Please Don't Send Me This Crap

I know a few well-intentioned people who send me items like the example shown below. These are variants on the IMPORTANT MESSAGES that must be sent to EVERYONE YOU KNOW in order for some marvelous thing to happen – the sort of nonsense that any quick check of The Urban Legends Reference Pages will quickly reveal to be utter nonsense – as if plain old common sense – oxymoron that that may be – should not be enough. Of course, the messages that get forward are the edited versions of the messages; below is an original message, with the portions that are usually edited out given strong emphasis! ;-)

Subject: Important

Hey it is Andy and john the directors of MSN, sorry for the interruption but msn is closing down.

(You can tell that we are executives at an Internet company because we are so hip we only use our first names, and, in "john"'s case, do not even let ourselves be encumbered by the rules of capitalization. Doesn't that sound exactly like the sort of communication you usually get from top executives at major corporations? And isn't it amazing how we were able to advance so high in our careers when we can start out an urgent message with a run-on sentence? See how creative we are, as well, in that sometimes we refer to our own company as "MSN", while at other times we refer to it as "msn"? Our company is so big, we do not have to be encumbered by standards for referring to its name.)

this is because too many inconsiderate people are taking up all the name (eg making up lots of different accounts for just one person), we only have 578 names left.

See how creative we are again, starting a sentence with a lower-case letter and using the singular "name" when referring to a multitude of things which "inconsiderate people are taking up all" of? Let's cap that off by using "eg" rather than the abbreviation "e.g.", and slap together another run-on sentence by ending the first with a comma and then telling you exactly how many names are left. Amazingly, this number has stayed constant since the late 1990's!

If you would like to close your account, DO NOT SEND THIS MESSAGE ON. If you would like to keep your account, then SEND THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. This is no joke, we will be shutting down the servers.

Even though neither you nor the person who sent this to you actually have MSN accounts, you still better forward this information on! Heaven knows, sending this message on will prevent "inconsiderate people" from taking up more "name". Nothing prevents the registration for bogus network i.d.'s quite like tying up your ISP's servers, you contacts' ISPs' servers, and various mail routers on the net, by sending this message on and wasting as much disk space, bandwidth, and people's time as possible. This is no joke, certainly that will prevent us from shutting down the servers, and using all capital letters in a breach of netiquette.

Send it on, thanks.

Heaven knows, it saves MSN the trouble of actually contacting its own customers for issues with their service.

WHO EVER DOES NOT SEND THIS MESSEAGE, YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE CLOSED AND YOU WILL COST £10.00 A MONTH TO USE.

Heaven knows, you would not want people to spend "£10.00 A MONTH TO USE" you, especially if your native currency is dollars, Euros, krone, or some other currency. It is such a nuisance for whomever &ndash excuse us, "WHO EVER" – gets such a monthly payment to have to do the currency exchange.

Aren't you also glad that MSN will know if you forward this message on, even if we are the ISP of neither you nor your victim – er, contact to whom you forward this message. Never mind the fact that the message is at least a billion times more likely to go through the NSA's servers than ours, and surely you wouldn't have any privacy concerns about some ISP knowing when and to whom you send messages.

SEND THIS TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. NOW YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THIS OR REPLY. COPY THE WHOLE EMAIL. GO BACK TO YOUR INBOX AND CLICK ON NEW AND PASTE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION.

AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO NOW? ISN'T IT AMAZING THAT WE CAN GIVE YOU DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO COPY THE WHOLE EMAIL, REGARDLESS OF WHAT EMAIL CLIENT PROGRAM YOU MAY BE USING? AREN'T YOU GLAD THAT WE TELL YOU TO "COPY THE WHOLE EMAIL", RATHER THAN JUST FORWARDING IT ON LIKE MOST PEOPLE DO? FINALLY, AREN'T YOU GLAD WE END THIS MESSAGE WITH ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, BECAUSE NOTHING INDICATES A TRUE COMPUTER SYSTEM ISSUE THAN USING ALL CAPS. FORGET ABOUT THE FACT THAT THE SECURITY BULLETINS SENT OUT BY MCAFFEE, COMPUTER ASSOCIATES, AND THE LIKE; AND ANY NOTICES OF NETWORK OUTAGES BY YOUR ISP READ WITH ALL THE EXCITEMENT OF A MATHEMATICS JOURNAL. THIS IS *REALLY* SERIOUS, SO WE *MUST* USE ALL CAPITAL LETTERS,... THANKS!!!!!!!!!

Now, if you still feel the urge to send on messages that tell you that you must send them on to all your contacts, 20 people, or some other magic number, please let me know. I have some real estate deals that you should not pass up – swamp land in Florida; a bridge you may have heard of in Brooklyn....