Kitty Litter
Friday, February 18, 2005
If You Buy Five Copies Of This Column, Your Life Will Be Better
Ever received mail from friends, relatives, acquaintances, and the occasional stranger with a gazillion other email addresses which you need two hours to scroll past to get to the actual message? Said actual message will contain something wildly inaccurate, mildly amusing, or downright misleading (i.e., copied from an actual chain mail I received: “Cola drinks can MELTS ur BRAIN!!! If U LAUGHED when YOUR drinking and it GO up TO youre’ NOSE!!! ITS’ TRUE!!! This have HAPPEN to FRIEND of COUSIN of MOTHER of WOMAN who work have with UNCLE, my GRANDFATHER in PATTAGONIA! TIME MAGAZINE SAID SO!!!”)
Aside from the truckload of exclamation points!!! CAPITALIZED WORDS!!! and misspelled words (!!!), they invariably end this way:
“Do not keep this message. This message must leave your e-mail in 96 hours. Please send ten copies and see what happens in four days. If you don't, then you will never receive good sex again for the rest of your life. You will eventually become celibate, and your genitals will rot and fall off. This is no joke! Send copies to people you think need sex (who doesn't?). Don't send money, as the fate of your genitals has no price. Since the copy must tour the world, you must send it. This is true, even if you are not superstitious.”
Hmm. Last time I checked, good sex was a shared experience between two people, not something handed out and received like flyers in malls.
I checked the “sender” field, and it happened to have come from someone I’ve been good friends with since high school. I panicked. Had I done something to deserve this? Did I sing badly at her wedding? Did I say something she didn’t like?
Allow me to explain my reaction. Whether or not we believe in chain mail, those we receive that contain implied (or outright) threats to our health, sanity, happiness, sex lives, dietary habits, and other things we hold equally dear—should we fail to pass them on—are subliminally disturbing. I mean, hey, this came from a friend. I wish my friends the best of everything most of the time, and I’d imagine I have the right to expect reciprocation from them. I don’t mind if they forward me funny quotes, silly jokes, and creepy pictures; so long as they don’t come with the ominous phrase, “Pass this on to x people,” I’m okay with friends flooding my inbox. But when a friend sends me chain mail that threatens a horrible punishment for something I haven’t even done yet, I just have to wonder.
It’s easy to get chain mail from strangers; I simply delete them. If I do not believe that something has power over me, then the thing has no power over me, unless it be taxes, VAT, or something equally nasty. But to receive chain mail from I consider a friend bothers me. I took up a few units of psychology in college, and I know that many unconscious motivations lie behind many of our seemingly innocuous acts. “Sharing” chain mail with other people is one such act; it’s like inviting friends to play catch with a poisonous snake and throwing the snake at them without warning to show that you’re not taking “no” for an answer.
I don't know 10, 100, 1 million people to forward chain mail to (and I know even less who will be happy to receive it in this era of viruses); if I did, I ought to be in multi-level marketing and you should all be very afraid. Why waste time on chain mail with mere possibilities of good and bad luck when I could be exploiting you to buy the world?
Kidding aside, why would I want to take the chance that the threat might come true for a friend who’s too busy to pass chain mail on? Plus, I have to pass it on in what feels like 5 seconds. Not that I have anything better to do with my time, but I'd rather read about the toilet habits of orangutans or, better yet, the latest nasty comment Simon has made on “American Idol.” If you’ve never heard him say something biting to some lousy contestant, then you are missing a life-enriching (read: Thank God there’s someone more pathetic than me…a highly validating thing to say to yourself) experience. I’d rather have a life-enriching experience than pass on mail that will make the recipient question my intentions. What happens if I don’t open my email within 96 hours? Even if I wanted to pass the chain mail on, the deadline has passed. Thus I will be condemned (by something I never wanted and never did) to be loveless, friendless, sexless, and godless for the rest of my life. Excuse me, but I feel existential angst followed by existential angsty pouting coming on.
This leaves me with a problem. I'm mildly superstitious, and I believe that if a something causes me no harm, then there is a teensy possibility that it might do me some good. Conversely, I believe that there is always a chance that, given my queer brand of luck, the threat at the end of chain mail sent by a friend might come true. Chain mail has no power over me when it comes from strangers, but if it comes from a friend, it acquires a certain cachet, the kind that imbues it with a mystical, personal energy. Thus it becomes something like a virtual bomb; images of Yosemite Sam juggling three bombs (all ready to explode) handed him by Bugs Bunny come to mind.
What to do, then? I can’t send chain mail to my boyfriend Polar Bear; I certainly want to have a happy sex life with him, and since he never forwards chain mail, oh dear, think of the consequences. I’m afraid my mom will pass on this kind of chain mail; I just know it will come back to bite me in the patootie and I’ll have to repeat the whole vicious cycle. My dad is only just beginning to discover the Internet, and he doesn’t have 10 email addresses he can inflict chain mail on, unless sending the same drivel 10 times to my uncle—practically his only correspondent—counts. I want to keep my friends, and because of this, I want them to be happy, healthy, and to have joyful sex lives with their life partners. (So if you ever receive chain mail from me, chances are high that you're not on my Christmas list.) I have a huge collection of email addresses of my students—both current and former—but it’s unethical to send it to them. That some of them might deserve the bad luck is a given, but then I'd have to deal with bad karma. Life is unfair; what can I say?
Me, I'd send chain mail to people who pissed me off; if the damned threats have the tiniest chance of succeeding, then far be it for me to keep them from the proper targets. Hmm, must begin listing down the addresses of people I detest. Do Bin Laden or the rapists in Munti have email addresses? Or maybe it’s time to open an account with a certain free email server which comes with automatic spam, and sign up for all those free offers. Given how pathetic that free email provider’s anti-spam protection is, all I have to do is troll through the senders’ addresses on the spam I’ll receive and voila! Email addresses galore for the picking, and since they’re spammers, no bad karma involved!
I think too few people understand the psychological implications of chain mail. Allow me to put it this way: would you enjoy pushing your best friend into a vat of steaming excrement while expecting the same friend to climb out and do the same to other people? (If your answer is yes, then perhaps the Abu Sayyaf wants you for a friend.) The Nazis were masters at using implied rewards to manipulate people into turning on others whom they held dear in life. We don’t think of it that way, but chain mail perpetuates precisely because of this implied system of threats and rewards. Should we then allow it to flourish?
When this column came out last week, I bought five copies for the joy of seeing my name and ideas in print. So did most of my friends and relatives (albeit in lesser quantities). Therefore, by the logic of chain mail, all I have to do now is sit back and wait for my good luck to come. And if you want that luck passed on to you, why not email this column to 10 friends in the next 96 hours? Better yet, go out and buy five copies of my next column in the Manila Bulletin (the Wednesday after the next one), and be assured that the universe will give you your just rewards.
>^..^<
posted by Kitty Litter at 12:00 AM
4 Comments:
Well, I love forwarding the nice kind of chain mail.. the one with prayers, that sort of thing. But I hate mails which threaten my sex life or at least what I use for my sex life. Hehehe. Nice read. :)
i hate chain mail especially those with a gazillion <<<<<<<<<< preceeding the text and with the forward-to history of an entire company/school/country. I'd like to think I inflict good karma upon myself if I don't pass it on.
i hate chain mail too, esp creepy ones that say that the spirit of the girl will haunt me if i don't pass this on. they make me paranoid. leche.
Hey Yui! Matagal ko nang gustong sumagot sa 'yo (me mail dun ah?) Yup, I like cute "chains," especially the jokes. Basta walang threat, ok lang ;p
Hey Pusang Palaboy! Damn, I wish I'd thought of what you said re karma. Korek ka dyan! ^_^
Flipflipmermaid, I haven't run afoul of that one yet. but I *did* get one with photos of ghosts. Kahit fake, nakakainis pa rin. Duwag pa naman me. EEE!
>^..^<
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