wrestling (UK)
PTW Price to Win
PTW Precision Targeting Workstation
PTW Player to Watch
PTW Personal Training Weapon
PTW Pirate the World (online pirate game)
PTW Profesional Training Weapon
PTW Precision Tomahawk Workstation
PTW Participant Test Weekend (London Stock Exchange; UK)
PTW Professional Time Waster
PTW Proposing to Win
I’m guessing that you meant the penultimate item on this list: Professional Time Waster!
Yay! I learned something new today. : )
How cool, me too…thx for taking the time to figure that out!
I like Professional Training Weapon but only if it is sent back to the originator of the email – not my dear friend who has forwarded it to me.
😀
i do clean up the chain e-mails before sending by leaving the good thoughts sans the ‘promises’. throw them in cyber wastebasket instead? hmmm.. and the spirit lights the way 🙂
Aren’t cyber wastebaskets the best . . . no messy residue to cart out to the curb on garbage pick-up day.
great post!
You really did a great writing. I must confess – I am one of them that always got caught-up in this chain mail of a thing.
When I was a kid, I loved receivinging chain letters . . . MAIL! With my name on it!
YIPPEE!
Aah . . . snail mail.
I just don’t have time to deal with these, in general. I always delete them immediately. They used to irritate me to the point of apoplexy, but now I just delete without much thought, sort of like smacking a mosquito that’s feasting on me.
Good way to deal with them. They are nothing more than pebbles on the path. : )
I cannot remember when I last had one – long time ago. In a way this was a kind of nostalgic read for me. I remember the snail mail ones so well. Sometimes felt quite scared to throw them in the bin, but that is what I did.
I agree.
It’s easier to toss unwanted e-mails into the cyber trash, but it’s also easier to keep them circulating by pressing Forward.
Chain letters are an example of those who fall for the post hoc, egro propter hoc fallacy. Something agreeable happens after sending on the letter, so it must have been the letter that caused it.
Unfortunately, I have friends who send such things occasionally. Their e-mail messages get deleted. Ones from strangers get added to the phishing scam list.
Good point.
Either that, or something bad happens after NOT sending a letter, so it must have been caused by NOT sending the letter.
If we wait long enough after acting, or not acting, something GOOD or BAD is bound to occur ~ we can choose to attribute the event to the act (or omission), or view it as the ebb and flow of life itself.
Chain emails can be very irritating. However, there are some genuinely touching and fresh chain mails that deserve to be sent ‘around the globe and back’, simply because they promise nothing more than providing you with some more knowledge and insight on certain things you would have overlooked otherwise.
It is unfortunate that these are rare but I suppose the charm is in the infrequency? 🙂
I agree. Even if the “Don’t Break The Chain” comments are ridiculous, often the actual message is worth sharing.
In the past, I deleted the “commands to forward,” cleaned up the grammar, and forwarded the best parts on to select friends.
Now, I can share the positive, uplifting messages here on SLTW!
The whole silly concept behind chain e-mails and chain letters has always made me laugh like crazy. This post was an enjoyable read.
Glad you enjoyed it, and that you use your sense of humor to negotiate through life.
Life improves with laughter.
LOL..
You just compiled my mind..
And yet another thing.. Is the spiritual world really connected with the cyber world? How else would number of people I forward that message to would “pronounce” results..?
But this is a very sad representation, if that may be the reality.. 😦 If they were really good luck mails, why conditions come attached as a Deadly Disclaimer?
Given all the “faith” that these so deserve, would it be safe to conclude that these are “Nuisance Attractors”; since it would bring bad luck and all that..
I too have started adding the really good one in my Blog now. Yet, why do these written in colorful Bold scripts with ellipses like never ending trail?
..
..
..
I so wish that this be defined as a Cyber Crime.
I am an Indian. Let me now start lighting the incense stick at my computer.. blessings would soon follow..
AWESOMELY said, Nance!! I’m with you all the way…one of the many great benefits of blogging, such as coming across inspiring people like you 🙂
Thanks, Naomi. Right back at you. I’m delighted each time I receive an alert that you (Amy, Cindy, Agatha, etc.), have a new post on the horizon!
In the blog-o-sphere, we really have complete freedom to choose our own unique sphere of influence (while steering away from the more toxic personality types we have to deal with in real life).
i did agree with you.
Such messages with all the long lists of addresses you get with them, are just a way to spread viruses, and feed addresses to those who trade them for advertising purposes.
But you have to agree some of the dispatches and their photography on wild life, or old churches, really do make you want to send them on to family and friends. Great, if people would just take the time to clear the hundreds of page heading addresses.
We don’t use computer address books, which must sound arcane to most people. We use a fliptop. That way you never lose them, and it helps you remember addresses you use often. But mainly it helps stops you getting and spreading viruses.
Good points, Colin. I routinely clean up messages before forwarding to any one else.
And I don’t click on internal links unless I know who inserted the link in the original e-mail.
One of the best cyber chains I ever got was one that gave me permission to break all chains without repercussions for the rest of my life. Not that I needed the permission, but I still enjoyed the sense of freedom. 😀
I know EXACTLY what you mean, Lisa. Chain letters pray on our superstitious nature ~ we know the claims are bogus, but we’d rather have the claims give us a pat on the back for shredding the message rather than for sending it on. 😉
What I cant stand those that say send it on to 7, 12, 25 or a zillion people and see what happens. You will fall about laughing, be amazed or whatever. Well nothing ever happens and so now I don’t even read them. I simply delete them.
Good for you, Judith. Much better than passing them on “as is.”
I look through them quickly to see if there is a positive message worth sharing. If so, I edit out all the superstitious gobbledy-gook. If not . . . {{delete}}.