Please Mail this Post to 18 People...

Is there anyone more lacking in creativity than the community of spam email creators? I mean, take a look at any spam mail you receive. It’ll fall in one of two categories. Each category targets on a particular basic human emotion.


Category A:

This category relies on sympathy for its functioning. A typical Category A email begins by pouring forth to the reader the sorrowful plight of some fictitious character somewhere. This is often accompanied by graphic pictures, all to strengthen the cause of course.This is followed by details of how some philanthropic individual/organization has pledged to donate a certain amount each time this email is fowarded.

(For some reason, spam creators tend to think philanthropists are as stupid as they themselves are. Fortunately, this is not true.)

The final part of the email urges you to forward the mail to “as many people as you can”! Or else face eternal damnation for having so heartlessly chosen to ignore one’s suffering brethren!


Category B:

This category preys on the other vulnerable human emotion - fear! An email belonging to this category commences with some bad news, typically something such as “MSN is becoming a paid service” or the like. It then gives you the ‘good’ news! You can avoid the ‘bad’ news mentioned above by forwarding this mail to a certain number of people in your contacts list!

There is another common type of Category B spam mail. Ones that strike at the readers’ hearts. These mails consist of asking you a set of ludicrous questions, which would typically indicate whom your “true love” really is (or in some cases whom you have a crush on). This is followed by a table relating the success you will meet in your endeavors toward capturing that “true love” versus the number of people you forward the mail to.

(For some reason, spam creators tend to think that most email users are as stupid as they themselves are. Unfortunately, this is true!)


It’s easy to see that few people over the age of 12 would fall victim to either of the above two spam mail categories. So either the job of creating all the spam in this world has been handed to a bunch of preteens or there’s a bevy of evil spam creators somewhere who are under the impression that most of the Internet utilizing populace is under the mental age of 12.

I don’t understand how these mails propagate! Okay, I understand that someone who has nothing better to do might, in a vain attempt to amuse himself, start the chain by sending such a mail to a few people. But why would any sane person, upon receiving such an obviously fake mail, then proceed to forward it to others? Surely, they can’t be stupid enough to buy the reason mentioned in the mail itself! They why? As I see things, such mails should die out within two or three links from the originator. And yet they defy every inkling of logic and spread like fire across the cyber world! Never fails to amuse me!

(Oh by the way, if you fail to heed the warning in the title, you will never be able to access this blog again!)