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Warped Ways to Stop Chain Letters

          On November 4th, 1997, something very annoying happened to me - I got a chain letter. I was checking my e-mail in the college's computer lab after lunch, and I discovered that some shmuck had sent me one of those stupid wastes of RAM. How the guy had acquired my address I didn't know, but I didn't care. I decided to make it clear that I did not want him sending me any more.

          I guess I must have been in a pissy mood that day, because I got a particularly twisted idea. When I replied to my e-mail, I decided to fight the chain letter with another chain letter, which I dubbed "The Anti-Chain Letter." It's catch was that you got a curse for sending chain letters, rather than not sending them. It was an idea still in its infancy, but I sent it anyway.

My First Counter-Chain Letter

          It was a very sarcastic response that expressed my disregard for chain letters very well, or so I thought. But when I talked about my little letter with my friends, they told me how seriously some people might take my little ploy. I gained new insight into the minds of people who let these letters proliferate: They're a very superstitious group. Those who feel compelled to forward those letters quite often are actually afraid of the consequences of not sending them. They actually believe that some harm may befall them if they don't do what the letter says.

          Armed with this knowlegde, I went back and rewrote my "Anti-Chain Letter," and revised it to really take advantage of superstitious minds.

My New, Improved Counter-Chain Letter

          The main advantage of my new draft was that it could only be sent to people who had sent e-mail in the past. (I decided that I didn't want anyone sending a curse to someone who had never committed the crime of sending a chain letter). Yes, it may be cruel for an individual like myself who doesn't share others' superstitious beliefs to do this to those saps, but it seemed to keep the chain letters out of my mail. The only thing was, I did realize that it was somewhat hypocritical to fight chain letters with chain letters. I wondered if there was another way to combat them.

          Once more, inspiration struck. I had heard a rumor that there was a software company somewhere that had hidden in the fine print of its products a warning, which stated that if anyone made an illegal copy of the item, they were effectively giving up ownership of their soul. Is this true? If anyone knows more about this, please e-mail me on the main page and let me know. Anyhow, I decided that I would send a notice to anyone who sent me an e-mail.

The Warning

          If they dared send me another chain letter (which no one has yet), I would send them this reply.

The Follow-up

          Again, I'm very terribly exploiting the superstitious beliefs of the chain-letter sender, although I'm using a belief that more people share.

          Well, that's my full arsenal, at least for now. Done anything similar yourself? Got any comments? Well, I'm always open to e-mail. Just not that one particular variety...


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