Chained to Chain Letters?
With all the stress on social media lately, I began to wonder: was life more peaceful before the bombation of notifications and our obsession to rack up as many friends, likes, and comments as possible?
Remember the mid-90s when email first popped into our new-fangled inboxes?
Mom and I were thrilled we could communicate for "free" rather than run up long-distance phone bills.
But of course, along with the ease came a new wave of paranoia! Viruses disguised as fairy tales, hoax and chain letters threatening bad luck, death or if we were lucky-- a million dollars unless we forwarded to everyone we knew.
Warnings and urban legends spawned like the plague scaring us half to death by every person who was new to email for the next ten years. Gas station creeps slipping into our unlocked doors, flashing headlights signaling gangs, paper perfume ploys by predators tricking us into sniffing ether-like drugs, and the list went on and on. We all took the bait. Better safe than sorry.
Now they circulate as Messenger marauders or video-clip vigilantes. We can't escape.
Before email, there was snail mail. Perhaps it was the originator of the chain letter, which was even scarier in person. Or did it begin with notes in high school lockers or cave drawings written in flint?
But not all chain letters were bad. In the 90s and maybe into the early 2000s, there was a fun kind known as "clubs." How did it go again? Send a dish towel to the person on the list ahead of you and send them two names? They had ones for recipes and stickers for kids too. It was a cute idea. I know I participated in the first few I received but I hardly accumulated any goods in return. Did you?
Remember the mid-90s when email first popped into our new-fangled inboxes?
Mom and I were thrilled we could communicate for "free" rather than run up long-distance phone bills.
But of course, along with the ease came a new wave of paranoia! Viruses disguised as fairy tales, hoax and chain letters threatening bad luck, death or if we were lucky-- a million dollars unless we forwarded to everyone we knew.
Warnings and urban legends spawned like the plague scaring us half to death by every person who was new to email for the next ten years. Gas station creeps slipping into our unlocked doors, flashing headlights signaling gangs, paper perfume ploys by predators tricking us into sniffing ether-like drugs, and the list went on and on. We all took the bait. Better safe than sorry.
Now they circulate as Messenger marauders or video-clip vigilantes. We can't escape.
Before email, there was snail mail. Perhaps it was the originator of the chain letter, which was even scarier in person. Or did it begin with notes in high school lockers or cave drawings written in flint?
But not all chain letters were bad. In the 90s and maybe into the early 2000s, there was a fun kind known as "clubs." How did it go again? Send a dish towel to the person on the list ahead of you and send them two names? They had ones for recipes and stickers for kids too. It was a cute idea. I know I participated in the first few I received but I hardly accumulated any goods in return. Did you?
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