I have a problem.
After I read other people’s blogs and articles, I feel compelled to offer my own take on the same or similar subjects.
That said — and thanks, Bill, for the inspiration — if I get one more email about pop tops and/or Jessica Mydek, I am going to go postal.
I like email — really, I do. It allows me to still communicate via the written word, in a day when no one remembers how to write letters. The telephone is far too insistent; if I don’t feel like answering an email right away, I don’t. The telephone sits there and fusses at you until you answer it.
The downside of email is that it is not all interesting or informative. I finally had to kill my old email address because I was getting upwards of fifty spam messages a day. I’m quite fond of the processed-oog food product, SPAM, but the email variety drives me to distraction. Viagra? No thanks, I’m only 33 and haven’t had too much trouble in that area lately. Bigger penis? Well, of course I want a bigger penis. Very few male type people wouldn’t want a bigger one. However, I’m perceptive enough to figure out that no mass-email list on the face of the earth is going to turn anyone into John Holmes. Bigger breasts? Um, no thanks. I’ve got hairy legs and fairly wide shoulders. I’d look pretty silly with any kind of rack whatsoever.
I can cope with spam, though if it could be annihilated I’d be pleased. I cannot cope with glurge. “Glurge,” unfortunately, comes from friends and family. It’s the saccharine goo of the online world. No — not just goo. It’s that hideous medicine that we were force-fed as children that had been dyed red and altered with sugar syrup that still tasted like rat pee, even though Mom and the doctor insisted that it tasted like a strawberry milkshake.
Glurge is the endless parade of bad jokes and paranoid warnings and “I love you, pass this to everyone on your email list” garbage. As such, it’s become its own subset of the urban legend. (www.snopes.com, by the way, has an excellent collection of common glurge.) It’s the email begging to send postcards to Craig, forward email in Jenny’s memory to stop drunk driving, and to save your pop-tops to buy little Jessica a new heart/liver/spleen/garlic press.
Please be advised: This garbage is not real. Think about it — even as hopelessly screwy as our health care system might be, if a five-year old needed a new liver and one were available, it’s pretty certain the kid would get it. No one is going to let said kid die because of lack of funds. True, the family will probably be saddled with bills for the next seventy-three years, but the kid isn’t going to get kicked to the curb. Besides, since the Jessica email has been circulating for seven years that I can recall, little Jessica would be (a) dead or (b) in high school and zooming around in clompy shoes trying to get her new bare-midriff outfit to cover her transplant scar.
Like all urban legends, people do not want to be enlightened about glurge. Everyone wants to believe it. I met someone a while back who — having read pretty obvious proof that saving pop tops wasn’t going to do anything for anyone — stated calmly, “I’m going to do it anyway, because I think it’s a nice idea.” Umm... okay, you’re going to waste your time and energy collecting these things for no apparent reason? Go right ahead. There’s a room for you in the Howard Hughes wing. How about saving the two dollars a day spent on Diet Coke and sending the savings to the Kidney Foundation, or something?
The reason people like glurge is that it’s easy. Most of these things don’t actually ask for money; if they did they’d be as dead as the dodo. Americans like to feel as though they’re helping, but they’re not going to shell out cash to do so. All glurge wants you to do is forward it, and voila! Instant gratification. You’ve saved a life, bought a kidney, stopped drug abuse, and made a dying boy’s wish come true, and all because you hit “Forward to All.” Makes you feel good, huh? No one can say you’re not a caring person! Hey, you forwarded the poem about the girl who died in the booze-fueled wreck, right?
Glurge appeals to our best and worst instincts simultaneously. We want to feel like loving and caring people; we want so badly to make the dying boy’s wish come true. However, we don’t want to spend an afternoon or a dollar to do it. Glurge allows us to think we’re really doing something nice, but it allows us (in theory at least) to do it painlessly.
Forget this garbage, people. If you want to do something nice, go out and do it. If you’re really too busy, write a check.
Or, you can follow in my footsteps. Admit you’re heartless, don’t do anything, don’t give up your filthy lucre, and send little Jessica right to the Recycle folder.
After I read other people’s blogs and articles, I feel compelled to offer my own take on the same or similar subjects.
That said — and thanks, Bill, for the inspiration — if I get one more email about pop tops and/or Jessica Mydek, I am going to go postal.
I like email — really, I do. It allows me to still communicate via the written word, in a day when no one remembers how to write letters. The telephone is far too insistent; if I don’t feel like answering an email right away, I don’t. The telephone sits there and fusses at you until you answer it.
The downside of email is that it is not all interesting or informative. I finally had to kill my old email address because I was getting upwards of fifty spam messages a day. I’m quite fond of the processed-oog food product, SPAM, but the email variety drives me to distraction. Viagra? No thanks, I’m only 33 and haven’t had too much trouble in that area lately. Bigger penis? Well, of course I want a bigger penis. Very few male type people wouldn’t want a bigger one. However, I’m perceptive enough to figure out that no mass-email list on the face of the earth is going to turn anyone into John Holmes. Bigger breasts? Um, no thanks. I’ve got hairy legs and fairly wide shoulders. I’d look pretty silly with any kind of rack whatsoever.
I can cope with spam, though if it could be annihilated I’d be pleased. I cannot cope with glurge. “Glurge,” unfortunately, comes from friends and family. It’s the saccharine goo of the online world. No — not just goo. It’s that hideous medicine that we were force-fed as children that had been dyed red and altered with sugar syrup that still tasted like rat pee, even though Mom and the doctor insisted that it tasted like a strawberry milkshake.
Glurge is the endless parade of bad jokes and paranoid warnings and “I love you, pass this to everyone on your email list” garbage. As such, it’s become its own subset of the urban legend. (www.snopes.com, by the way, has an excellent collection of common glurge.) It’s the email begging to send postcards to Craig, forward email in Jenny’s memory to stop drunk driving, and to save your pop-tops to buy little Jessica a new heart/liver/spleen/garlic press.
Please be advised: This garbage is not real. Think about it — even as hopelessly screwy as our health care system might be, if a five-year old needed a new liver and one were available, it’s pretty certain the kid would get it. No one is going to let said kid die because of lack of funds. True, the family will probably be saddled with bills for the next seventy-three years, but the kid isn’t going to get kicked to the curb. Besides, since the Jessica email has been circulating for seven years that I can recall, little Jessica would be (a) dead or (b) in high school and zooming around in clompy shoes trying to get her new bare-midriff outfit to cover her transplant scar.
Like all urban legends, people do not want to be enlightened about glurge. Everyone wants to believe it. I met someone a while back who — having read pretty obvious proof that saving pop tops wasn’t going to do anything for anyone — stated calmly, “I’m going to do it anyway, because I think it’s a nice idea.” Umm... okay, you’re going to waste your time and energy collecting these things for no apparent reason? Go right ahead. There’s a room for you in the Howard Hughes wing. How about saving the two dollars a day spent on Diet Coke and sending the savings to the Kidney Foundation, or something?
The reason people like glurge is that it’s easy. Most of these things don’t actually ask for money; if they did they’d be as dead as the dodo. Americans like to feel as though they’re helping, but they’re not going to shell out cash to do so. All glurge wants you to do is forward it, and voila! Instant gratification. You’ve saved a life, bought a kidney, stopped drug abuse, and made a dying boy’s wish come true, and all because you hit “Forward to All.” Makes you feel good, huh? No one can say you’re not a caring person! Hey, you forwarded the poem about the girl who died in the booze-fueled wreck, right?
Glurge appeals to our best and worst instincts simultaneously. We want to feel like loving and caring people; we want so badly to make the dying boy’s wish come true. However, we don’t want to spend an afternoon or a dollar to do it. Glurge allows us to think we’re really doing something nice, but it allows us (in theory at least) to do it painlessly.
Forget this garbage, people. If you want to do something nice, go out and do it. If you’re really too busy, write a check.
Or, you can follow in my footsteps. Admit you’re heartless, don’t do anything, don’t give up your filthy lucre, and send little Jessica right to the Recycle folder.
posted by Daniel | 1:25 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home