Flaming E-Mails

You know it's one thing to turn on the TV and see some news or weather person trying to scare the Hell out of you by telling you about the Armageddon that's about to over take everyone. I know I've become desensitized by the hype. I listen and think, "Oh well it looks like tomorrow is going to be the end of the world...yawn..ho..hum". I can turn the stinking thing off and go on my merry way. But sometimes you get sucked into the thick of all the hype very innocently.
Case in point:

Who in the world is writing all these e-mails that tell us all about the horrible things that can happen to your kid in a bouncy ball play yard? I received one that had all kinds of warnings about what can happen to your kids if they play in the balls at McDonald's or Burger King, or anywhere that has one of them. It scared the crap out of me and I immediately panicked thinking about all the kids in my life. I was going to forward the e-mail and I thought better of it. I'm not sure how much is gossip, how much is hype and to be honest I'm afraid if it isn't all true it might give some nut case some additional ideas to do some of the things that this e-mail contained( that's not to say the folks I'd forward it to are nut cases but you know how fast things spread over the Internet).

I remember as a kid all the urban legends (although we never heard the term "urban legends") we heard about. I still think they started out as someones Mom telling someone to stop doing something and other Moms took the thought and added to it. You know like that game "gossip or telephone". One person whispers something in someone elses ear then that person whispers what they thought they heard in the next person's ear. By the time it goes around the message is so messed up it's nothing like the original. I think that happens with e-mails. It's the cyber game of "Gossip". Now don't get up on your high horse and tell me that these e-mails are doing a service to help us. Maybe one out of a hundred, but really think about all the stuff that's being hawked as, "truth". The e-mail usually starts with a disclaimer about whether or not it's real ( that should be our first clue that we need to really check this out). There's usually a part that tells us where to check on the basis of the story (that's usually true BUT there's usually more information about the event printed after the initial story and you never get to see that- so who knows what they find out how, what and why something happened. In the mean time all of the USA is panicked into thinking their neighborhood fast food joint is a haven for terror- it is but because of trans fats not usually a "nest of copperhead snakes" (yep that was part of the e-mail). AND don't get me started on the "trans fats".

So in conclusion ( aren't you glad) I'm going to try to hold off sending all this stuff to everyone I know. First of all, why should I scare the Hell out of them when it might be hype, and secondly I don't want to be the one who's promoting all this hype. I want to leave that to the television folks, they're much better at it.... watch the nightly news and you'll see what I mean....