FW: FW: FWD: VERY IMPORTANT!

In the wake of the tornado that just hit Joburg, I'd like to send my love to all the survivors. I trust that family and friends still have all their limbs in tact. But wait, let's think about it... in the case of a real tornado warning, is your first priority seriously to sms everyone in your phonebook? Really?

Also, the nine reported changeroom rapes... didn't happen.

I don't understand who has so much time on their hands that they feel the need to create and then disseminate random hoax emails. Maybe they get a kick out of it when their own friends start sending it back to them, over and over again.

I understand that the forwarding of these emails are generally done in the 'interests' of loved ones. If gangs are initiating new members by killing unsuspecting drivers who flash their lights at them, then I should know. If the coke can I found lying on our street pavement truly is a sign for organised crime to ransack my house, I should know. But these stories have been circulating since the earliest conception of a chain letter. Seriously, some of these urban legends have been traced back to the days of paper.

As much as I love (most) of the people who include me on these emails, I think it's time to spread the truth... forwarded emails are almost always crap. So far, I have found one exception to this and that is the breast cancer awareness email. This is genuine. Verified. Click yourself silly in the name of all things mammory.

A surefire way for me to get myself off a group mailing list (usually titled "FWD: FW: FWD: FWD: DON'T DELETE! READING THIS COULD SAVE THE LIFE OF YOUR UNBORN CHILD!") is to reply to all of the recipients of the email, after a quick truthorfiction/snopes.com fact-finding mission. I hope that by pointing out that the missing girl/dying puppy/traumatised granny has, in several different email strands, supposedly lived in Badgers Bottom/Bluffton/Cluttsville and Skilpadvretvandorsfontein*, then maybe other people on the mailing list won't forward the same email on - and probably back to me.

It's anal, snotty, pernickity... generally just as annoying as actually receiving the stupid email in the first place. I don't get included in future group emails.

So please, let it be known... the SPCA is not closing down. You can ask them yourself. All it took for me was one quick google and then following a link from the official website. You see how easy that was to verify?

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for juicy gossip. But if you're going to send me scandal, please make sure there's substance to it.


*actual place names - except the last, which I think I made up, but I can't be sure.