Got an error on the quick-reply, so hope this doesn't show up more than once. It took me to a resubmission form.
Oh gosh, I used to get those via email all the time, now they've taken over social networks and blogs. I get so annoyed for various reasons. The sick kid hoaxes, whoever thought it was cool to make up a sob story a bout a kid dying of cancer, or a bogus MADD petition and call everyone selfish for deleting instead of forwarding - aRGH!
Prayer chain letters - *scowls* I am a Christian and seriously resent hoaxters dragging God into their spam racket, duping my fellow Christians via
religious sensitivities into passing along some chain letter that is really not a prayer at all, but a chain letter same as the good/bad luck variety. Friendship/tell your sisters you love them because you're all wonderful smart women so pass it on - uh, no! The friendship ones annoy me because they are so incredibly cheesy and phoney. You know your friend didn't actually write all that unbelievably saccharin drip, they got sucked in by the cunningly written play-on-emotions chain letter originators seem to have over the masses they con into circulating their dreck.
Recipe chains, they are not okay either. Herman cake, Amish Friendship Bread, whatever you call that bag of gooey starter, I will not pay it forward nor do I care for chocolate cinnamon bread in the first place. But with a chain letter demand attached, forget it! Recipe exchange chain letters, the kind Julie describes, also majorly annoying! Because, like the viral jokes,
Youtube video virals, friendship and touching story glurges, holiday-related chain letters and blog questionaire/award memes, they just never stop. You know if you get them once, you'll get them again and again from various sources on the net for as long as you are on the net.
I think many people send chain letters because they may not even realize that is what they are when new to the net. It took me years to figure out all the forms and emotional angles chain letters take. One I remember falling for as a net newbie was the bogus Neiman Marcus cookie recipe hoax. I thought erroneously back then that chain letters were only of the promise/threat good luck variety and envelope-stuffing pyramid schemes. So when I got that same hoax a few months later, from a completely unrelated source than the first time, and by then I was sort of beginning to figure it out - I then realized I'd been had. Not only that, but getting better at looking things up on the web, I learned that story itself was an utter mean-spirited lie. It didn't actually come from my cousin's friend, first-hand as I had naively thought when falling for it that one time. Argh! Embarrassing! The last one I fell for was a Facebook group scheme, but I've gotten wise to those now as well. Any FB group/pages that tell you to change your profile picture to a specified pic, make a status about the group/page, like, and especially invite/tell all your friends is a chain letter.
Back to the friendship chains, I get particularly irked when people send/post those to me and that's all they ever send. Like the only time they can be bothered to write me at all is to pass on the latest phony superficial junk to cross their monitor and set their emotions into overdrive.
Why people start chain letters, well, I wrote a bunch on that in a four-part article from my chain-smashing site. Smashing, not merely breaking. Because being nice and quietly deleting just wasn't working for me. Forwarders still forwarded, and after getting that same fake drink&drive petition in my inbox a number of times, I decided to put up my say on a site instead of rewriting myself out again over it and screaming at the last person who sent it.
I also giiot sick of forwarders getting defensive when I was honest enough to point out this stuff is hogwash and why. And considering we don't really know who started the bogus MADD petition, the Amy Bruce Hoax, the fake ST. Theresa prayer, the Atheist Professor, or the "Friends/hugs/kisses are like (insert something really sappy) Show you're a great friend and pass this on!" They might all be one and the same people behind them.
Great reasons to soundly smash chain letters without having to tip-toe around, because sure forwarders have feelings, that's why chain letters get to them so badly. But recipients like me also have feelings, and whether my friends like it or not, I do not take kindly to seeing them let themselves get played as one of the millions of cogs in a circulating chain made up by some doofus who thinks it's cool to control the masses via internet heart-string-tug, and get a laugh at the expense of those he/she has bewitched via forward.
