'Slow Dance' Dateline: 02/25/99
Forwarding an email chain letter to all your friends may not be the crime of the century, but it's not completely harmless, either. Chain letters can achieve circulations in the millions, which translates to a heck of a lot of bandwidth wasted. Contrary to popular belief, bandwidth ain't free. You know who ends up paying for at least some of it down the road? You and I. But that's not the worst of it Consider the genre of "dying child" chain letters, hoaxes in almost every case. They typically claim that for each time forwarded, a charitable organization � usually the American Cancer Society � will donate a few cents toward curing some fictional child of a fatal disease. Barbara Mikkelson, writing for the Urban Legends Reference Pages, gets to the nub of the matter when she observes that these letters indirectly harm the very group of people they're supposedly meant to help: sick and dying children. The ACS is forced to divert resources earmarked to aid real cancer victims in order to cope with the constant inquiries it receives about bogus chain letters. In the old days, charitable contributions actually meant donating money. Now, thanks to the miracle of the Internet, the dollars just magically accrue and we can do our part to save the dying children of the world with the click of a mouse button. Philanthropy's a lot easier than it used to be � or so we're led to believe by messages such as the following:
PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO HELP THIS LITTLE GIRL
Dear All, I just received this mail from a friend of mine in my College. Please respond to it. It will just mean employing a little bit of time &won't cost you a penny. All it needs is the heart for you to send this mail.PLEASE pass this mail on to everybody you know. It is the request of a little girl who will soon leave this world as she has been a victim of the terrible disease called CANCER. Thank you for your effort, this isn't a chain letter, but a choicefor all of us to save a little girl that's dying of a serious and fatal formof cancer. Please send this to everyone you know...or don't know. This little girl has 6 months left to live, and as her dying wish, she wanted tosend a chain letter telling everyone to live their life to fullest, since she never will. She'll never make it to prom, graduate from high school, or get married and have a family of her own. By you sending this to as many people as possible, you can give her and her family a little hope, because with every name that this is sent to, The American Cancer Society willdonate 3 cents per name to her treatment and recovery plan. One guy sent this to 500 people!!!! So,I know that we can send it to at least 5 or 6. Come onyou guys.... and if you're too selfish to take 10-15 minutes scrolling this and forwarding it to EVERYONE, then you are one sick person. Just think it could be you one day. It's not even your money ,just ...YOUR TIME!!!...PLEASE PASS ON Dr. Dennis Shields Professor--Department of Developmental and Molecular Biology Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University 1300 Morris Park Avenue Bronx, New York 10461 Phone 718-430-3306 Fax 718-430-8567
This chain letter was first sighted in its present form in November 1998, but its history goes back to the beginning of 1997, when it made its debut as the Jessica Mydek hoax . Jessica, we were told then, was suffering from a "very rare case of cerebral carcinoma." She only had six months to live, which probably explains why the fictional little girl's name was dropped from most versions of the letter by the beginning of 1998. Something else had been added, though � the authoritative-sounding name and title of a professor of medicine at Yeshiva University in New York. Although it's been established that this poor man did not create the chain letter, his "signature" nonetheless became a permanent feature of it after the fact and can still be found attached to most copies of "Slow Dance." The anonymous poem was added last November, but little else in the message has changed over the past year. It still contains the glaringly false claim that the American Cancer Society will donate 3 cents per forward (ACS has denyied its involvement in chain letter schemes) and the equally glaring absence of any apparent means of tracking the names of everyone who forwards it. One wonders what people are thinking as they send it off to their friends. How do they suppose the American Cancer Society will know about it? Of course, the chain letter wouldn't be doing its job if it gave us a chance to think. The emotional hooks are there expressly to short-circuit our brains and manipulate us into doing as we're told. We're led to feel sympathetic, then obligated, then we're offered a quick and painless way to ease our conscience � click the "Forward" button, and our good deed for the day is done. As with every successful chain letter, the key to this one's longevity is that it offers us something for nothing. How long do you suppose it would last if it begged us to write out a check?