Here’s a fun little story for you. I hate fwd e-mails when used incorrectly. This is my opinion; roll with me here. My first e-mail address was with Yahoo! Mail. Dad set it up for me on the 19th of July, 1998. (Trivia: Yahoo! Mail launched in October 1997.) Soon I would learn of Hotmail (and in turn MSN Messenger) and only a few years later have multiple e-mail addresses with various providers. (Does anyone remember mBox? It looks like they’re no longer a free e-mail provider.) My generation was the first to grow up with the Internet. I love that. The Internet is awesome! Almost everyday I cringe at how unfortunate it must have been for previous generations to not have that ‘always on’ connection between friends and family overseas. Alrighty, down to the nitty gritty. During high school (1999-2004) my friends send around plenty of forward e-mails. Most of them contained text, required lots of scrolling, and insisted that if you don’t send it on then your whole family would die in a horrific way (and similar things to that). Sure, the first few forwards I received I passed on because it seemed the threat was legitimate. Then I came to my senses and realised it’s all a load of bollocks! I began replying to my friends — whom sent fwds — with lengthy e-mails about how if they want to waste their time/life, then fine, but don’t waste mine. (I’ll link to a copy of one of these e-mails.) Their response would either be ‘I don’t want my family/friend/pet to die!’ or ‘Oh, c’mon, it was funny!’ Of course when broadband came along images loaded instantly, mp3s downloaded “lightning-fast”, and videos longer than 30 seconds didn’t take all day to load. Naturally, more images made it in to fwd e-mails. Less threats were made. And I just began ignoring them. The forward function in e-mail is intended for forwarding important information to someone who was not on the original recipient list; not for forwarding hundreds of your contacts a funny photo of a cat that your mom sent you. These days we have hyperlinks and INSTANT MESSAGE clients which accept those links. Any funny photo you’ve ever seen can be found hosted online. There’s no reason to send a 15MB e-mail with a video attached when you could send a 1KB e-mail with a YouTubeViddler URL. Example: viddler.com/explore/cheezburger/videos/240 When I received a forward e-mail today it contained 32 highly compressed jpg images. All of which I’d seen before on the Internet; a waste of my time. People need to respect others’ time more. As I sent a text message to the sender. When I received a response (as seen in the photo at the beginning) I thought to myself: Tumblr. Most people use Tumblr in a similar way to forward e-mails. (Some use it for legit blogging — like the post you’re reading.) On Tumblr it’s called reblogging. The good thing about Tumblr is that the content is generally not something you’ve seen before. Also, Endless Scrolling. So, if you ever plan on sending me an e-mail, respect my time and make sure it isn’t a forward filled with a plethora of attachments. Thank you. Update: There’s a whole website dedicated to forward e-mails: forwardedemails.com — If you want to forward an e-mail, send it to them. If you’re actually crazy enough to want forward e-mails in your inbox, then subscribe to Forwarded Emails’ Newsletter. I much recommend FAILBlog’s newsletter though.

Here’s a fun little story for you.

I hate fwd e-mails when used incorrectly. This is my opinion; roll with me here.

My first e-mail address was with Yahoo! Mail. Dad set it up for me on the 19th of July, 1998.

(Trivia: Yahoo! Mail launched in October 1997.)

Soon I would learn of Hotmail (and in turn MSN Messenger) and only a few years later have multiple e-mail addresses with various providers.

(Does anyone remember mBox? It looks like they’re no longer a free e-mail provider.)

My generation was the first to grow up with the Internet. I love that. The Internet is awesome! Almost everyday I cringe at how unfortunate it must have been for previous generations to not have that ‘always on’ connection between friends and family overseas.

Alrighty, down to the nitty gritty.

During high school (1999-2004) my friends send around plenty of forward e-mails. Most of them contained text, required lots of scrolling, and insisted that if you don’t send it on then your whole family would die in a horrific way (and similar things to that).

Sure, the first few forwards I received I passed on because it seemed the threat was legitimate. Then I came to my senses and realised it’s all a load of bollocks!

I began replying to my friends — whom sent fwds — with lengthy e-mails about how if they want to waste their time/life, then fine, but don’t waste mine. (I’ll link to a copy of one of these e-mails.) Their response would either be ‘I don’t want my family/friend/pet to die!’ or ‘Oh, c’mon, it was funny!’

Of course when broadband came along images loaded instantly, mp3s downloaded “lightning-fast”, and videos longer than 30 seconds didn’t take all day to load.

Naturally, more images made it in to fwd e-mails. Less threats were made. And I just began ignoring them.

The forward function in e-mail is intended for forwarding important information to someone who was not on the original recipient list; not for forwarding hundreds of your contacts a funny photo of a cat that your mom sent you.

These days we have hyperlinks and INSTANT MESSAGE clients which accept those links. Any funny photo you’ve ever seen can be found hosted online. There’s no reason to send a 15MB e-mail with a video attached when you could send a 1KB e-mail with a YouTubeViddler URL.

Example: viddler.com/explore/cheezburger/videos/240

When I received a forward e-mail today it contained 32 highly compressed jpg images. All of which I’d seen before on the Internet; a waste of my time.

People need to respect others’ time more.

As I sent a text message to the sender. When I received a response (as seen in the photo at the beginning) I thought to myself: Tumblr.

Most people use Tumblr in a similar way to forward e-mails. (Some use it for legit blogging — like the post you’re reading.) On Tumblr it’s called reblogging. The good thing about Tumblr is that the content is generally not something you’ve seen before. Also, Endless Scrolling.

So, if you ever plan on sending me an e-mail, respect my time and make sure it isn’t a forward filled with a plethora of attachments.

Thank you.

Update: There’s a whole website dedicated to forward e-mails: forwardedemails.com — If you want to forward an e-mail, send it to them. If you’re actually crazy enough to want forward e-mails in your inbox, then subscribe to Forwarded Emails’ Newsletter. I much recommend FAILBlog’s newsletter though.

screenshot shandycandy iPhone screenshot FWDs