The evolution of the chain letter {M Com Blog #3}

It began with the cavemen….

“Whoever visits this cave must paint a depiction of their last successful hunt and tell four other tribes to do the same thing, or else a shaman will drop down dead.” I mean, why else would there be some 900 equine figures in a single cave in France?

And you thought Lascaux was just another example of a Paleolithic sacred space….

Snail mail:  In the fourth grade I got a letter stating that it was the “longest continuous chain letter in the world” and had been going since 1958, so don’t break the chain….blah, blah, blah…Guinness World Record…blah, blah, blah…copy and send to 5 friends…blah, blah, blah…I was ten and, lacking proper judgment, thought it was cool and continued it.  I have not made a similar mistake since.

In case you were wondering:

“Guinness World Records does not accept any records relating to chain letters, sent by post or e-mail.  If you receive a letter or an e-mail which promises to publish the names of all those who send it on, it is not genuine.  Even if it states that Guinness World Records or the postal service are involved, we are not and no such attempt would be recognised as a world record.”

 -Guinness World Records FAQ

Email:  Who doesn’t remember the oh-so-convincing message claiming that after forwarding said message to 10 people and pressing f2, something really cool would happen? Most often accompanied by a testimonial (e.g., “I didn’t really think this would work, but I swear it does!!!!”). Alternate varieties include: death threats or promises of true love.

Facebook: The culprit is always some random person you knew from high school that posts a status with a depressing story trying to guilt trip you into continuing the trend.  It usually goes something like this: 9 out of 10 people who read this status will ignore it, but if you truly care about (insert unfortunate subgroup of the population here) you’ll repost this as your status…(here follows a tragic story about said subgroup).

Now, it has hit instagram.  People, please stop ruining my favorite form of social media.   No more tagging people in the “fun” 5 random things post.  I really don’t care if you wet your pants in the 11^th grade (The event described is fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental).  If I wanted to hear awkward confessions, I’d join a support group.  Don’t you know that instagram is for taking pictures of what you ate and of your shoes?* Duh.  Get with the program.  

 *Have you seen this? If not, please watch and laugh hysterically.   

To conclude, in case you can't tell from this rant blog post, I am not a fan of chain mail, forwards, and the like.  My advanced apologies to the instagram community for depriving them of 5 random facts about myself. 

xoxo!