Being forward in cyberspace: You've got mail, lots  of mail

On The Bright Side

by Kay Hafner

A reader e-mailed me recently, suggesting I write a column about e-mail. Specifically, she posed the question of how we decide which e-mail to forward and which to just delete.

E-mail is both a boon and a bane to modern correspondence. On the one hand, it allows me to exchange instantaneous information with relatives on the other side of the country. On the other hand, some of those instantaneous exchanges are bound to take the form of rather impersonal "forwards." Forwards are those cute, crazy, silly, zany or inspiring missives that we don't really know what else to do with. So we pass them along to others.

Once upon a time, forwards were the things that were copied and passed around the office. Then they were faxed and copied and passed around the office. Now, they are e-mailed around the office and the world. Same sort of stuff, just a newer and faster technology to distribute it.

My biggest question has always been: Where does it all come from? Before e-mail, I always assumed that chain letters, for example, were started by bored postal employees trying to increase stamp sales. Now that chain letters and their cousins are proliferating in cyberspace, I don't know what to think. I just don't have a clue who these people are, or why they do it. I'm tempted to put them in the same category with hackers and virus creators, not because what they do is evil or destructive, but because they seem to have so much time on their hands. I guess I'm jealous.

Hmm. I have a half-hour to kill before lunch. I think I'll whip up a "10 Reasons Why Women Are Different Than Men" list and send it to the 200 people in my address book. By this time tomorrow, half the wired world will have seen it. Of course I won't sign my name to it. The mystery is half the fun! Besides, I don't want the boss to find out what I'm doing on company time.

That's not to say I don't enjoy getting forwards, or that I don't continue to send them on to others (except chain letters). I'd just like to understand the mind-set of the people who create them. I want to know why the funny person with a great joke or the poet with a heartwarming verse would cast his or her creations anonymously into the world. Maybe it's a question of ego, but I can't understand not getting credit where credit is due. Or at least getting money in lieu of credit.

I'm certain that some of the witty writing that ricochets daily through cyberspace starts out as attributed, only to be stolen or misappropriated along the way. The infamous "Wear Sunscreen" essay is the easiest of these to point out. I'm sure it happens much more than anyone realizes. However, not everything out there can be borrowed or stolen. Someone had to start it. This isn't the chicken-or-the-egg question.

OK, so a lot of this stuff is so bad no one wants to claim it as his own. At least you'd think the good stuff should be.

Some of what we get under the guise of original forwards are recycled urban legends ---- those fantastic "friend of a friend" stories passed along that seem, at first, too outrageous not to be true. If you've gotten the one about Mrs. Fields cookies or the Procter & Gamble executive on Oprah, you know what I mean.

Inspirational-type stories are sometimes the toughest forwards for me to accept. I'd like to believe that "a woman" driving down "a highway" who breaks down at the "next exit" can be rescued by "a handsome stranger" who turns out to be "her childhood sweetheart" and they can live happily ever after. Unless someone puts actual names and places to a story like that, I'm skeptical. Sure, you could insert fictional names and made-up places and I'd never know the difference, but if you can do that, you're on your way to writing the next best-selling romance novel.

Through the magic of e-mail, you can make others laugh and cry, make them examine their life and priorities, even make them wonder, "Who thinks up this stuff anyhow?" When you pass along a message (your own or someone else's), do it with care. Don't automatically throw it out to everyone on your list. Are you trying to communicate here, or just playing a game of global Hot Potato?

copyright � Kay Hafner 2000