Forwarding messages is one of the favourite past time for people nowadays. Why do i say so? Becoz it seems like quite a number of people like to send forwarded messages to their email contact lists. Some do it because it seems fun, some do it with intention to warn other, while some even do it because they have so much time goyang kaki at home that they check their emails 5 times a day.When you forward a mail, it's called forwarded message. When you forward it again, it will be call forwarded fowarded messages. When you forward it again, it will be called forwarded forwarded forwarded messages, and it goes on and on and God knows when it will end.
There are many types of forwarded messages. The most common one is what i would call "The Daydream Mail". The reason i called it in such a way because it seems too good to be true. An example of such mail will be like this:
Send this to 5 people, and a monkey will swing to your house, drop a little frog onto your lap, and when you kiss it, it will turn into a charming prince/princess, which will not hesitate to go to bed with you every night.
As we can see from the message above, this type of message is most suitable for those that have bad luck in their life, and wanted to at least have a smell of some good luck. So, they send this type of mail, while thinking "no harm trying" and fingers crossed, maybe a prince/princess will arrive at their front door.
Another type of forwarded messages is "The Whew-I-Managed-To-Send-It-In-Time" type. This type of forwarded messages often play around with people's feeling, whether to make them insecure or scared enough to actually send the message. This type of message sounds like this:
Hi. I'm a ghost. I died because i picked my teeth with a toothpick, but i poke my gum instead. So, i bled to death. If you do not forward this message to 5 people in the next 3 second, i will appear under your bed tonight and poke your gum till u bleed to death too.
PS: for those who sleep on the upper deck of a double decker bed, i may appear next to you, so make some space for me, will you?
Apparently, computer technology had reached the ghost world, and with the help of some dead computer nerds, they managed to send out messages to people who are afraid of dying in a horrible way like gum-bleeding to death.
Another famous kind of forwarded messages is "The Popularity" ones. This type of forwarded messages tends to play around with people's feeling of being wanted or being popular. An example would be like this:
Send this to all your friends, and ask them to send it to their friends, including you. If you receive back 5 messages from friends, YAY!!! You're lovable!!! If not, well....you're just plain fugly.
So of course, people wanted to know how much they are being loved, so they will desperately send this message to virtually everyone that is connected to their life. There are even cases when those who receive less than expected, tried to jump down from the top of the building, and hopefully more will turn up to catch that person falling down.
Forwarding messages have it's own pros and cons, but since i'm the one who is writing this, i don't think there is any pros at all, only cons. This is because although many of this forwarded messages is due to good intention, i believe towards the end, it will cause more harm than benefits to mankind. One of the effect of sending forwarded messages is that it will add up to the pile of junk in one's email inbox. This can cause a headache for some people, probably because they will have to clear all these junks sooner or later. Besides that, these forwarded messages will take up space which can be used to receive other useful mails. For example, an anonymous user only have enough space for 1 more mail. If someone send forwarded messages to him, all the slots will be used up and more important mail won't be able to reach him.
Besides that, forwarded messages can be used by some parties to gather email address. This is because when you send a message, the email address of the recipient will be shown. When you forward it over and over again, the email addresses will pile up in one single mail, which looks like this:
This is only the recipient from the latest sender. There are tonnes of them all the way down the mail.
For example, a forwarded message was sent to 20 people in a particular contact list. Each of the 20 people send to another 20, that will be 400. Each of the 400 send to another 20 people, that will be 8000. Each of the 8000 send to 20 people, that will be........a lot!!! I'm good enough to censor all the email address, so that Da Club will not face any lawsuit for providing email addresses to people with bad intention. But for those who saw their name on top, be very afraid, because if i were to turn bad and try to send viruses or adwares to people, you know where i can get my email supply from. I don't know whether this situation really happen or not, but THIS is something that can happen to you if you are unlucky.
Besides that, forwarded messages can also cause embarrassment to certain people. For example, lately i've been receiving a forwarded message that ask us to be careful with this one particular guy because he is a playboy. But does it ever come to you that actually that fellow is being framed by someone? Because i doubt a playboy would take a pic of himself tucked nicely in bed, with the cute blanket covering him. Of course we don't know the truth, so why do we need to send this warning when we ourselves do not know for certain he is indeed a bad guy? So the best thing to do is don't interfere with this kind of thing.
How to counter forwarded messages? one of the simplest action would be the "Delete" button on your keyboard. If everybody does that, i think there will be no forwarded message problems anymore. Of course, i doubt everyone will be smart enough to actually stop continuing the forwarding process.
If you still insist on sending a forwarded message, copy the main article without the bla bla bla email addresses, and try to send it 1 by 1, to avoid a situation like the above picture. If you care for your families and friends (that's one of the reason to send forwarded messages, right?) , you will not be so lazy to send it one by one. If you are lazy, might as well don't bother with the message. And don't send nonsense forwarded messages to people. be certain of the things you are sending before delivering them, or else you might get your friends and families into much more trouble, instead of warning them.
As a conclusion, although my essay here may sound like i'm trying to stop a worldwide crisis, actually it's just something i wrote because i got really annoyed by the amount of forwarded messages i receive lately. So i really hope that for those who always send forwarded messages, please think twice or thrice because doing so not only annoys me, but also cause potential problems to others.
So, how's my essay? Got pics and links summore. So, give me ur marks, if you were to be my english teacher.
Note: I used the word "forward" or it's derivative 37 times, including the one on this line and the one on the title.
