You are the Victim

...of Hoaxes and Scams.

Actually, many of my friends are victims of hoaxes and scams. More importantly those irritating Forwards sent by friends of friends of friends. I know this because I always get email that says something like this:

EMAIL THIS TO TEN PEOPLE IN THE NEXT TEN MINUTES OR YOU'LL DIE!

LITTLE JOHNNY IS DYING AND YOU CAN SAVE HIM IF YOU FORWARD THIS TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS. IF YOU DON'T SEND THIS YOU HAVE NO HEART YOU SELFISH, UGLY BASTARD. I HOPE YOU DIE.

LOOK AT THIS PICTURE OF A WHALE ON TOP OF MT. SINAI! PICTURES DON'T LIE! SHOW ALL YOUR FRIENDS!

SEND ME ALL YOUR PASSWORDS, SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS, AND CHECK ROUTING NUMBERS SO I CAN EMBEZZLE MONEY TO AMERICA AND GIVE YOU 10 PERCENT! THIS IS FOR REAL!

YOU'VE WON! CLICK HERE TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE!

THIS IS TRUE, EVERYONE YOU FORWARD THIS TO, BILL GATES HAS TO PAY 50 CENTS. STICK IT TO THE MAN!

Okay, I've embellished them, but C'MON people! Use your little noggins and think about what your reading. IF you even read it at all or just hit the button because "Aunt Viv sent it to me, and she wouldn't lie." YES she does. Email her back and say: Aunt Viv, get a life.

First of all, you won't die if you don't spam all your friends with some bogus email. Anything that claims bodily harm by luck or fate is really just messing with your head. It's like watching a scary movie and then going home at night alone and expecting the boogey man to pop out of your closet and kill you. Sure the probability that that will happen on the same night you saw Night Of The Living dead, is higher than if you saw Something About Mary, but really, Boogey men don't kill you. They just like to scare you.

Next, Poor Johnny is dying and you can't save him no matter how much guilt a Forward can pile on top of you. Usually though, there is no Johnny. No one died. It's all fake and I really don't know the point of Forwards anyway. There is no kind of tracking device on Forwards. That actually violates privacy laws. Plus, don't you think people would have a problem with that? Also, hoaxes about dead little Johnny create skeptical people like me, who would never believe a legitimate email about a missing child and parents who just want to pass on the word. And it's not cool to just pass on everything, fact of fiction because you can't decipher between the two. People are just freakin gullible. And other people like to play on gullible people. Have you ever fallen victim of the childhood prank about taking the word 'Gullible' out of the dictionary? Look it up. You might see your picture there every time you Forward CRAP to everyone you know.

I have one friend who is pretty devout in serving me ugly forwards. It's pretty much the only way we stay in contact. I'm on her forward list. Other friends I've seemed to slowly lose contact with over the years after sending sarcastic replies to their silly forwards or even hate mail regarding their obnoxious use of my in-box as a garbage can. But my one friend is pretty adamant about keeping in contact by this one-sided junk-sending me-deleting anything she sends me, crap. So today I get something about Pepsi being anti-american and anti-christian by withholding the words "Under God" on their new American cans featuring the Pledge of Allegence. Granted, this is a legitimate debate going on in different aspects of the country like schools, division of church and state blah blah. I decided I wanted to see the said new cans. And to my ASTONISHMENT! (sarcasm) Pepsi has claimed that this is a two year hoax and No they are not even making cans of this sort. BLAH.

So what do I do? I hit REPLY TO ALL. HAHA. Must reinform. MY GOODNESS.

You know when you start reading forwards like that, there's this voice it's written in. The all-knowing persuasive voice. The colloquial, I'm-just-a-person-like-you, so-it-must-be-true-voice. Ugh. I guess since there are so many people who will pass it on out of regret,guilt,passion,etc. There's going to be evil people who will play on those feelings. Seriously, we are all so misinformed. Our sources include eachother, the NEWS, magazines, email. So much fraudulent information. So much crap spewing from peoples mouths. My only conclusions are that I guess as long as there are good people, there will be bad people who want to bring them down. And all of us, are both good and bad.

My only conclusions are, that, I guess, as long as there are good people, there will be bad people who want to bring them down. And all of us, are both good and bad.

BE INFORMED BEFORE YOU FORWARD: read about hoaxes and scams here

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