Chain Emails - Drawing the Line

[NintenTim64]

As a teenager, I've been introduced to the not- always-so-wonderful world of chain emailing.
Most of these 'chainmail' messages are perfectly harmless, with jokes or funny pictures, sent to me by my close friends with perfectly harmless intentions.
However, I was recently sent a rather creepy 'chainmail' that was supposed to be about 'spreading awareness of child abuse', but was, in my opinion at least, a rather disturbing email that seemed wrong to be sending around the internet, particularly to people you know (I was sent this by someone that I do know by the way). This was due not only to the rather disturbing, creepy text of the actual email, but the message at the bottom saying that I was heartless if I didn't forward it on...

I drew the line here.

This 'chailmail' was creepy, disturbing and just downright wrong. It quite clearly wasn't preaching the message it stated of 'forward this to stop child abuse', and I promptly deleted it. I wasn't going to forward it on, because I saw it as more of a moral wrong to be what an email deemed 'heartless' than to creep out the innocent people on my contacts list.

So my fellow Escapists. What are your thoughts? Have you experienced something like this? Where should one draw the line?

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

I don't read them anymore. they just sit in my mail box and go mouldy.
Or I delete them. I've had enough of them. although some can be rather informative. Like the one about the James Bulger incident. bastards.

 

[SharPhoe]

-snip-

If it makes you feel any better about that child abuse email, it's most likely completely fake. The ones that call you "heartless" and whatnot usually are.

 

[Doktor Merkwurdigliebe]

I don't read them anymore. they just sit in my mail box and go mouldy.
Or I delete them.

Well, this.

 

[Good morning blues]

I am so glad that I don't get these anymore. I may get a lot of spam from my department at the university but at least I don't have to put up with any more chain mail.

 

[NintenTim64]

-snip-

If it makes you feel any better about that child abuse email, it's most likely completely fake. The ones that call you "heartless" and whatnot usually are.

Yeah, I definately know it was fake, but it was pretty creepy and it weirded me out a little. If anything I'm purely against the mindless circulation of these sorta things.

 

[rex922]

chainmails is allright if done for humour purposes only, anything else is just stupid and annoying

 

[Flour]

I don't get any.

Probably because the people who did send me one, got a lovely reply with a girl in a tub, three old men on a bed and one guy stretching something.

I'm assuming the actual names could get me a ban, so those that have seen the images I described know what I'm talking about.

 

[LockHeart]

The only thing I do with them is check the box next to them and hit delete. I've opened too many innocent-looking emails from my idiot friends threatening thaty if I don't forward them then some horrible ghost is going to come and kill me in the shower and rape my dog. Now pretty much anything marked with 'FW:' gets binned.

I don't get any.

Probably because the people who did send me one, got a lovely reply with a girl in a tub, three old men on a bed and one guy stretching something.

I'm assuming the actual names could get me a ban, so those that have seen the images I described know what I'm talking about.

That's actually brilliant

 

[AvsJoe]

I still read them. My mom sends me a lot of the religious ones and two of my aunts and my brother's former employer send me the funny ones, but I end up deleting about 95% - 98% of them all anyway. I also never forward them anymore. Not even the funny ones. No one likes them.

 

[Smudge91]

I just either put the mail in spam or just leave it there.

 

[Samurai Goomba]

I don't tolerate any of that crap.

 

[Super_Nintendo_Chalmers]

It's incredibly annoying. I used to get tonnes daily, but luckily the group of people I associate myself with are much more mature now.
I remember one chainmail I recieved which was about a Killer Cucumber, which went into graphic detail about what it would do to me if I didn't send it on. It scared me, not the cucumber of course, but the sort of graphic themes that it had introduced to me. I was 10 at the time, so it was pretty disturbing.
Really chainmails are just for people who think they're funny, but they're not. And those more serious ones about child and animal abuse are sent around by people who want other people to think that they're down to earth.

 

[TacticalAssassin1]

Once I got 50 in a day, and they were only like, 7 different emails anyway, and all from one person, so I just deleted that person from my contacts.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

I delete any and ALL chain mails, they waste my time...

 

[Kaboose the Moose]

My email client usually filters out chainmail, I don't know how but I usually find them in my spamfolder. The few that manages to get through to my inbox remains unread anyway.

 

[Forl0rn]

I really hate these, for some reason they annoy me to no end. I remove and block any of my friends that send me them. They learn eventually

 

[Jedamethis]

You shouldn't be opening them - they actually contain loads of viruses most of the time.

really? I've never had a virus one, but then I delete most of them, unless they're funny.

anything to do with sad things I delete, probably why I missed the funeral....
(joking, I'd never miss funerals)

 

[Adam]

I draw the line as soon as I get any kind of chain mail. As soon as I spot one I delete it as soon as I can

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Draw the line at the beginning. Unless the email carries information which is useful even if it wasn't passed on. Don't.

No reputable source would ever send a chain e-mail because they know what it's used for.

Delete and move on.