So, about that email . . .

I was on a list where these sorts of emails were common and I was typically the first to debunk them. Having done so, I would immediately get pounded upon by the sender whop insisted that he knew it was a joke. Since he did not preface his email as a joke, I explained, I could not assume that he and all the recipients actually knew that. Spreading lies was not funny.

At one point I was accused of "pretending to be a pseudo-intellectual."

I recently recieved this ...

Hi, my name is Amy Bruce. I am 7 years old, and I have severe lung cancer from second hand smoke. I also have a large tumor in my brain, from repeated beatings The doctors say I will die soon if this isn't fixed, and my family can't pay the bills. The Make A Wish Foundation, has agreed to donate 7 cents for every name on this list. For those of you who send this along, I thank you so much, but for those who don't send it, what goes around comes around. Have a Heart, please send this.

I went ballistic on the person (a friend!)who had forwarded it to me. Obviously it is crap although I did check with Make-a-wish. Secondly my 11 year old son has cancer so I just cannot believe how stupid and thoughtless the sender was. There are nearly thirteen thousand children diagnosed with cancer every year in this country, shite like this being bounced around does not help 'our cause' one little bit.

And as for those emails which give you "6 minutes to forward to everyone in your address book or you will spontaneously combust" ... yeah gotta love those ones. lol.

...But thought I'd throw my hat in. My thunder has been stolen by multiple posters above. Can anyone say 'Jane Fonda'? Yeah of course I used to get tons of that shit, and like you other people, I immediately would debunk (usually Snopes) and return the thing, I was polite, and at first would respond to everyone on the original hit list, telling them I was on a one-man crusade for Truth & Justice on Teh Internets [TM]; but then that opened me up to more shit from people I'd never even heard of since I'd been added to their address books, so next I simply told the original sender now they needed to notify everyone they had sent the thing to that it was a lie, BS, or some sort of hoax. Not sure anyone followed thru on that.

That slowed things a bit, but when the same friends or family would keep on sending the crap, I got pretty pissy and told them they were idiots for not checking it out first with the links I had provided, they were wasting everyone's time, tying up the Internet and clogging peoples' mailboxes, spreading false rumors, lies and hoaxes, blablabla. Like many posters above, it stopped or certainly slowed the input, but I suspect the stuff is still going around, they just don't send it to me. That's OK too!

Several people who used to simply forward stuff mindlessly now will send it to me alone, and politely ask if it's true, for me to check it out for them (before they forward it to everyone else in their address book I suppose). I have debunked some of the usual stuff, and found some other stuff that was true (odd news stories for example), so I feel I'm still fighting the good fight by maybe stopping some of them from forwarding the crap.

I still get the occasional right wing thing, but the several friends are just yanking my chain, they know it's a hoax or BS--but it does illustrate to me what kind of shit is still swirling around out there, no doubt being swallowed hook, line and sinker by the mindless wingbots.

mike keers

and no easy solution.
Warning-long comment!
If I get one of these bullshit emails from a co-worker, friend, acquaintance, I just let 'em have it. In an email or to their faces, I don't just let it go uncorrected.
But most of my friends and co-workers are non-believers or moderate christians, and they know better anyway.

My sister forwards me every goddamned one of these, and there are twenty or so people on the list of recipients. Some of them are family or friends that I know, many are her friends and co-workers.
My sister is no big republican cheerleader, but she does love the old conservative style shit-talking about anybody who knows a damned thing, or dares to stand up for their rights against the comfortable status quo. Normally, I would just let her have it too, and send my rebuttals to everyone else as well.
But the local source of most of these emails is her boss. A homespun good old boy who happens to run a multi-million dollar construction business that exists solely to fill the San Joaquin Valley with overpriced crackerbox McMansions. Based on his taste in junk mail, I'd say that he hates everyone and everything that isn't straight, white, capitalist and thouroughly god-bothered. I got the Andy Rooney email, I got two anti-Obama and SEVERAL anti-Hilary(apparently to a modern California cracker, uppity negroes are now more acceptable than uppity womens) one pack of lies about school prayer, several more anti-liberals-in-general emails, a fair amount of anti-immigrant emails, emails that make fun of school teachers(no real agenda, just poking stupid fun at anybody who pretends to know a goddamned thing) emails that ridicule Bush detractors, swift boat bullshit, anti-environmentalist email....
the list of bullshit is truly endless. I never really had a good mental picture of eternity or infinity until I applied it to the lies of conservatives, the ignorance of conservatives, the plain old hatefulness of conservatives, and their goddamned stupid emails.
I've never met the guy and I already wish him a slow and painful death. I can't imagine working for the guy. I'd probably snap and kill him with a stapler within a week.
Here's the real problem-years of exposure to empty-headed hatefulness is starting to change my sister's opinions and worldview. Most of the successful people she knows are thorough white trash shitbags. All the really smart ones moved out of the valley years ago. Most of the smart, compassionate people she knows are less well-off than she is, and it seems like it's starting to turn into the standard pathetic conservative
ego boost. Hate those less successful than yourself, because they are lazy. Hate those more successful than yourself, because they expect too much and believe in all this crazy shit that they can't prove(I mean "prove" in the dumbshit way, as in "It's not right in front of my face, so it doesn't exist.) The only people left to respect are those who are successful, but earn your trust by hating all the "egghead" stuff that all good 'ol boys hate. You know, blacks, mexicans, educated people(especially women)loony liberals, people who demand a living wage, the French, and people who actually ask questions of republicans, or ask difficult questions about the bible or god or capitalism.
My normal method won't work because I am not willing to make things uncomfortable in her workplace. I would just ask her to stop(which she would) but to be honest, I want to know what these ignorant but influential shitheads are up to.
The only thing I can think of is to send an extremely polite and dumbed-down version of what I would normally send, but even that could have repercussions(assuming anyone reads it through!) I guess I'll just have to start my own blog, and use these shitty emails for what they are worth-intellectual toilet paper.
If anybody has any ideas, I'm all eyes.

But the result wasn't very satisfying.

MrsDoF got one of these about how Atheists are trying to do something bad to America's babies or something, I don't remember exactly. It was from one of her friends from church. She sent it to me (her atheist husband) for a response and I sent the person a short but respectful plea not to forward lies about people, and in particular not groups of people as that fosters prejudice and bigotry.

Well... she certainly wasn't trying to do that! Why, she didn't even necessarily agree with what it said in the email, she was "just passing it on in case it was true".

I emailed her back and said again, as respectfully as I could, that "passing on" information without finding out if it is true is carelessly taking part in a lie. She got quite huffy and has not spoken to my wife or to me since.

The whole ugly incident fits well into a couple of the rules of "Us vs. Them":

• Nothing pisses most people off worse than your failure to hate X as much as they do, or to be as outraged by X as they are.

• A close second is challenging their ignorance. It makes only secondary difference (that is, to bystanders, not to them) how respectful you are in the exchange.

And it's a shame, damn it. It isn't that hard to check facts, and to be specific. So much hate in the world grows like a toxic mold on the culture of lies and prejudice.

About a year ago, I got a multi-forwarded bit from friends with a mess of right wing shit in it, purportedly a recent broadcast piece by Andy Rooney. It was a royal smackdown on a number of progressive values I happen to hold, so I took the time to look into it. Being a writer, I was familiar with Andy Rooney's "voice," and this piece was nothing like him. I researched it on Snopes, among other places, and sent back to the sender a detailed dissection of the thing, telling them it had been circulated since the early 90s, and had been credited to Andy Rooney, George Carlin, and even Ted Nugent at various times ... but also adding reasons why I disagreed with some of the unfriendly elements of it.

And then gently, since these were friends, I suggested they check their sources next time before they shotgunned one of these things out to people.

I never got another one from them.

I like to think it was because my response shook them awake and made them prone to think about these winger diatribes before they swallowed them whole, but it may be just that they took me off their Winger Correspondent mailing list.

Much as it pains me to say it, I think you should ALWAYS push back at these things. Do the research, correct them, and shoot them back to as many people as you can.

My experience is that, most of the time, the people sending this stuff aren't savvy enough to use BCC in their email, so you can see everybody they've sent it to in the address line, making it easy to send a correction to the people who got the original. I'd hope that somewhere in there would be one or more people who were conscientious enough to back-send the correction to whoever they got it from, or to send a corrective followup to anyone they forwarded it to.

or rather, i did the same thing. twice. they learn quick i guess... since that was over a year ago and i haven't got anymore email like that.

no matter where you go, there you are

I've got a couple of relatives that pass on just about every scam, virus hoax, and chain letter in existence. They even resurrect long lost ones from the dead. My favorites are the ones that they pass on with the comment that they checked Snopes AND IT'S TRUE. Makes you wonder what they were doing on the others.

I used to try to stop them, but like the Monty Python skit, the spam just keeps coming. I finally just got another email account for personal use.

Jim, I used to get those kinds of forwards from family a lot. Each time I'd Google it, or just hit Snopes, and forward on the debunking. Eventually the emails stopped. I like to flatter myself that I trained them all to at least go to Snopes first, but when I'm feeling more honest I have to admit it's more likely they just decided I was a grumpy old man and took me off the lists. Either way, I'm happy!

I get this kind of crap from friends and relatives all the time. I immediately hit snopes and shoot back the debunking information.

Many people just don't want to take the time to think.

I'd love to see that murderous piece of shit killed in a hunting incident. Preferably one that is excruciatingly painful and bloody.

I used to work at a company where my manager was one of the worst people for passing on those hoax emails. Not much I could do about that! Anyway, here is a list of snopes and other sites for debunking urban legend emails:

Top 10 sites to debunk urban legends

- No More Mr. Nice Guy!